The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Abuzar: it is
Ray: I too think South Africa, when SA is mentioned. Sorry!
Rich: Welcome back. 800mhz RAM will do fine for a 6600, but 1066 is highly recommended if you ever go further up the scale.
It's worth mentioning that at present, ATI cards run COD:WAW far slower in certain sections than nvidia cards, though average performance is fairly similar in the bits that aren't troublesome. Hopefully a driver update will fix this - note it applies to single and crossfire setups.
In my experience, Punkbuster is unreliable on any system, and nearly impossible to use with cracked games, which is no bad thing, but it does screw over legitimate users sometimes, especially if your internet connection is a bit on the slow side.
The answer to the i7 question is that in a few games, the Phenom IIs do beat the i7s, that is not because the AMDs do well though, it's that the i7s do poorly, the Core 2 Quad wipes the floor with both, and overall is the best of the three series for gaming.

 

The outback is Australia , my bad

No worries guys
Most people tend to think South Africa when SA is mentioned, guess I should just say KSA Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Also, by how much does 2xAA reduce frames, beacuse I play far cry 2 at 1280x800 with 2xAA high [some medium setting] and runs well

 

It's a reasonable performance drop, but is less memory critical than 4x or 8x.

 

Yes, but with a Phenom II, other than Crysis, what games will I notice the difference in? A 3.4GHz+ Phenom is more than enough for most games. I'd really like to make my system all AMD and the Phenom IIs deliver "good enough" performance for me. They clock well and match the Core 2 Quad decently. Maybe it's a stupid choice but I've wanted this kind of Phenom badly.

 

You badly want a different CPU that's marginally slower than the one you already have? It will cost you money to change even when if sell the other stuff. Suit yourself :S

 

So your point being? I have money and one real hobby and I don't have to pay bills. Maybe gut some or all parts? It's really only a new mobo and CPU. I can get a good OCing AMD mobo for $110 and a 3GHz Black Edition Phenom II for $275. I can sell my Intel board and Q6600 and spend a marginal amount really.

Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471

Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128075

Viola! Instant Quad Core AMD system!

 

Times have certainly changed eh? Get the DS4H then, it's the specific board advertised for overclocking the Phenom II beyond 3.6. It may be no different from the DS4, but on the other hand, it may be completely different.

 

when i7 gets beat, its not bad, maybe 1-2%, but stick in a dual GPU or Tri or quad, and you will see i7 beat the pants of phenomII and C2Q

 

I've yet to see any reports of this. It wouldn't surprise me to find it's the case, but so far I've not seen anything like that.

 

Indeed. Good find sam. Vastly superior chipset cooling on the DS4H should mean better OCing and a cooler northbridge. Will be getting that one then.

Also, I don't even consider i7 competitive because you STILL have to pay vastly more to get a comparable system. I won't even consider the possibility. Besides, when the prices on X58 boards and DDR3 have dropped into the realm of sanity, i7 is going to be old news.

Here's the lowest priced X58 board I would even consider.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128366

I paid about $100 less for my X38.

Here's the lowest priced i7(AFAIK).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

Again, paid about $100 less for my Q6600.

Plus a set of my favorite branded DDR3 mmemory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146777

You can get a comparable set of DDR2 for about $70.

So in switching to AMD's fastest instead of Intel's fastest, I am saving several hundred because it doesn't require me to buy new memory and a ludicrously priced board(for the features offered). If i7 was my only choice, I'd rather stick with my Q6600 and X38 board just because they represent a vastly better value.

Also, name one real world gaming application where I will notice a difference between Core 2 Quad and a Phenom II, let alone a Core 2 Quad and an i7. I play all my games maxed, and I doubt a Phenom II will have much bearing on that. Besides, I thought we already decided that Crysis was a poorly coded system hog...

 

Well, the prices of i7 boards have now at least dropped below the cost of enthusiast boards for socket 775. An EX58-UD3R costs less than a Rampage Formula in the UK. As far as games are cncerned, what you can build in i7 for £570 (E58-UD3R, 6GB Corsair XMS3, i7 920) will be marginally superior to what you can build for Core 2 Quad for £400 (Q9450, 4GB XMS2, EP45-UD3R) which is far from double. For video editing, an i7 920 will even best a Q9650, which puts the price about even.

Crysis may be poorly coded, but that doesn't mean it isn't the future of gaming. The standard of programming in PC games is still falling even now, the worst title to date being one of the most recent, GTA4. The requirement to get that game relatively lag-free is a 3Ghz minimum Core 2 Quad, so a Phenom II probably wouldn't be able to keep up. It also requires 2GB of video RAM maxed out (or says it does)

 

Which is why I played GTA4 on the 360. It doesn't even LOOK as good as its performance indicates like Crysis does. The super system hogs are performing way lower than any other games. Orange Box, CoD4, Dead Space, Far Cry 2. All of these are as recent as Crysis and none of them are NEAR as demanding as Crysis or GTA 4. I'm not worried about a few games. A 3.4GHz Phenom II should deliver satisfying performance with Crysis anyway. Depending on where voltages take me, I could be sitting happily at 3.4-3.6GHz and not notice much, if any, difference.

 

someone play on COD4, the custom map, shipment2, and OMG it makes COD4 maxed out look crap. no lies. this looks amazing!

 

Post screens plz

 

Oh agreed, but you won't see a benefit - that was my point. It's up to you really, if you can justify spending the money, go ahead.

Spam: Can you send me that map? I'm intrigued. I still need to install my IM clients on my SSD XP yet, so megaupload or email it

 

I think if Core i7 is really where you want to be, then get one. But for quite a bit less, I can make the switch to AMD and still keep a fairly fast Intel system.

Maybe I could retire the P35 and the E6750? That would be even better Then I could keep both quads

 

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11408&Itemid=1

veryinteresting

 

Very interesting, but for two GPUs at least, Crossfire has 100% scaling in a large number of titles. I'm not sure this will eliminate the title-specific ability of dual graphics, but who knows.

 

large number.....? define large

 

http://www.xfire.com/video/63b9d/

my video

i found a way of scroll shooting without scroll shooting

basically i have always had my scroll up and down for weapon change, so i just hold the shoot button (left click) and scroll between weapons, and i dunno how, but it makes it scroll shoot! also pressing my scroll button gives me knife, so whats why i accidently knife sometimes lol.