The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Newegg no longer carries that PSU. And besides, I want a PSU that can handle VERY hungry GPU's. That way i'm set for no matter what configuration I toy with E.g. 2 or more GTX 295's, or 2 or more HD5970's. Both look extremely hungry LOL! I'm looking at a rather expensive 1000W Corsair on newegg. But you do get what you pay for. Rather curious that it's only 2 12V rails, but it looks like it can handle some serious strain. Gets very strong reviews too

 

Thanks for the suggestion sam. Do you think I will be bottlenecking it a bit since I only have a core 2 duo and 2 gigs of RAM? The cpu is at 2.66 Ghz without being OC'd.

I also only have a 520 watt corsair PSU

 

The HX1000W is a very capable unit, I've used one, but it is horrifically noisy. The Zalman 850W I replaced it with is positively silent, far cheaper, and as you see, runs two dual cards with a quad core and a few disk drives no problem.
The reason the HX1000W has only 2 rails is that it is not in fact a multi-rail PSU, it is two complete single-rail PSUs joined together (a 450 and a 550 I believe) within one case.
Andmill: I'd generally consider that a minor bottleneck. Overclock the CPU and the bottleneck will be alleviated somewhat. 4GB of RAM would be recommended if you use a 64-bit OS, or Windows Vista. 2GB would suffice for 32-bit Win7 I guess. A 520W Corsair HX is a very capable unit, it would run far more hardware than you're using.

 

Well it's a ways off but I plan on upgrading to 64 bit windows 7 and 4 gigs of RAM. (By ways off I mean about a month)

I currently have 32 bit XP. I don't have any thermal paste on the CPU so I am a little bit wary of overclocking. I have an antec 900 case with plenty of fans and the CPU has a stock cooler on it which is the only things I have going for me. If I really need to I can always take off the cooler and put some paste on there.

I built this PC about 3 years ago or so. I got it right when the conroe came out so I am a bit behind.

 

I bet it's no louder than my case is now. Although im not sure if its the PSU or the CPU cooler causing all that racket. It's soo moderate to me, I disregard it. I have the ability to ignore things if they're not too extreme. My bathtub drips pretty violently sometimes. That ones difficult to ignore LOL! When it comes time to buy the super PSU, i'll do more homework, then decide. But I sure would like to buy the last one I would need for at least 5 yrs...

 

ANY thermal paste? I doubt that, else your CPU would overheat within minutes Nah, I know what you mean, I'm just being perverse.
In general I advise against disturbing Intel stock coolers unless absolutely necessary. Time and time again people put them back and the pushpins don't work right, or they break and then you're left with a loose-fitting cooler - not a wise idea!
Omega: Well, get a 140mm fan and run it at 2200rpm and then tell me what you think (It's about the same sort of volume as an Antec 900 with all the fans at full speed, maybe marginally quieter)

 

I've never actually used Intel's stock coolers on a quad or high end dual. Ever. They look like they could barely cool a cup of coffee let alone my expensive electronics. Think I used one once on an E6400 build for a friend back in the early days. I'm currently using 2 Tuniq 120s with back plates. One on both platforms. And somewhere around here I still have my trusty old Freezer 7 Pro. That thing can't be killed

If I ever get another Freezer 64 though I'll have to buy a new one because the old one is long gone with my LAN rig. Big whoop they're getting cheaper and better

 

LOL

Three years! Blimey, how time flies!

Guess what - I'm posting today, Wednesday, main gaming day, with a dead gaming computer. The VX450 Corsair PSU died last night in the middle of a pre-gaming-day evening couple of hours, in Parish chapter one! Blam! Everything stopped. Slight burning smell from case!

I feared the motherboard, but the smell was centered at the PSU unit, and Corsair support said "Short out the green ATX wire with any of the blacks, and if your PSU is okay, the fan should cycle on - if not - your PSU is not okay." Nothing happens.

I printed out the RMA today and will return it maybe this afternoon.

Their PSU evaluator recommends the VX450 for my rig - I wrote them asking if I am now marginal on the 12 volt rail, and indicating that I would be happy to pay them to beef it up when they fix the PSU.

Tell us more, Sam!! Why were you sorely tempted? How hot is a quad cf 5970 rig!!!!

Hahaha - Keith - wow that mushroom cloud really put a damper on the ipod wallpaper! I agree with Sam and Jeff - excessively bleak in my opinion. We can always find negative things to focus on and conclude that all is doom and gloom - or we can just walk outside and watch a sunset!

Rich

 

You are nowhere near the 33A limit of the 450VX, you're probably pushing 17 tops. I'd say you just got unlucky with a faulty unit.
The dual HD5970 system is absurdly powerful, but is way out of my league price-wise. My pair of 4870X2s cost £550. Two HD5970s costs nearly £1050. Couple that with the fact that two 5970s will underperform on an i5's 16x bandwidth, so you'd have to pay the extra £100-£120 or so for an i7 (and the extra power usage and heat). It's just impractical. I think for now a solo 5970 will have to do (and even that's a way off, it'll still be dual X2s for the forseeable future) until there is some competition to affect prices, and perhaps a next-gen i5 platform with more PCIe performance.

 

Thanks Sam, well that makes me feel a lot better about the PSU. Yeah, I guess some kind of little capacitor blew - probably something minor. I shipped it off to them today - they'll have it on Friday.

Wow! Expensive little buggar!

My brother is on my case "When are you gonna sell something" - meaning houses . . . not my spare computer parts, lol.

One house and I could fill that spedo case (if I keep it) with the hardware to move up into the 24000 3dmark6 points league with the rest of you big boys!

So, what exactly do you mean by "absurdly powerful." Can we finally expect to rape crysis at 2560x1600?!!!

 

Rape no, play yes. Two 5970s will handle Crysis Warhead all Enthusiast at a very playable (more playable than most people ran Crysis at after tweaking their settings) frame rate, but they won't do it with AA enabled, so there's room for improvement, but we're pretty much there. The original Crysis in most parts will run better than Warhead, so you may be able to, with perhaps the exception of the final level, enable some AA and get reasonable frame rates at 2560 max. Let's not forget the wholly incredible overclocking performance of the HD5970. Whether that stands up well in a Crossfire config when the cards get quite warm hasn't been seen, but there are some very impressive results popping up - suffice to say, although the HD5970 is two HD5870s at HD5850 clock speeds, I've seen reviews getting them back to HD5870 clock speeds, sometimes above.

For example:
HD5850: 725/1000
HD5970: 725/1000
HD5870: 850/1200
Powercolor HD5970 OC: 890/1245 @ normal volts. 940/1260 overvolted.
HIS HD5970 OC: 890/1245 @ normal volts. 930/1250 overvolted.
Sapphire HD5970 OC: 900/1275 @ normal volts. 950/1290 overvolted.

These overclocks produced a substantial performance increase in gameplay, and it's not surprising, in one case that's more than a 30% clock speed increase on the core, and 29% on the memory. As always, YMMV and tweaking voltages on a graphics card, despite now being at access via officially provided software, I'm still a little wary about, but still 850/1200 would do fine for me!

Since orders for the HD5970 were still high, however, the price of the card has been increased, a pair will now set you back roughly £1100. (That's more than seven i5 750 CPUs )

 

Well a bit of good news, I forgot today was my birthday. Looks like I am getting that HD5850 after all. Thank you birthday money.

 

Heh, happy birthday then

 

Probably a stupid question but what does "enthusiast settings" mean?

And if I get the 5850 that has 1 gig of RAM in it does that bring up my RAM count to 3 gigs? Or is it separate?

Oh and can I play company of heroes with shadows on now finally with this card

 

Aha very nice. Have fun

Currently looking at the prospect of dual 5850s in the near future. But I'm going to wait for the next big system hog(a la Crysis) to do it. Maybe an i5 after that.

 

andmill: Enthusiast is the Crysis Warhead term for 'very high'. The settings were renamed Low->Minimum, Medium->Mainstream, High->Gamer, Very High->Enthusiast.
Graphics memory and system memory are not (usually) interchangeable. The 1GB RAM on the GPU is used exclusively by the graphics card, and likewise for the RAM. However, the 1GB on the card does add to the memory count in the system as far as the OS is concerned. 32-bit OSes have a maximum of 4GB total memory, so if you had 3GB of RAM with the 1GB card, that would be it. Any more RAM added would be sharing space with the graphics memory. 64-bit OSes have almost limitless maximum memory, so this is no real issue.
Jeff: I think Dual 5850s seems the logical upgrade from Dual 4870s. A powerful combination at 2560x1600, an exceptional one at 1920x1200. I think an i5 (heavily clocked, mind) would be a recommend companion to such a system unless an AMD rival appears at some point.

 

hell 1 5850 at 1920 is insane, 2 would be ubersane

 

Long time coming, but screens uploaded:

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_jump.cfm/683586/4996058

 

I remember this game being easier LOL!

 

This one was sure easy. Beat it in 30 minutes. Kind of funny since Super punchout is newer, and should be at least a little more challenging. You know what...asteroids could be considered timeless I can think of other games like that. Space invaders, pacman, I could go on LOL! Tetris probably being one of my favorites. Or even doctor mario.