The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

It's amazing, leaps and bounds ahead of the original.

 

Yah...I just saw a screeny that looked pretty good. There's a high probability that i'll end up buying it today

 

And I did just buy it. I've been playing it for over an hour now, and am enjoying it. Wish I could play some more, but my friggin wrist is in pretty bad shape lately. From the keyboard to my job, this week has been detrimental to both of my wrists. Kind of funny, i'm a righty, and yet my left is in pain. Its because my job requires a great deal of lefty action...LOL! Once again, the only way to FULLY experience the game is via online play. I guess im simply a loner

 

This is for you Rich:
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=890&pageid=18

I don't know about raping Crysis, but this comes quite close...

 

Now THAT is TWIMTBP

 

35fps minimum, with only 10 of a possible 180mhz core overclock? Certainly is!

 

Haha I'm so addicted to Dragon Age. Sometimes I just need a good, long RPG. I'm already 22 hours in and just getting started

 

Ever notice how comfort and convenience cost a lot of money LOL! This just makes me sick! I bought my wireless keyboard and mouse in 2005 for 39.99. I can barely use my friggin keyboard today. I have it turned so my right wrist is getting the torment instead LOL! At least a 4 day weekend is coming up...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823109127

 

I'm still using the £5 Tesco keyboard I bought well when I got my own PC for the first time lol

 

This has got to be the strangest keyboard i've ever seen!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823146025

I think I like the looks of this one though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823109160

 

I think I've reached my decision for which PC gets the SSD, it's going to be the gaming PC. Running games off the same HDD as the OS is fine for Windows XP, but the fact that Win7 practically uses the HDD as a CPU means that only games that pre-load every byte of data will run smoothly on it. Games that load sequentially like Crysis, and now Call of Duty 6, will pause for up to a second or more when they try and squeeze some data through the minefield of all the useless data traffic from Windows.
One of the things that Windows 7 doesn't cure from Vista is that it will sit at an empty desktop with no programs running and start working the hard disk flat out. Of course this was much more noticeable with a Raptor than with a Caviar Black (noise), but has a much worse impact on the system.
Since COD6 uses the same post-processing system as the previous two COD games, it needs to be played with crossfire disabled in order to go past those sections with a playable frame rate. All very well if only one of your GPUs is fast enough to run the game slowly anyway.

 

With everybody staring at the door waiting for the first of the new 5870's to show up, which ones are you most looking forward to: The implementations by XFX, PowerColor, Sapphire, HIS, Diamond or ???...and why?

Dick

 

I have my GTX 260. I'm set for at least a year Perhaps at that time, I'll buy the best there is

 

To be honest, among the best of the bunch is usually Sapphire's Vapor-X offering. Since that's already out, what's left to wait for?

 

Availability. I'm just curious if one were to get in line which would be the best line to get in. Thanks, Sam.

Dick

 

Disabling the Superfetch service allegedly stops the random HDD use but I can't say I've tried it.

I've let a few random questions build up

Can I get a better drive to go alongside my nearly full Samsung SpinPoint 320GB then another of the same for about £33? (I'm not bothered about RAID because of backing up.)

Is there any advantage to running one drive off one SATA controller and one off the other (My mobo has 2)?

Is a Phenom II X4 955BE worth the pennies when I'm stuck with the 4850 till at least February?

I didn't actually have that many questions did I?

 

1. No, but for £3 more you could get one of these:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500-...aviar-Blue-SATA-300-7200-rpm-16MB-Cache-89-ms
2. Not really, unless there are any known bugs with your board's ICH (as far as I know there aren't)
3. No, not because the HD4850 will bottleneck it, but because it isn't that good value for the CPU it is. If your board will fit an Athlon II X4 620 then that may be a good investment, unless you intend to overclock. If you do, then to be honest, an X4 940 is your best bet, though for a powerful quad core games system, you should really be looking at getting an i5.

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500G...HD502HJ-SATA-3Gb-s-7200rpm-16Mb-Cache-8ms-OEM

very fast, (single 500GB platter). reviews place this very very highly

 

£2 more than the WD, and it's not really earning you anything. Plus, it's a Samsung. I dunno, if it were me I'd still take the WD.

 

nothign wrong with a samsung and, its pretty fast. just check out reviews.