The Official Budget-Conscious Dream Machine!

If it only fits in the bottom slot, you might have some heat problems. A few people have had to do that with the 3870X2 and had lots of overheating. Watch your temps. I think if you want to aim for low noise and heat, it might not work out. But we'll see

With the Thermaltake Armor I am confident I can fit any card I please. 2 4870s should definitely have no problem fitting. Though it's only going to be one for now.

When my parts get here, I'll report on my OC and game performance. I doubt the processor will be much of a step up for games but the video card should rock. I'm just excited because I'm expecting even better temps due to the 45nm process.

My major concern for the quad core is multi-tasking and the like. I can assign different programs to different cores. It's seriously annoying when my framerates in Crysis take a dive during a virus scan.

Also, if possible, I want to see if I can get all of my background processes to start up on cores 2 and 3 so I can use cores 0 and 1 solely for the applications at hand. That could prove interesting to try.

 

It's got nothing to do with the case, it's the board, and you have the same board I do. At the moment the X2 seems slower than the 4870 in every game I play, which is a disappointment, but then again, 8.8 is a bit of an obscure driver set, I may try 8.7 and see what happens with that. 3dmark is up above 14k, but real world gaming performance seems poor, still far better than the 3870, but not as good as the 4870 - notably the 8.8 has no option to disable crossfire?

 

Correction, I will have the same board you do. lol

So it doesn't fit well on the X38 eh? Glad I didn't even think about getting one then I'm not one for those dual chip cards anyway. If the game doesn't support crossfire, it is actually a bit slower than the single card. That plus the size, plus the heat, plus compatibility issues with certain boards...

My advice would be to send back the 4870X2, keep your current 4870, and do crossfire if you must have a dual card setup. I'm not even sure if I want crossfire with the 4870. It's just nice to have the option.

Different drivers might sort that out, but you might have to wait for 8.9... I'm not really up to date on any sort of video drivers so don't take my word for it, lol. I just use the latest ones available.

 

Yeah, wise. - the trouble is, the X38-DS4's southbridge heatsink is TINY, it may as well not even be there, so I reckon any other board with southbridge anywhere but miles away will have the same problem...

 

That sounds almost dangerous. Look out for black burn marks on your card if it's touching the heatsinks. I've done it with the X800GTO on my ASUS A8N-E(one of a few excellent ASUS boards). Edit: I'm thinking... is the southbridge even a worry? I thought the northbridge was the main concern for heat. AFAIK, the southbridge is the integrated sound and NIC. Though, I could be wrong... I'm no expert on motherboards

Dual chip cards are cool, and the HD4870X2 is faster than a GTX280, but they're not dependable or realistic in any average enthusiast system such as yours. You should wait for price drops on the HD4870 and just go crossfire like I plan to. I wanted to compare FPS anyway, lol. You almost made me cry when you got that 4870X2(not really).

Oh well, don't mind me right now. I'm a tiny bit drunk, LOL XD

This was really hard to write too. Took me 10 minutes

 

Correct, my P5N-E didn't even sink the southbridge and the NB was twice as hot as the SB.
Will do more testing before calling - Crysis performance was good.

 

It may take a few new drivers and patches to improve game support. I'd still expect it to work on quite a few games just fine. How are the temps?

 

Absolutely fine, but CF works so rarely they're hard to test. When Crossfire fails (i.e. requiring a restart to re-enable) it also seems to take powerplay with it, so not only are you using one core not two, you're using one clocked at 500mhz not 750 - that might explain the performance drops. The card is idling at 69/51, far lower than most report.

Additionally, Overdrive only uses 40% GPU usage?

The 4870X2 also seems to reintroduce the DirectDraw bugs present with the 3870, albeit not quite so severe, and on top of all that gives zero gain in the vast majority of titles... Crysis is one of the very few games that does work. The figures from benchmarks of reliable frame rates of 80 plus at top settings are complete lies - Crossfire is every bit as much of a pain in the arse as it ever was, and realistically is far more trouble than it's worth.

 

Cool, but keep an eye on the temps.

My point exactly, the individual chips are clocked lower than a stock 4870. So if crossfire doesn't work, you have more like a GTX260 than a 4870. As you've said: the speed of a single card is guaranteed. So I'm hopeful that a single card will be sufficient for my needs. And after those test runs you ran, I think it will be. All high in Crysis at 1920 x 1200 is for me

I think there could be some improvement in the drivers. I seem to remember seeing that a lot in reviews of the 3870X2. Then new drivers came out and it was awesome.

 

Don't forget, if that wasn't enough, the card takes c. 15 minutes to install in most cases due to the tight fit, and does not fit in a standard motherboard layout securely, you have to leave it hanging out slightly... I have checked and the card is not obstructed, the front part of the PCIe connector simply does not go down all the way, so you can't screw the card in.

Based on all this, I strongly urge those considering an HD4870X2 to have a rethink. The HD4870 is completely bug free, performs solidly and is more than adequate for most people. The HD4870X2 is just pain and suffering for minimal gains (45 to 60fps in Half life, not 45 to 85, and 12 to 14 in the harshest bits of crysis) in minimal number of titles (FEAR and Age of Conan non-working, despite benchmarks saying otherwise). I realise part of this is my CPU, but other than 3dmark06 there is not a single game I play that owning the X2 has affected playability-wise in the slightest. GRiD runs with 4xAA but the frame rate is still very low. In benches it's advertised as 94fps. I get around 25.

 

Update: post reboot, Crysis now averages 25fps maxed out at 2560x1600 versus the 21-22 I made earlier, and 18 I made with the solo card. Notably, I also get 25fps at 1920x1200 - looks like the CPU ceiling is lower than I thought.
Got GRiD working at 60fps rather than 25, but there's horrific microstutter, I'm guessing that's the problem mentioned in reviews.

Update 2: FEAR does work with crossfire, and was working before. I just so happened to have reached a point of the game that ran worse than the others. Frames are solidly 60+, typically 95-180. I think I was too hasty calling this card out perhaps. Bugs were annoying, but I think they were created by running older games...

Update 3: Age of Conan is now working better, minor frame rate improvement, 23-25 from 19-21, but noticeable, but the textures are coming out in low quality (a bug I've always had with AoC) more often than usual. Fortunately, the crippling lag spikes seem far, far fewer than before. Adding to that, I get the same frame rate at 1920 as I do at 2560. Another CPU bottleneck? Suddenly I want that Quad core far more...

 

Yeah, I would think you'd be seeing CPU limitations at 3.15GHz. Hopefully a 3.4-3.6GHz Quad will be sufficient. Though, the Q6600 might not clock as high as the Q9450. I don't know really.

If you want to go back to a single 4870, your current CPU will do just fine. But if you want to keep the X2, you're going to need something that can clock higher.

Also, is there a keyboard shortcut to go into hibernate? My PC was randomly going into hibernate on me and then freezing when I tried to turn it back on. I rebooted and the password bar started scrolling on its own like a key was being held down. So I unplugged my USB keyboard and got out my PS/2 keyboard and it works fine.

 

Thing is, if I had a Q9450 I wouldn't want to overvolt it for fear of the damage it could do, so I'm probably still limited to around 3.4 with one of those. I'd sooner get the Q6600 for half the price. At least that's actually feasible.

 

I don't even know whether to get the q6600 or the e8400 anymore. I won't bo OCing like crazy, so I figure better to get the higher stock, but upgrading will have to wait a while because I will not be able to afford it. q6600 seems more future proof, but will there be a significant dropoff in performance as of right now?

 

Well this is it, I'm just not sure. Originally I thought a 3.15Ghz Duo wouldn't hold me back, but it's causing me CPU ceilings of 20-25fps in at least two games... An E8400 will only ever be about 40% faster even at a slightly risky 3.8Ghz, but Will a Quad core give any advantage at all?

 

What kind of games are you playing where you get a CPU ceiling at 3.15? Everyone seems to talk about how quads are great because more games are coming out that support them. I think that unless you are playing SupCom or running like two instances of any other game, there should not be a significant performance increase from dual to quad. To me, it seems like dual will be fine for another year or so. The people that argue for q6600 perfomance OC them to 3.2 or 3.4

That seems like a lot of effort to OC your quad like that, shorten its lifespan, and then wind up with a minimum increase in most apps right now at almost the same speed as a stock Wolfdale.

 

Crysis and Age of Conan - I get the same frame rate at 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 - identical graphics settings, identical parts of the games, I daresay that's pretty conclusive.

 

Meh,
You could get a duo core at 3.0 for ~$200
and a quad core at 2.4 for ~$200
But the quad core you have two more cores or two dual cores, and can you honestly say you only game? The Q6600 is good for gaming as well, especially when you OC it.

I myself use my computer for everything...including gaming.

So you have one dual core at 3.0 for ~200 or essentially two dual cores at 2.4 for ~200, I'd say the 2nd option is better. Also quad cores are on the up-n-up.

 

I've heard Crysis has (although quite limited) quad support. People have been bragging about better frame rates with quad. AoC, I know nothing about. Are those the only two games that are limited for you?

It does seem like you hit a cieling if it plays exactly the same.

As for me, I will go e8400. I'll stick with my original decision because the q6600 only makes sense if you OC it to 3.2 or so.

EDIT: Well, I don't only game, but there is nothing that I do that requires 4 cores. I am a programmer, but I don't really work on huge multi-threaded projects that require hours to compile. I do some light graphics, but not very serious. Once again, quad makes sense if you OC it and I don't really plan to OC too much. If I do, it will probably be minimal.

 

They're the two that are affected the worst, but I get half the frame rate posted in reviews in games like Episode Two etc. so I feel it could soon be a problem in other titles. I'd go for an E8400 but how much faster than two cores of a Quad can it go? It's the same price as the Q6600, for half as many cores...