The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Lol, Stalker was scary?
On top of that, GTA4? No loading times? The loading time when you start the game is substantial, not in excess of any other game, but not much less than any other game. You will only see 'pop-in' if the draw distance is set low, if you drop the texture quality so you can raise the draw distance you won't have that problem. Draw distance is not related to loading stuff while you're playing like it does on consoles, it usually relates to saving graphics memory and performance by not rendering as much at once.
In most cases, even half draw distance will probably be adequate, as the consoles only use about 10-12%, and they don't look terrible.
I don't really see the point of comparing games like FIFA to it, they aren't designed for graphical quality, say what you like, but they just aren't. Games like GTA4 like to claim that they are, when they clearly haven't tried very hard.

 

Grand Theft Auto IV recommended settings.
First measurement is for minimum fps of 20, second is for minimum fps of 30.


N/A means the card is unable to maintain that minimum frame rate even at absolute minimum settings.

 

Wow, another visit to help Vanessa (sister of Miles, the valve guy) and another two parking tickets @!/##!@@. Damn Los Angeles!!

Saudi Arabia, not South Africa! That better explains, Ray, why you can't get certain items. I just read an article about women drivers over there - there are only a handful but the ladies are petitioning the king to try to change that!

Estuansis, I like the idea of an all-AMD rig - then you can use all those spider overclocking utilities and advise us on how well they work.

Sam and Estuansis and Shaff, an amazing exchange on the games, finishing up with Sam's analysis of hardware requirements for GTA4. Damn!!!

I just picked up a beautiful Samsung 24" monitor/television for Vanessa and now I'm thinking of getting the same for me, although I see that 1920x1200 at decent settings requires massive hardware on some of these titles. Miles gave me three 20" 4:3 lcd Dells that he isn't using anymore (all valve people now use 30" monitors) that I'll probably sell on ebay. I still like my little 1450x900 19", but no question, it's definitely smallish, compared with the 24" I just set up as part of Vanessa's little home theater system (see the home theater paragraph at the bottom.)

I had been thinking Q6600, but since all these nice games are ball-busters even at 1680x1050, if 45nm oc'd to 4 ghz makes that much of a difference, I better add another $100 to the budget for the Q9550. And I found it interesting that you feel, Sam, that core 2 quad beats nehalem quad for gaming! Good to know!

It will be interesting to see what 4gigs of memory does for you, Estuansis. You like Mushkin, and Sam prefers Corsair. I have heard great things about both. Sam, for Q9550, overclocked to 4 ghz as you suggest - do you still prefer the Dominators?

As an afterthought - since LA has left me kind of broke - I should ask you, Estuansis, what you will be wanting for your p35 and 6750. Maybe that's an interim step I should take with my existing case.
-Rich

 

Welcome back Rich! Neither brand will prevent 4Ghz, as long as you get PC8500 of either.
Take the halfway-house if you like, but as we said before, the more steps you take to upgrade, the more it ultimately costs you.

 

Good point Sam!

I can't believe how back and forth I have been on the upgrade. (I guess that coincides with having money and not lol.) I have been thinking that the new case also means new power supply, but just today I decided that nothing prevents me from taking the corsair 450 over to the new case, until I get a second graphics card later. I have a psu sitting in the cabinet, so if I turn the p4 back into a business computer I already have the psu, plus a couple of extra cases laying around.

I also was looking at some higher priced cases with easier fan filter cleaning, and also built-in fan control.

The tempest is now up to $109 with no rebate. The antec 1200 at newegg is $199 with free shipping and has easier-to-get-to fan filters, plus every fan has fan speed control - handy I suppose for turning the fans down low for non-gaming applications.

Believe it or not, my favorite is probably the $379 Lian-Li at newegg with all front fans in the front door, one fan control knob that controls all fans, and raised top section for top exhaust - with holes out the sides and back - I guess to defeat any tendency of dust to filter in the top when the computer is turned off, which could happen on all the other top-exhaust-fan cases.

But I will probably just back off all of that - my concern is that when I start adding a little here and there, I price the new build out of range. So I'll probably just stick with the tempest - especially if they have strengthened the plastic pins that hold on the front panel which you have to remove to wash the fans.

So, adding 8% tax to everything, (not to mention shipping) $120 tempest, $300 Q9550, $125 gigabyte crossfire, $75 4 gigs memory, $300 4870, $80 ultra 120, that's about $1000 or so. Not to mention a few extra bucks for lapping kits, another $75 640gig sata seagate to match the one I already have sitting on the shelf, for Raid 0 striping, and I could wait until later for $200 worth of good mouse, keyboard and mousepad. I could shave off $100 by going 4850 instead of 4870 - maybe not a bad idea. I would get the 1 gig version in any case.

I have never sold on ebay, but there's always a start. I would then need to sell the three 20" monitors, for maybe $80 each, and the 3850. I should be able to get $300 or more for those four items. So then it's only $700 for the new build. Would you advise getting the 4870 vs 4850 for the extra $100. Is the 2-3 fps worth it? If it makes a game playable or not, I guess it would be.

(also sam, I see to reach 4ghz you like 1066 now over 800, and prices are so low, but when you say pc8500 - do you like ddr2, or ddr3?)
-Rich

 

I can hardly blame you mate, I've often had the same though about 'half-arsing' an upgrade, but ultimately, whenever I have done so, I've regretted it, and whenever I haven't, I've been grateful.
As much as it hurts, there comes a time when you have to just sit it out if you can't afford what you really want.
As far as cooling and fan control goes, the best value plan in my mind would be to buy an NZXT Tempest and a Sunbeam Rheobus fan controller (and unplug its absurdly bright LEDs), then hook up each fan to a separate knob, using two controllers if necessary. I love the control that gives you, and the Tempest is a stunning case for cooling, reasonably quiet, arguably better designed than the Twelve hundred, more compact, and best of all, much cheaper, at $110. It comes with dust filters, all the fans you need are included, and it allows 8 hard drives to be installed with phenomenal ease.
As far as 4870 vs 4850 goes, if you go 24", I'd take a 4870 1GB for $220 or whatever they now cost. When you ramp up the settings, the difference is a hell of a lot more than 2-3fps.

 

That sounds good Sam. And the memory - I think I added the PS about the time you were posting - do you like ddr2 or ddr3? (got a link for the controller - is it a newegg item - never mind I found it lol)

 

DDR2. DDR3 is still more expensive, not available on many decent motherboards, and doesn't offer any more than a negligible performance boost.

 

Ah, yes, thanks Sam. The gigabyte crossfire you recommended to me at $135 newegg says DDR2. That being the case, can I presume that this Dominator 4 gigs with fan (only $69 with giant $40 rebate - Estuansis maybe this is the one you should get too!!) is the recommended memory product to take the Q9550 to 4 ghz?

 

There's more money to be saved by not using the fan. I certainly don't need it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145214

 

Thanks for the tip about the memory, Sam, no use paying for the fan if it isn't really beneficial.

Now I'm wondering about 1920x1200 monitors.

I'm not ready to step into 30 inch for the same reason as estuansis - besides the minimum $1000 investment, the raw horsepower to push 4 million pixels doesn't seem to be there. Maybe we'll see it this summer with the 5000 ati card family.

The 24" monitors at 1920x1200 are only 56% as many pixels to push, so if that means with IQ hack I can crank up crysis to high where it really starts to look good (maybe using the monitor money savings to spend $200 more and jump straight away to the 4870x2) then I'll just sit a little closer to the screen for the time being.

One dude with a 26 inch monitor kept his 19 inch 1440x900 around also, (only 56% as many pixels again as the 1920x1200) and switched over to that for the really brutal ball-buster games (like crysis hehe.) That's another strategy. Run crysis on ultra-high on the little screen (sit REALLY close like I do now on my Dell 19" lol) to see what the fuss is, and then switch over to the bigger monitor and see how badly the fps falls.

One guy with the 26 inch said he never knew there were little frogs in crysis. I'm sure you, Sam, have seen plenty of frogs.

I liked the Samsung T240HD tv/monitor that I got vanessa, and I was thinking about the 26 inch version of that - still 1920x1200, but slightly bigger, which with my not-great eyesight would maybe give me a little bit larger view of the guys across the map who want to snipe my head off LOL.

But I wasn't thrilled just now with the reviews on newegg of either the T260HD version with the tuner, or the t260 without the tuner. Everybody talks about TN versus TFT, and the samsung is not TFT, and they are dead right about dramatic changes to the image depending on where you are vertically in regard to the panel - I discovered that at Vanessa's house. Some people claim also that the Samsung is really only 6 bit TN color dithered to 8 bit. One guy said it just wasn't as sharp as the Dell.

The Dell panels claim to be true TFT. You Sam, know a lot about the Dells. But again, I'm thinking of getting something a little larger than the 2408 ultra-sharp Dell, but still with the same 1920x1200 pixel count. Dell makes a 27 inch pricey display. But the 27 inch dell has only a 0.303 dot pitch, and one reviewer on the dell website complained that he missed the sharpness of dot pitch under 0.28. I know that your 30", Sam, is 0.25 dot pitch.

A pretty good Anandtech article about the Dell 2707 pointed out that pixel pitch is essentially a function of how many pixels are crammed into how much space - the 30" has a .25 pixel pitch, cramming 4 million pixels into that amount of space, a 24" typically has a pixel pitch of 0.27, and the 27" has the largest pixel pitch of .303 outside of big screen tv sets. (Well I guess the new 28" vizio has an even larger pixel pitch.) The anandtech reviewer said that people who are visually-challenged (he raised his hand) might prefer the larger pixel size.

For me, I just want to be able to spot Shaff or TheftAuto before they nail me!

So, what does anybody like in a 26 or 27 inch LCD display? Newegg has a 26 inch viewsonic and a 28 inch viewsonic - both $600 but the 28 inch has a $50 rebate. The reviews are mixed. I haven't gone to the manufacturer site yet for pixel pitch, etc.

At the manufacturer's site, the best is the x series, and I found that newegg had carried the 26" version at one time, and one newegg reviewer said clearly - "it's a 6 bit monitor with dithering." He said everybody else lied about their monitors except for viewsonic - I couldn't find anything in the viewsonic specs about 16.7 million colors.

Well, for sure, I DO want 16.7 million colors. But regarding 26 or 28 inch 1920x1200, maybe I'm wrong - maybe 24" with tighter specs like the Dell will result in overall just sharper, more pleasing picture. Maybe thnking 26-27" is a mistake - not-so-good eyesight taken into consideration.

Still, having the sniper's head slightly larger - same number of pixels spread out on 26-27 inches versus 24 inches, seems like it would be a slight advantage - is there something wrong with my logic?

Dell has the 2707 refurbished - a bunch of them - for about $500.

What do you guys think?

Rich

 

A 30" monitor is never going to run on anything but top-end hardware. The nature of games is such that by the time you can play most of the top titles, they have since got more demanding.
24" is a lot more realistic in that regard if you do want to max games out - though I do stress there's nothing stopping you using a 24" box in the middle of a 30" monitor using 1920x1200.
I've seen the frogs in Crysis, but not very often I don't think. As it stands now, at 1920x1200, an HD4870X2 can run Warhead at all Enthusiast with 4xAA. It's not ideal, but it doesn't run terribly any more - the newest drivers have really helped in that regard, and rumours are next month's will have a big benefit again.
It's TN vs S-PVA vs S-IPS. S-PVA and S-IPS are generally a lot better than TN.

The dot pitch is simply a result of the increased size and same resolution. If you have a bigger screen with the same number of pixels, the pixels are bigger, hence a higher dot pitch.

 

That's an interesting observation about the progressive nature of game hardware demands. I guess our friends at crytek took a big leap forward with a hardware killing game that would stay challenging for years.

I forgot about that 1920x1200 box in the middle of the screen. Excuse me if this seems like a dumb question, Sam, but how do you do that exactly? (Is it from the on-screen controls - right click empty part of desktop, go to properties, then settings?) Can you link to a photo of what that looks like on your monitor? Have you done that recently on any of your titles?

That's actually a great idea - we talked about this before. Instead of forking out $500 for the 1920x1200, just fork out another few hundred for the 2560x1600, and drop down to that box for the games that just won't run at 2560x1600. Meanwhile you have the full screen for the ones that will, like COD4. I imagine that COD4 at full 30 inches, would be quite a powerful experience! (Tell me again about "gorging on pixels" LOL)

I actually have the bucks for the monitor, and this indecision is killing me. Maybe I should start with that and that will force me to move forward with the new build as my funds build up. I could even run the 3707 off the 3850 since it has dual dvi ports - using the 1920x1200 box.

Pao's revolution on Hardcore has a 3707 in Long Beach for about $800. I could drive out and pick it up. He says no dead pixels and he'll throw in a $150 belkin dvd cable. (cable - so what - is that a big deal?) Ebay has a brand new one, bidding over in 18 hours min bid with shipping from Oklahoma, $819, no bids so far. Sounds like a better deal to me if it doesn't get bid up.

Dell doesn't have any refurbished.

Oh yeah, and there is that other thing about 3707wfp-hc with 92% of the color gamut, instead of 72%, faster 6ms response vs 11ms, but only 300 bright instead of 400. I remember reading a lot about that before. You recently upgraded, but prior to that you had the original 3707 and you were pretty happy with it. Is it worth it to try to get the -HC version, or not that big a deal?

 

liek i wouldnt mind a 42" 1080p TV and play PC games on that, caus id sit a good few meters back, so it wouldnt make adiffernce

 

Yeah, that's what I was thinking with the bigger monitor - it's all 1900x1200.

But Sam has really got me thinking about 30" at this time.

Hey, did anyone notice that none of the dual-link DVD-D male to male cables at newegg will claim support of 2560x1600? Only the display port cables will claim that resolution.

But this cable for $12 does claim 2560x1600 - and I don't see that it is any different or better. The reason I'm looking is that one of the 3707 monitors I might bid on doesn't come with the data cable.

Wow, I found out a lot more about cables - by googling "2560x1600 dvi cable." They say the standard bandwidth for WQXGA (2560x1600) is about 7.92 Gps, and while the Newegg cables boast 9.9 Gps, they only claim to support QXGA, 2048x1536. I'm not sure why. But datapro, and another one, Better Cables, both claim full 2560x1600 support, and have more expensive types - the Better Cable guys have a $60 6 foot cable - and they show charts indicating much lower resistance on their cables. They say it does make a difference how large the cable is, because with larger resistance you can lose data bits - which can cause sparkling in the display.

Anyway, the monitor I'm bidding on right now comes with a dvi cable, and from the pictures it looks like Dell ships a pretty good quality cable which of course is what one would expect. I'll let you guys know if I win the auction.

Once I get the monitor I'm committed (or maybe I should go out and have myself committed) since the only thing I can do now is fire it up with my p4 and 3850 (which WILL run it for awesome desktop wallpaper displays, lol.)

Next I'll order a case, and get started gradually on the new build. If I lose these auctions, then that means fate doesn't want me to do this, so I'll start waffling again about an interim core 2 duo solution. Oh no!! Hahahaha.

Mr. Indecision, signing out.
-Rich

 

Rich:
Crysis was undoubtedly a trendsetter for hardware performance. The majority of PC games can run at max settings on a high end PC on the day they are released. There are a substantial portion that can't, and it's typically 6-12 months before they can be maxed on a top end PC. There is then also the point of realistic demands. A top-end PC right now could be considered a heavily overclocked 45nm Quad or i7 and three GTX285s. However, the number of systems like this in circulation is so small, it isn't really fair to say that we can finally a max a game that this setup can, as 99+% of gamers still couldn't.
Realistic demands for me sit at one graphics card (though this includes duals, as they are the price now that single high end cards used to be), and a fast quad core processor, not overclocked, as this means a relative newcomer can have a PC without needing to tinker. That is where we have hit the point of being able to run games. If this system (I will say, a Q9550 and HD4870X2, stock) can max a game, there's our mark. For this mark, I initially gave Crysis a figure of 5 years, which means playable with so little lag that it is playable throughout without being tedious or more difficult, at 2560x1600, 4xAA, all Very high settings. Technically we should include 16x AF forced in the control panel for that too.
Right now, the Palit revolution 700 (a pre-clocked HD4870X2 with a fancy cooler) runs with a miserable minimum frame rate of 11 all very high, and worse still, no AA has been applied, and most tests aren't conducted in 'Reckoning' where the frame rate for the game is at its lowest. We are now approaching 18 months past the game's release, and there's a long way to go.
I wonder what the second longest game will be in that regard? GTA4 perhaps? As that's basically CPU-rendered, we probably need 8-core CPUs beyond 4Ghz to pull that one off... :S

The box in the middle of the screen. With a Radeon, go into Catalyst, where the monitor properties are, and select 'use centred timings'. You won't find it in desktop properties.
I will gladly upload a screenshot of what that looks like momentarily.
You do not need two DVI ports to run 2560x1600. You need Dual-link DVI, which is only one port, but one that uses high-grade technology for double bandwidth. The HD3850 AGP will have this, as will any Radeon X1000 series or Geforce 7, and beyond, even if they only have one DVI port on the card. The exception is laptops, very few laptops have dual link DVI ports.
I assume you mean 2707 not 3707, as I have yet to see an Ultrasharp monitor beyond 30", no matter what the resolution is.
The cable market is a bit of a con. You can spend a fortune on high grade cables that supposedly increase the image quality, to no effect. My £5 HDMI cable looks fantastic. Ultimately it's technology that makes the difference. Changing from regular composite-based, to RGB signals in a SCART connector helps, moving to High-def certainly helps, and using HDMI and DVI over component or VGA helps a great deal. However, a $100 cable is unlikely to look any different to a $10 cable.
I didn't get my monitor refurbished from Dell, I got it from ebay, directly from the refurbishment company, by happy coincidence.

Lastly, HC vs non HC, the panel in my 3008WFP is effectively an HC, and I can tell you now, I wouldn't worry about it. The brightness, contrast, response time and colour accuracy on my non-HC 3007WFP were all exemplary. If anything, the panel on the 3007WFP was better as it had no leakage spots or brightness differentials with angle. That said, it is meant to have more issues with backlight uniformity. When I looked for them, I found them, but honestly, anyone who tells you they can see them when they aren't looking is lying, it was never noticeable. The downside to that monitor was that after two years it had picked up half a dozen dead pixels. Still, it had been used heavily throughout that time, and had travelled on over 50 car journeys.

Spam: I certainly wouldn't turn one down if you gave me one, but the increased desktop space is absolutely luxurious, and strategy games at 2560x1600 have to be seen to be believed.

Rich, again: All Dual link DVI cables support 2560x1600. Displayport cables support even higher than that (for reference the 3008WFP not only supports displayport, but also comes with the cable for it). All Dell monitors that support DVI come with that cable too, mine included. I am however using the same old cable that my 3007 came with in 2006, as I gave the new one away when I sold the 3007. Two years plus of bending, dropping, plugging, unplugging, and the picture quality on the screen is still immaculate.

Wow, long post.

 

Sam, nice post. Thanks. Nobody had bid on that new 3707wfp-hc by the time I went to bed, and the auction was going to end before I got up, so I bid $768 (min was $750.) I'm gonna check right now to see if I won. Well, in a minute. If not there are 4 more 3707 auctions to bid on - some of them are new too. I think at one time that Dell had a sale at $750 - because one of the Dell reviews mentioned that price - so it looks like some of these guys picked up a few extra to try to make money on ebay.

Thanks for explaining the 1920x1200 box - so one definitely needs to install Catalyst to do that. I didn't install Catalyst on the 3850 because at first when I did I couldn't run 3dmark6 anymore. Anyway, I assume the 4870 drivers will be relatively trouble-free.

Hey on that subject, you mentioned multiple gpus on a card. One guy with a 30" samsung on newegg was reviewing something I was looking at, and he was running a 4870x2, plus a 4870 - three gpus. He was talking about running crysis, but I recalled that you said crysis doesn't notice the third gpu unless it's an nvidia card. Is that still true?

Back to ATI, Regarding the 4870x2 - which I am seriously considering - I was favoring the Asus 4870x2 with three fans which most newegg reviewers said runs cool and quiet. (Price just jumped $40!!) I use ATI tray tools to overclock the cards so I don't actually care what clocks they come with, but do you recommend the Palit revolution for superior cooling? I'll have to look it up if you think the cooler is actually superior.

Well, I didn't win. I had bid $768, it went for $778. That's what happens when you're not around in the last few minutes of the auction. No problem - there are a bunch more. (Besides, those last minute bidding wars can sometimes be costly.) Still I was hoping to finalize my new build. I'll keep trying for the rest of the week.

Sam, you mentioned 50 car trips with the monitor - are you telling me you actually took the beast to your frag socks? I was wondering how they did that - so everybody has to bring their own full pc, monitor, keyboard, mouse - I guess that makes sense. They provide the LAN - how many players show up at a time, and what kind of a place do they use to stage the event - a gymnasium at a school, a clubhouse at a condo - an Elks meeting hall? Do they charge money to get in? They must have a pretty powerful server - what kind of equipment do they usually use for the host?

Just curious. It must be a pretty good time for all. LOL

Rich

 

Again with the 3707, is it 3007?
3dmark has issue with current graphics cards, it's normal. There's a patch you install to allow it to run on modern cards.
You are correct about triple CF not working with Crysis, but for a different reason. Triple crossfire that way does work, though AMD says it doesn't, but Crysis doesn't support more than 2 GPUs, so 4 wouldn't work either. It does however, support more than 2 nvidia GPUs.
Other games like STALKER Clear Sky and I believe Age of Conan, but don't quote me on it, work with triple and quad CF, but often games don't need beyond two 4870s if they do work with CF, and if they don't run, they usually don't accept CF either,. sometimes that's why they run badly, and other times it's because they're badly coded, hence why they run badly.
The Asus 4870X2 looks interesting, but so far my 'pick of the X2s' is this one:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/palit-revolution-700-deluxe-4870-x2-review/
One review claimed it had very high idle power consumption, but others haven't reported that so I think they just had a driver error.

Fragsoc is awesome. 35-50 gamers for a weekend (Sat 1200 - Sun 1800), networking, it's hosted in the maths department of a university, so four classrooms - two events' time it's moving to a large hall in a different part of the campus, should be interesting. Membership fee is only £5 for the year, and it's typically £2-£3 per event.
Generally it's rare for people top all be playing the same thing outside the tournament, for which there is a gameserver. It's not very powerful, only a SKT939 Athlon X2 I believe.

 

sam bit-tech reported a higher idle and load power draw aswell. i think its due to the fans and OC.

lol rich, frag sock haha

yeah fragsocks awesum. though they tend to be biased against some games

 

Biased pro-good games

The idle usage was like 80W higher though, similar to how the cards performed before they undervolted at idle, so that's what I suspect the problem is.