The (new) Official PC building thread!

sam,

hell if I know. I guess micron no longer makes the IC'c for corsair's 1gb sticks. from what little I've researched so far the PCS IC's appear to be stable and OC fairly well if their set up right.

 

Alright wanna get something in.

Sam, my heatsink is not lapped. Russ lapped his and his temps dropped 7C I Think. So it does make a difference.

About taking the heatspreaders off, they are SOLDERED on the CPU. Not many people can take a soldering iron to a CPU and have the CPU survive. Also Intel ICs are VERY fragile. If you take the IHS off you can easily crush them.

Also my new 3DMark06 Score is 11,870!

Russ, do you want me to run any benchmarks?

 

sam, the results are there, yet you uncount them....eh?

and AA alwasy makes your card take a hit, esp with the 38X0s. (even with the x2900XT this was the case.

how long ago was that review by toms?

im sure newer drivers will help.


and yes the 8800GT is that good. the results are staring at you.

(i never doubted that the price/performance ratio was good at all for the GX2, i was jsut saying about the performance)

and notice the GTX is the best for price/performance....why discredit it vs the GTS then?

 

Scientific testing - you only include the results that are relevant to the test, discounting anomalies that disrupt the overall trend. The anomalies have to be mentioned, but since everybody knows about them anyway, there's no point.

It is indeed particularly prominent with the 3870s. This is due to the way the 3800s render graphics. Because it is much more fine than nvidia cards, it therefore has a higher performance hit, in the same way that turning up the AA scale from 4x to 8x has a frame rate drop, changing from nvidia's method to ATI's also incurs a similar drop.

That review was posted today. As for newer drivers, possibly, but I'm not expecting much.
Most graphics driver changes correct bugs, not increase the performance. The most I'd expect to see with an update is 10%, and frame rate per pound, the 9800GX2 sits 25% worse than the 3870X2 and 8800GTX, neither of which are very good value compared to their lower-spec brethren.

The reason why I'm unhappy that the other cards weren't included is because it would be interesting to see directly how cards like those stack up against the 9800. I'm willing to bet that even the 8800GT and HD3870 aren't miles away from the 9800GX2 in the performance stake, and they're not even a third of the price. Granted, the frame rate difference between these would be clearly visible, but even so, I'm thinking something along the lines of 50-60% at the most. For three times the cost (more with the 3870), that's absurd.

 

i agree completely that for the price, even at 2560x1600 its jsut not worth it. esp since 9600GT and the X2 are only 20% slower (on avg) and yet cost half the price.

BUT, if you want the ultimate best, then this is what to go for. and if you have sense with that res, then the other two are the better options.

 

That's precisely it, nvidia always go for the highest numbers on a single card, but are appealing to the "more money than sense" category. Unfortunately I know plenty of people like that. Irony is, the worst person I know for it owns a single 8800GTX, not really that outrageous in the grand scheme of things!
I can't help but wonder, how does a pair of 8800GTXes stand up to a 9800GX2? The pair of 8800s costs about £50 more if you get proper ones, and certainly uses more power (probably about £60 a year), but given the proximity of the scores, I reckon that would be a better yet. I'm assuming you can't quad SLI the 9800...

Then again, there is a small amount of sense in getting a 9800, if you want to use a single PCIe slot, or want to keep your other slot. Using real SLI means having to use an nvidia chipset, and everybody tells me Intel ones are better (I've certainly found that so far). With SLI on one card, you have the freedom to go with whichever motherboard you like, which is always welcome. Turns out that would probably offset some of the cost of buying the card to start with. Right now, I just wish that the HD3870X2 employed crossfire as effectively as SLI works, so you could have not far from 8800GT SLI performance but on one card.
Sigh, but that's just a dream, plus I'd need money!

 

hey abuzar
how much did you pay for your new quad?
was it a 2.4ghz?

 

The Q6600 is indeed 2.4Ghz, and I think he paid about $230 for it.

Upped my graphics overclock to the highest it will go stable (I dropped the memory 5mhz from its highest stable point to guarantee no artifacts) and upped my 3dmark to 11492. Not bad for my little E4300!

(GPU settings 862mhz Core and 1341mhz Memory). 2.682Ghz memory, jeebers. This said though, I'm certain that it's all about the core overclock really on these cards. I've heard of people getting in the 900s on their core, I assume that's with a BIOS flash?

 

he payed 230 for it? thats quite good,

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...tails.asp?EdpNo=3601833&Sku=MCM-680ILT-Q6600B
thats about 500$ and it packs a punch! i think i'll get it when i gots some more $$!!!

 

That's not a bad combo, but unless you're using SLI I'd go for a different motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128086&Tpk=GA-Ep35-DS3R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184

After the rebates this works out almost the same price, and I'd much sooner have this combination.

 

Yeah it was around 230. Of course with shipping it came out to 245 and it included a Freezer 7 Pro, not the stock cooler.

Sam, 862Mhz is an artificial limit on the 3870. You can flash the BIOS to "unlock" you card and overclock it beyond 862.

 

Hmm, not really sure I can be bothered really, I don't see how i'd get that much more out of it.
On the 3dmark issue;
I get:
11492
SM2.0: 4962 (38.878, 43.827fps)
SM3.0: 5561 (51.331, 59.894fps)
CPU: 2678 (0.848, 1.353)
How is yours split?

 

I'll run 3DMark again and let you know.

 

not to get off topice here.
but dont that REDput a nice look to the thread...lmao

sorry guys...
@GM while your out fishin i decided to take a trip of my own.. i got me a new Q6600 in a gigabyte case...lol ~

 

Here's this RAM too. 4-4-4-12 Corsair XMS2.... $34 after MIR... ($29 with the promo code: EMCADBJAC

linky...

....gm

 

More Quad corers! YAY!

 

$29, that's just extracting the michael. 14 months ago I paid the equivalent of $270 for that exact RAM.

 

Here ya go CincyMAN!!!

link to VX-550 $64.99 after MIR

link to VX-650 $72.99 after MIR

GO there REDsBOY!!!!!

...gm

add:..........for 8$ more after MIR I don't think you can beat the VX-650 anywhere with any product... imho that is..... As you know I have the VX-550 and it works like a dream but for the extra $8 you'd be MENTAL not to buy it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The 650W is actually a TX, but there's not much of a difference.

 

yup that 650 looks nice, fo sur. hope its that price next week. hopeing to have all my rebates back by then.