The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

I've heard the expression areet a fair few times, just not on a message board

 

Well, the refund didn't arrive in time, the last 4GB 5970 is gone. Trying decide what to get as a replacement, have to consider the possibility of not upgrading to the 5 series because nothing is suitable to buy :S

 

That's some bad luck indeed.

My above question: I was curious if your grammar/english was correct. It seemed somehow backwards confusing LOL!
you will soon need to replace the CPU, which in turn will require a new board and memory that ---> won't <---- be incompatible with your existing board.

Am I misunderstanding your statement here? :S

 

Ah yeah well spotted, I meant won't be compatible, not won't be incompatible. As you might have guessed, long day...

Tricky decision for me now, the 4GB HD5970 was the perfect option really. My options now are:
1. Get two 5870 Eyefinity 6 cards (more wait, there aren't any available at a good price right now)
2. Get two 1GB 5870s (seems a bit of a waste versus two 4870X2s)
3. Get a 5970 and a 5850 (best raw performance of all, but I'm not getting as much of the 3->2GPU switch benefit, nor am I getting the 2GB per GPU requirement, and I'm using pretty much the same amount of power and no real decrease in noise)
4. Buy the solo 5870 for my Q9550 PC and then leave the 4870X2s for now (doesn't give any increase in performance for main gaming machine, and doesn't cost much less as a net result)
5. As the saying goes, **** it.

 

**** it and save up to get the crowing glory of the 6 series?

 

Oh hey, I've made some doozies of mistakes

I'd be in the same situation if I had the funds. I'd be like a kid in a candy store. Drooling over anything that looks like a video card LOL!

 

Depends when the 6 series comes out. I could do. If I could get the money back in the meanwhile I might try and get Sapphire to make me another and get in, oh, a few years... lmao

 

Hi guys hows every1 im new here lol now to business i have set a buget of £600 to build a gaming pc and the last time i got 1 i ended up with a piece of junk Nvidia 8500GT lol so im looking for input please lads thanks in advance Gav

 

LOL not for a while still.

Realistically 2 4870X2s is still overkill power for most games, even at 2560. AFAIK your only real limitation is the scaling and amount of memory. So if you ask me, 2 5870s would be your best bet. More single card performance, guaranteed dual card scaling, lower power consumption, etc. And whether or not the difference is huge, there is still a sizable performance delta between the 5850 and the 5870. Enough that I'd consider the price worth it for 2560 res. Think about it, dual card scaling and raw 3D crunching power like the 5970 but with better per-card performance. Yeah they're a little expensive but for 2560 every extra FPS counts. I understand that the 5970 is basically the same thing overall, but slightly better performance on the individual 5870s means you only need to find the better deal. Both setups will kick ass either way.

 

Well not really, you have to bear in mind the 4GB 5970 is the card I was after, which uses 5870-spec GPUs, not 5850-spec GPUs like the 2GB version. Two 2GB 5870s is indeed plan B, but unless I can get hold of a good deal, they won't be any cheaper than the 4GB 5970.
As for two 4870X2s being overkill for 2560 res, not really. Aside from the issues of when there's no/poor crossfire scaling, four 4870s at a rather optimistic level of 320% scaling simply isn't enough GPU power to run a fair few modern titles beyond 1920x1080, that and the amount of memory they have is starting to become problematic. Split/Second Velocity for example, memorycrashes on 512MB cards at just 1680x1050, in much the same way as GRiD did at 2560x1600 with 4xAA, and the game's not even using it. On top of that, at 1920x1080, despite the game engine being capped at 30fps, an HD5850 periodically drops below it, meaning that an HD5870 is the necessary card for that res. Assuming a linear, or less than linear increase in graphics performance, what an HD5870 can do at 1920x1080, two can do at 2560x1600, assuming near-perfect scaling, and four 4870s can do, assuming perfect-scaling, which almost never happens, so more realistically, two X2s are going to be limited to two stages less anti-aliasing, or one primary setting lowered. And this is 30fps we're aiming for here, not 60. I don't think the pair of X2s could cut it. We've not turned AA on either.
Taking a look at recent titles tested on GameGPU, this is the sort of scenarios that are likely to happen:

Alpha Protocol: HD5830 for M50 at 1920x1200, HD5850 for M60 at 1920x1200, 2xHD5850 for M60 at 2560x1600 (75%)
Blur: HD5850 for M50 at 1680x1050 (8xAA), HD5870 for M60 at 1920x1200 (8xAA), 2xHD5870 for M50 at 2560x1600 (80%)
NFS:World: HD5850 for M50 at 1680x1050, 2xHD5830 for M60 at 1920x1200 (75%), 2xHD5870 for M60 at 2560x1600 (85%)
Splinter Cell Conviction: HD5830 for M50 at 1680x1050, HD4870X2 for M60 at 1920x1200 (97%), 2xHD5870 for M60 at 2560x1600 (80%)
GTA4-EfLC [Medium Textures, High Shadows, VD60]: 2xHD5830 for M50 at 1680x1050 (75%), 2xHD5870 for M50 at 1920x1200 (100%), 2xHD5870 for M30 at 2560x1600 (80%)
GTA4-EfLC [High Textures, VH Shadows, VD20]: 2xHD5850 for M50 at 1680x1050 (82%), 2xHD5850 for M40 at 1920x1200 (88%), 2xHD5870 for M30 at 2560x1600 (90%)
The Scourge Project: HD4870 for M50 at 1680x1050, HD5850 for M60 at 1920x1200, 2xHD4890 for M60 at 2560x1600 (85%)
APB Beta: HD5850 for M50 at 1680x1050, 2xHD4890 for M60 at 1920x1200 (97%), 2xHD5870 for M50 at 2560x1600 (75%)
Global Agenda: HD5830 for M50 at 1680x1050 (8xAA), HD4870X2 for M60 at 1920x1200 (8xAA) (85%), 2xHD5870 for M60 at 2560x1600 (8xAA) (89%)
Just Cause 2 [Low]: HD4870 for M50 at 1680x1050, 2xHD4890 for M50 at 1680x1050 (8xAA) (85%), HD5850 for M60 at 1920x1200, 2xHD5870 for M60 at 1920x1200 (8xAA) (80%), 2xHD4890 for M60 at 2560x1600 (84%), 2xHD5870 for M40 at 2560x1600 (8xAA) (84%)
Just Cause 2 [Med]: HD5830 for M50 at 1680x1050, 2xHD5830 for M50 at 1680x1050 (8xAA) (82%), HD5870 for M60 at 1920x1200, 2xHD5850 for M50 at 1920x1200 (8xAA) (93%), 2xHD5830 for 2560x1600 (97%), 2xHD5870 for M40 at 2560x1600 (8xAA) (97%)
Just Cause 2 [Max]: HD5850 for M50 at 1680x1050, 2xHD5850 for M50 at 1680x1050 (8xAA) (75%), 2xHD4890 for M60 at 1920x1200 (80%), 2xHD5870 for M50 at 1920x1200 (8xAA) (100%), 2xHD5850 for 2560x1600 (94%), 2xHD5870 for M30 at 2560x1600 (8xAA) (80%)

So then, of these games, in all but one, to max out at 2560x1600, most of the time without AA being considered, two 5870s are either required, or insufficient. Only in The Scourge Project can you really get away with a lot less, and even then, one 5870 isn't enough, since GameGPU don't test multi-GPU setups, who knows if there's any scaling there at all?
Just Cause 2 and GTA4 are particularly bad, as with JC2 maxed out, two 5870s will struggle to minimum 35fps, and in GTA4, you will only get that far with reduced draw distance [due to testing 1GB cards, max settings weren't tested]. Perhaps thankfully GTA4 doesn't even support AA at all!

 

you relly don't need minimm 50 FPS on alot of those titles to have smooth play, and is 8xAA really needed in games where one is more focused on the gamepley ( speedy style games) where you won't really see it?

you are way to stringent lol. But then when ur willing to pay over the odds for gfx cards, why would you be?

 

8xAA has only been used in two of the titles, the others have no AA applied at all. 50fps minimum is also requisite for smooth gameplay in a lot of them, and that's somewhat my point. You're not going to buy high end graphics cards and still settle for juddery gameplay...

 

just the tower or monitor kb/mouse/speakers/heaset inlcuded?

 

I definitely understand your viewpoint Sam. I have much the same feeling about my own setup. Sometimes I forget how large a resolution jump that 2560 is. I also agree with Shaff a bit, you have higher standards than most, but never unjustified, so it's sort of a gray area.

Whereas I can handle the occasional poor coding in a game, it seems to agonize you. Much of the reason I am staying at 1920 resolution. Sure I could build a 2560-crunching monster too, but I don't care for the endless high end upgrading just to get games to run smoothly. 1920 is still satisfyingly high res without the stupidly high requirements that come with it. Thus my always saying that I might consider a 2560 monitor, but not as a replacement.

Ultimately, your graphics upgrade will be your choice. Shame that you didn't get the 4GB 5970 but it's not the only comparable option... 2 2GB 5870s like you said is a very solid Plan B. Plenty of memory for once and plenty of individual power. And if you really need more performance, a third card is not entirely out of question.

Be sure to let us know right away what you choose. I will be interested to see what it is, and your reasons for choosing it. It seems 2560 magnifies the problems of every setup so it always provides good insight.

 

which is why i wont even bother with it till consoles end up using 1080p games as standard. so next gen consoles, ill get a better monitor, as thats just how it seems to work out.

 

This is pretty much why I was hoping the KVM switch I bought would turn out useful. I could leave the 30" hooked up to a workstation system and use a smaller monitor for games, then switch them the opposite way round as I saw fit. I can perfectly well use 1920x1200 as a 23" box within the 30" monitor, but it isn't really the same, and the 20" TN monitor I have is going a bit too far down the chain.
It's worth making a mention that of the games that don't run properly at 2560 res, a substantial proportion (i.e. considerably more than half) also don't run properly at 1920x1200. Whether that changes with 2x5870 instead of 4x4870? Who knows. Either way I was thinking about ditching the 2GB per GPU idea until the HD6 series, where hopefully it becomes more standardised. As it stands now, £540 is what I paid for my pair of HD4870X2s. They're currently worth something like £350-£400.
Two HD5850s are £490, one HD5970 is £480-£500. Two HD5870s are £640. Two 2GB HD5870s are £760-£840, and you'll really struggle to find them at the lower end of that price range. The 4GB HD5970 is £840-£870, but as you see, impossible to find. The 900mhz version of the 4GB (I didn't realise until yesterday that they were different) is £950-£1000.
This basically means that I'm paying £240-£290 to go from 4 4870s to 2 5870s, and the advantages that brings. Given that that's less than what a 5870 costs to use by itself for the single card performance, I'm OK with that. It does, however, mean that getting 2GB per GPU costs £120-£200, typically closer to the latter figure. That's pretty steep considering my search for smooth frame rates is probably going to negate the need for extra memory (the AA modes in such games that need more than 1GB are probably going to murder two 5870s at 2560 res anyway).
There is, however, a third contender. A 5970 plus a 5850. This is the only combination that actually represents a net increase in graphics horsepower, rather than simply rebalancing it across fewer GPUs. However, using this method, we're back to using 3+ GPUs, and the potential scaling issues of such systems. Right now, buying XFX Black Editions of this combination (bizarrely the cheapest) costs me £723. In games where the performance scales for 3 GPUs I calculate this to give an average of 29% extra performance. Using 5870s vs 5850s only nets a 16% average, so this is not far off twice the gain from £480 to £640, and this is £640 to £723. £80 for 29% on top of £160 for 16%. Makes a fair amount of sense, eh?
The one thing that stops me from doing this as it's near identical to my current setup. It's two cards with stock coolers, it's hot and noisy, and it's more than 2 GPUs. It is however, at the worst, 17% faster than two 4870X2s flat out, assuming 400% vs 300% scaling, more likely 20%+ as a few games seem to support 3 GPUs and not 4, Crysis for example (one wonders if that was a coding requirement from nvidia back when Triple-SLI was up against Quad crossfire, before Quad-SLI had taken off?)
Flip side, it's £323-£373 for 20% extra performance, very little extra advantage other than that, the single card performance is also obviously 5850-grade, not 5870-grade.

Option 6 or whatever we're up to now, 5970+5870. Said XFX 5970 is a Black Edition, one wonders how far it may overclock to keep up with a proper 5870, and whether you can use the 5870 as the master. Being able to disable crossfire into the dual card means there's definitely no issues with crossfire interfering with titles that use only one GPU, and full 5870 single GPU performance. On the other hand, it's still the hot, noisy combo, and it costs more than two 2GB 5870s, but if it works well, it's a possible 35%+ gain on two 5870s, which is quite a sizeable performance boost.

This is one tricky decision

 

I like this setup the best. A 5870 + a 5970 with the single 5870 as the master is by far the best idea I've heard. That ensures the best single card performance. And when you run Crossfire the scaling will matter much more than the single GPU performance, so the potentially lower clocks of the 5970 will have less of an impact.

Unless HD6 is coming out within the next 6 months(which I kinda doubt, more like maybe the next year) you would do well to get that setup.

On another note I'm in love with my 5850s. Miles faster than my 4870s and for the same price I paid over a year ago

 

Sounds like you paid over the odds for the 4870s then, really. As it stands now, what I paid for my X2s wouldn't even buy me a 5870 and a 5850, it'd be two 5850s.
Assuming they remain in stock (I doubt it) I could get the 5970+5870 pair for £810.50 at Scan, £827.10 at CCL. £35 or £18 less than I paid for the 4GB 5970. I'll need to do some reading up on the effects of using a dual GPU card as a slave, and having a faster tertiary GPU, just how much of a bottleneck that is. I've heard comments that mismatched crossfire pairings work, to use an analogy, like RAID, in so much as you only get the multiple of the lowest performer. Of course this is less of an issue for 2(low)+high than it is for 2(high)+low, but I'd still need to work out if the 5870 is of any benefit at all in the crossfire scenario.
The XFX Black 5970 is the one that comes with the voltage tweaker, and while I'm hardly eager to start tweaking such things on cards, it is meant to assist with some silly overclocks. That said, of the clocks I've seen, they got 90% of the way without using the tool. I believe it was an XFX black edition card that was tested and they got a little beyond 5870 specs on both GPUs before having to use the overvolt tool to break 900. It would seem sensible that the black edition cards are better binned than the standard 5970s, and since the 5970 has all the shader processors of a pair of 5870s, there's little to lose by trying it. I think I may take this approach.

As for the HD6 series, if we take the timeline between release of the HD4870 and the HD5870, it was July 2008 vs September 2009, and August 2008 vs November 2009 for the dual card. Extrapolating this, if it were timed the same, we'd be looking at November 2010 and February 2011, so 5/8 months. It may not be quite as timely as this, but either way, by christmas this year, they'll either be out, or shortly due to arrive I expect. Question is of course, without a die shrink, are they going to get much extra performance out of the architecture? Every major leap forward has used a die shrink - the 9800 was 150nm, X800 130nm, X1800 90nm, the HD2900 65nm, though both the HD3800 and HD4800 series were 55nm, and obviously, the current generation is 40nm.
While the HD3800 to HD4800 quantum leap did not require a die shrink, it did include a substantial increase in transistor count and TDP, the HD3870 was a single 6-pin 120W ish card, versus the dual 6-pin 160W of the 4870. Since the 5870 already has a TDP higher still of nearly 190W and the dual card has had to be clocked back for the first time, I don't see the HD6 series on 40nm being especially exciting. Who knows though, would be awesome to be wrong

 

Well a close approximation. The 5850s were actually more overall because I bought them both at the original price of $300. I picked up my first 4870 at like $310 when they first came out. When I got my second one a month later they'd dropped to $270... So if I would have waited the 4870s would have been $40 cheaper than I actually paid :S

I would imagine they are either not that much faster, or they suck power and pump heat like crazy. Seeing ATi's stance on it(like the long delay for the HD2900) they're either going to release an awesome product, or they'll have a long delay and our chances of an awesome product are like 50/50. Consider also that AMD has Bulldozer in the works so the two companies might be collaborating on a GPU as well. Would be kind of cool to see a fully in-house AMD GPU.

 

hello again ,people after two days of researching this is what me and me mate have come up with

mother board msi = p55-gd80 price = £153

cpu = intel i5 750 2.66 = £150

memory = G.Skill RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz = £90

graphics card = XFX Radeon HD 5770 Graphics adapter - 1 GB - GDDR5 SDRAM

could do with some advice on graphics card budget for card is £150 just incase theres a better one that could go with that board

also any info on memory would be nice budget for memory = £100

last but not least where stuck on power supply options as we dont want to bottleneck the system with crap power

advice and help much appriciated thanks all