New Graphics card *possible* new setup

[boardryder]

Thanks for the advice, Rhenna!

Sorry I haven't responded for a while. Maybe it's because of all the 1920x1080 gaming madness(in-between work of course) I have been doing!

Wow, just... Wow. Got the card last week, and I'm impressed! The difference a shader clock makes? Hoooo-boy! My SLI 7800s couldn't hold a flame to this beast! The 3dMark points don't show much, but getting 60+fps in *maxed out* Mass Effect 2 with 1920x1080, and Crysis on high @1080p @50+fps is good for me...

3DMark 05
7800s-11764
HD5780-14858

3DMark 06
7800s-7233
HD5870-10367

3DMark Vantage
7800s-nope haha
HD5870-p8256

Good improvement in the synthetic gaming arena. Real-world performance is awesome! Everything I have thrown at it has taken 1080p and the highest settings while still floating around 60+fps. Played games last night for 6hrs non-stop and got no slowdowns or BSODs. I did get some with the 7800s btw, due to heating I'm certain. Took out 2 of the 7 case fans I have when I put this thing in, and stable temps/wattage across the board! Superior design for sure. I paid 500+ for a single 7800gtx back in the day!

Crysis, Ghostbusters, Mass Effect 2, GTA4(bad port but smooth with some tweaking), SSHD, Bioshock(Well over 100+fps), MW2, Dirt2, Boderlands, RE5, so far so good!

This is what I want now...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811163154

I will upgrade in the next ~4 months (CPU, Mobo, RAM) but I really see no need right now. I can save and save and save till my ears fall off and be happy with my current setup so I might as well wait for some more price drops or *splurge* on an 'enthusiast' setup with this card. Plus, I can always crossfire two of these guys later! hahahhahahahaha

[RAY16]

Originally Posted by boardryder

Crysis, Ghostbusters, Mass Effect 2, GTA4(bad port but smooth with some tweaking), SSHD, Bioshock(Well over 100+fps), MW2, Dirt2, Boderlands, RE5, so far so good!

GTA4 is one of the few games where that 5870 will show the least performance gain as it's almost entirely CPU-limited. I gained 15-20FPS average when going from an Athlon X2 6000+ @ 3.2Ghz to my Phenom II X4 925 @ 3Ghz.

[tisl]

GTA4 is a bloated and ugly. At least Crysis looks great when it makes your system crawl.

Cyrostatis is much worse though. The best I could get was an average of ~35FPS, with a lot of settings turned down but still at 1920x1080. Everything on high, it was more around 20FPS. Plus it's as much fun as Algebra (I'd rather do Algebra, actually), so it's a pretty poor game.

[Rhenna]

Originally Posted by boardryder

This is what I want now...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811163154

I will upgrade in the next ~4 months (CPU, Mobo, RAM) but I really see no need right now. I can save and save and save 'til my ears fall off and be happy with my current setup, so I might as well wait for some more price drops or *splurge* on an 'enthusiast' setup with this card.

I'm pleased to learn that simply the video card took some of the "I gotta have it!" edge off the buy-reflex all of us gamers and hardware freaks are afflicted with. You should, as I'm certain you realize, see another nice boost in performance when you do couple it with a new processor, although it won't be as dramatic in every case.

There will still be instances where even the 5870 will be the bottleneck regardless of which processor is employed. OK, maybe not so much your 2.6GHz Athlon64 X2, but I've seen some specific instances where, at a given resolution, there is neglible difference in framerate between an i7 920 and something like an Athlon II X4 635, both being video card-bound. It would be prudent to go for something beefy, however, if 19 X 10 is going to be the norm.

I've a few concerns about that Silverstone case. First, I think it is hellaciously expensive. $205 USD delivered, would certainly be a reason for me to "pause and reflect."

Second, while the convenience of having the connectivity take place along the top of the case is obvious, it would seem that all of cables will, as a result, be exiting "containment" at the upper, rear edge of the enclosure. Staring at the three rigs on my "desk" at the moment, I'm not sure that I'd be OK with that. (I'm very much a function-over-form sort of person when it comes to enclosures. By that, I mean, solid over style, every time.) If you aren't currently finding yourself reaching around the back of your case to connect or disconnect something very often, I question how much value this would offer in the long term.

Another concern I would have, is, suppose one needs to hang a DVI-to-VGA, or DVI-to-HDMI dongle off of the graphics card, or some ATI Eyefinity contrivance? Will there be sufficient clearance to accomodate both the dongle and the length of the monitor connector, plus allow for a graceful 90° bend in the monitor cable? I do see that the motherboard, and hence the videocard, is recessed a bit; but is it enough to allow that shroud to cover and hide such circumstances? Just wondering...

Finally, I'd want to assure myself I had a source for those 180mm fans; that isn't a common size in my experience. Tread lightly, here.

[SPaRKY]

I spared myself the reading by ctrl+f'ing "compatible". But yeah, definately make sure you look at the motherboard compatibility sheet, The first computer I tried to build I was too oblivious to realize that just cause it was the right speed of ram, it won't always work. I believe I read corsair XMS3 memory is fairly versatile.

Anyways, ASUS can be an expensive brand, but I've heard good things about it and use one of their boards without issue. My point here is you wanna make sure ur mobo is not low quality, incase you want to overclock or something, you could find yourself burning out the northbridge or something in a year.

CASE: Mounting a watercooler resinator in there? It doesn't look much bigger than my case, and with my massive CPU air cooler in there I don't have a whole lot of room. If you do go with water cooling just make sure u dont skimp unless ur only using it for your CPU. With that said, intel CPU's usually run a little bit hotter than AMDs naturally, so keep that in mind if ur using waterblocks on a GPU that runs alot hotter than the processor is suppsoe to (AMD's dont usually go above 60.) alot of the energy might be going to cooling the GPU and not the processor. But I'm no physics professor.

Rhenna has a point with "Stable over style", but I admit I'm glad I payed for a nice full size ATX case because I know alot of cheaper ones aren't user friendly (no access to the back of the CPU socket without removing mobo). Heck, some cases probably couldnt even fit my GTX 285 in because it extends past the mobo.

[boardryder]

That Silverstone case is a little pricey, but they are a company I trust. I didn't notice the fan size though. I just assumed they were 120mm standard. Thanks for pointing that out! The layout just seems great for the space I have and hopefully those fans push air at a low db. I'm sold on the fact that it pushes the hot air up and out.

Good review. Plus I like these guys. Stable website... http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/309...ase/index.html

One thing is the side window. I guess it's not as big as my Thermaltake XaserIII, and maybe it won't affect the db level, but man I could do without the window. I want a quiet and no-light frills when the thing is on. I like to do folding when I'm sleeping but it's just too darn loud with 7 fans running(haha).

Second, only 3 slots for hard drives? Meh. Wasn't impressed about that. I know I could put some in the 5.25 bays with mounts but 3? Huh?

Really just minor setbacks but not really a deal breaker for this guy. Goddamn thing looks roomy! Loooooove that space!

As far as watercooling is concerned, I did that a few years back and it's like owning a fishtank. Waaay too much work for what I will need/want out of my components. It is cool(nice pun) but air has worked great for me in my previous builds. I've had this 4400+ at 2.6Ghz for 3-4 years now. Zalman coolers are sick. And ASUS is kinda expensive and sketchy sometimes with their support but again, this A8N-SLI premium I'm on right now has yet to fail. Then again, I'm going for an X58 platform so it's not gonna be cheap. The P6T has gotten great reviews, EXPENSIVE but what SPaRKY said. This build will definitely be in the future because I have to go to a concert in SLC first haha!

[SPaRKY]

Yea I'd like to have my core temp running a little lower, I bought a cooler master sink before somone told me how elite zalmans are but I have 3 case fans and 2 on my CPU sink so it pretty much stays close to room temperature. The sink actually blows down onto my GPU because if its weird design.


Have any of you used cooler master thermal gel btw? I ran out of arctic silver and I wonder how much difference it would make.

[Rhenna]

A bit more information has surfaced regarding nVidia's upcoming Fermi-series of GPUs. I'm assuming at least some of you have seen and/or read these already. If you haven't, it isn't a bad use of time to give them a look if you count yourself among the PC hardware-obsessed.

I don't offer these as a syllabus of unbridled nVidia-bashing, but as a some pretty interesting, I feel, insight into the machinations of the (often) twice-yearly release of graphics cards. I don't think anything quite pushes the buttons of a hardware freak and/or hardcore PC-gamer like new video cards.

First up, is a pair of articles from Charlie D. of SemiAccurate:

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/...and-unfixable/

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/...gtx480-scores/

Yes, Charlie has quite the reputation of being the bull in nVidia's china shop, and I would certainly describe this as, and remind the reader of the fact that this is, simply conjecture on his part. He wasn't shooting blanks with regard to the G84/G86 gaffe by nVidia; at least as I saw it. Take or leave from these articles as you will, but they are a fascinating read even if they prove to be a form of science-fiction.

As a bit of rebuttal, or perhaps, balance, I would offer H.H.'s article from The Guru of 3D. It's quite a bit less flamboyant, but still leaves the reader with a bit of, well, foreboding as to the commercial success of nVidia's upcoming flagship.

Finally, we have some numbers in terms of retail price of the GTX480 and GTX470, the only officially announced products, over at Digitimes:

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100225PD202.html

Even if the GTX480 was the King of video cards, the King of ALL video cards everywhere, you wouldn't be finding one in this household at the cost mentioned in this brief article. Uh-uh, daddy.

For GPU-based computing, as CAD/CAM Quadros, or, I dunno, cards the U.S. Defense Department might have a need for, nVidia may have a nice product. For all but the most obsessed, (and wealthy) gamers, this may be a variation of ATI's R600 debacle. It will be interesting to see the reviews on these babies, as well as the spin. Note to nVidia: avoid a hard launch during the week of April Fools Day.

Dissent/agreement?

[RAY16]

I don't have much interest in Fermi. Everything I've read about it leads to it costing too much, running too hot and using too much power. It'll probably perform fine, but I doubt the price/performance ratio will justify the cost in the minds of anybody but people with more money than sense.

I'm just going to wait for the 5850's to come down a little, which I'm hoping will happen around June an grab one of those.

[boardryder]

It's always interesting to see what the graphics hardware companies will come up with next. It's one of the reasons I fell in love with computers for sure. But all I've seen from the 4xx series by nVidia is coming only from--nVidia. Benchies, stats, pictures etc. Example:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvi...deon,9819.html

Nice graph. Uh-huh.

From this fairly recent article, they show a price of $699.99 but then if you click on the current sabrepc.com link, it shows a $629.99 orig price, but knocked down to $599.99.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news...ook-fishy.aspx

Very interesting. The thing that really bothers me? I've seen one pic of the damn thing and it's supposed to be here in a month and a half? Whatever they do, and however it turns out, this is all speculation. They sure are keeping me on the edge of my seat though!

That aside, here is something I've been waiting for. Sure, it's ~$1000 but hoooly crap! 32nm Gulftown baby!!!

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-980x-review/

Lots of bottlenecks in the game tests but it's to be expected. Holy jeebus this thing is a beast though! 6 cores is pretty overkill for what anyone needs, besides people who need to multitask way too many things.

Fun stuff. The 5870 is goin' strong and I decided to order the Raven RV02 case. I let you guys know how it turns out!

[RAY16]

Originally Posted by boardryder

6 cores is pretty overkill for what anyone needs, besides people who need to multitask way too many things.

Or somebody doing any kind of production work.

[tisl]

Or just a penis enhancer.

[boardryder]

Unigine Heaven benchmark

No Tessellation


Tessellation


Edit/addition:
http://www.guru3d.com/news/amd-sixco...ets-price-tag/
ltmq

[Rhenna]

It would be interesting, or should I say, additionally interesting, to see the tessellation/no tessellation Heaven benchie run fullscreen, at the popular resolution of 1680 X 1050. Interesting in a sense to see what that vintage chunk of AMD CPU silicon can manage, and as an illustration to any of those who might be curious as to the viability of simply dropping an upscale video card into an existing system, versus doing that and a new motherboard, CPU and memory purchase. I'm guessing the venerable X2 will give a good account of itself.

There is no way I would ever consider the Gulftown for a gaming rig at anything close to it's pricepoint. If anyone is budgeting anything North of $200 for a new CPU for a game platform, in my opinion, they may need to rethink that strategy.

What I think I like about the upcoming six-core AMD jammies is that I believe they are Socket AM3, and *possibly* AM2+ products. Nice for us folks who have invested in decent motherboards and RAM and aren't looking to retire otherwise serviceable hardware. Intel seems to be a bit more capricious about introducing a new socket whenever the mood strikes. If the Thubans are AM3/AM2+ compatible, just consider the scalability of such a platform. You could start with a sub-$60 dual-core, on a sub-$90 motherboard, and go upwards from there.

[MrBored]

Tessellation can have amazing effects, but you need to look at Xbox games to see the true impact. Games like Forza 3 and the upcoming Halo: Reach and Fable 3. That increase in polygon count that they trumpet is all due to use of the tessellation that's been in ATI chips since TruForm began. The debate over whether the increase in texture usage is worth it is finally swinging towards tessellation.

On to the CPU debate, I really think the 1156 i7s is where it's at. Their ability to 'Turbo' to awesome frequencies really benefits the lack of SMP in most applications, besides specialist apps like video encoding and 3d rendering. AMD just doesn't even make an appearance on my radar. I don't really care about the price points where they're competitive. If you're in that price range then you need to work harder and get into a proper range.

[Rhenna]

Well, I'm working hard enough as it is, thank you, and there is no place on my radar for $999 processors. I would never recover that sort of a delta in price between the cost of a Gulftown and, say, a Black Edition Deneb or a Yorkfield in terms of gaming satisfaction. Hell, the crummy, old Socket 478 Pentium 4 Extreme Editions with the 2Mb L2 are still selling for over $250 here in the States. Who would be the bigger jackass? The one who bought one new back then at the same $999 price tag they're now asking for the i7-980, or someone who would buy one for $250 now?

Actually, all of the non-gaming purposes I use a computer for are easily handled by an old 1.92GHz AthlonXP rig, including everything I need to accomplish to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. And, ammunition. Can't forget ammunition.

I don't encode video, rip DVDs, retouch photos, use any 3D modeling apps or do any CAD. (UnrealED and Radiant are about as far as I go.) Give me $150 ~ $200 or so for a CPU, and I'll play every game the Gulftown owner can, and enjoy the experience, too. And, if we scale the image quality and resolution far enough on platforms with identical video cards so that the heavy lifting falls squarely on the GPU, our maximum framerate will be remarkably similar on the overwhelming majority of game titles.

The difference in cost between the i7-980 and where I'm living could yield a pair of GTX 285s or 5850s. Or, maybe a 5970. I would submit that would be a better use of the money for a gaming platform, if one has a need to lighten their wallet. But, quite frankly, I don't see any Crossfire or SLI lovin' in my foreseeable future, either.

Yeah, I would like to have a Gulftown, and it's associated pricey motherboard and memory, but, then again, I'd like to have a fully restored, silver '56 300SL, too.

[MrBored]

Who said anything about Gulftown, I was talking about the 1156 i7s, i.e. the 860. That's the proc at the moment imo.

[Rhenna]

Originally Posted by MrBored

Who said anything about Gulftown, I was talking about the 1156 i7s, i.e. the 860. That's the proc at the moment imo.

Little slow on the reply as my boss thought it would be a great idea for me to visit the Ohio office this past week. Eh, the bourbon there tastes pretty much the same; not so sure about the ice.

Well, boardryder brought up the subject of Gulftown. As for the 1156 CPUs, I'm already on-record with the i5 Lynnfield. OK, it's not an i7, but it's also about $85 ~ $100 cheaper, still has the 8Mb L3, and, if it overclocks as well as everyone claims, should cover the same territory, gaming-wise, as the i7.

The processor for me, at present, is the 720 Black Edition Heka that I'm running at 3.6GHz at stock voltage. That, and the 1Gb 4870, blows my skirt up. OK, maybe not up around my shoulders or anything like that, but enough...

OK, so the NDA on the GTX 480/470 is up, and the benchmarks are being posted. Any thoughts or reaction? Anybody ready to buy? I'm seeing talk about > 90°C load temps... I'd be too apprehensive about that without some sort of established track record even at half the price they're asking for these.

[MrBored]

I'm glad to see they can at least achieve performance which is better than the 5870 in DX11 titles and a lot of the rest, at least they did it. The 5870 is still where it's at for me though, and they have a refresh coming...

[boardryder]

Alright. After a couple months with the new set-up I am as happy as a clam! The 5870 DESTROYS games. Even with my old-ass hardware. I will upgrade everything else in the future, but for right now, it's awesome.

Let me tell you one thing---
I f'ing looove Silverstone. This case is ridiculous. It's quiet as hell or as loud as hell. Tweakage is way off the charts. Beautiful placements of fans and the 90 degree turn of the MB has decreased temps and made my indecisive mind happy. Just a great, solid design. Score.

As far as the 480/470 reviews go...

Here's my take on it. I am in no way a fanboy when it comes to the GPU, OR of processors. I love amd though. I feel their tech has always been above par and VERY interesting to follow. I enjoy rolling with the underdawg.

Intel is a beast, as is nVidia. NVidia has been pumping out quality and quantity over the past couple years. Intel processors also, never fail to sell. Even Celrons(gross) are still in use today. Love it all, keep it up, bro.

The ATI/nVidia battle is sweet for the consumer. Love it, but I really do love ATI more rigfht now. Here's two links that pretty much explains it. AMD/ATI rules in terms of performance. Sure, the nVidia solution is faster, but look at that TDP! I'd like to quote Happy and say, "Somebody's closer!"
Not to mention fill rate and the such. (scroll down to specs)
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...0-480-review/2
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...-review-test/3

I'm not saying that I'm not impressed by nVidia's new baby, I just thought it'd be cuter. It kills the ATI choice for sure, but we waited this long for that much killage? They basically waited the time it takes to get at least a brand new tech/gimmick to slap on, but it's pretty much the same ATI card- just faster.

Hmmm... Bed time.

Oh, btw, the 5870 gets loud when I game for more than 3hrs. It's a good thing though. Who games in silence anyway? Ha! You know I don't speak spanish!