The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

ur lucky. Im waiting for the envy 14 to hit the uk. Its fuking sexy. Wanna get macosx on it.

 

Actually Mac debacles over nvidia reliability have been pretty much ongoing since the 8600 issue, they haven't really ended. There's no sign of nvidia's standard of manufacture rising any time soon. You only buy an nvidia card if you'll upgrade within the next 2-3 years, especially with laptops [and given that laptop GPUs are rarely replaceable, this means you'd go through laptops pretty quick]

 

Bought this beast 12/7/2007
http://www.newegg.com/Product/NewProduct.aspx?Item=N82E16814121097
It didn't handle GTA IV too well though LOL!!! It's always ran pretty cool. I don't expect it to fail anytime soon. Time will tell of course

 

That being a non-reference card there's not a great deal of nvidia's manufacturing remaining in there except the GPU itself [which there have been plenty of bad ones of in the 8600 series]. You're more at the mercy of Asus' manufacturing instead. Normally I'd say that's out of the frying pan into the fire, but seems you got lucky with that one

 

Well since my Asus mobo is 9 yrs old, I'll remain calm LOL! Though it was built in another time Eh, the 8600 doesn't owe me anything. I don't think I'll be that upset if it were to quit. If it's working when I pull it, I'll use it as a testing device

 

9 years ago was when Asus made their name by building stuff that actually lasted. Nobody would buy Asus products at all if their products were as shabby then as they are now. What they've done is build a reputation on building quality products, slashed costs by cutting corners wherever possible, and letting their past reputation soak up the damage.

 

So I've heard. Truly unfortunate. If they continued to produce their grade A stuff, I would compare them to gigabyte. That is to say, I would speak highly of Asus instead. It's a cryin' shame...
Unfortunately, the only way to know if they are producing good stuff again, is to buy their technology. Or simply pay attention to forums like this LOL!

 

After four motherboards and a graphics card I consider that enough work for the community. There's nothing Asus really offer that I can't find elsewhere really, and on that basis I see no reason to recommend anything of theirs to anyone.

 

*do....not....argue....*

 

No no! Not arguing. Simply stating my opinion. I totally agree that their products are less than desirable at the moment. No argument there LOL! I'm simply saying that IF they hadn't screwed up, they would probably be praised WAYY above gigabyte. Who knows. Perhaps they will make a serious come back some day. But something tells me that some people will be angry for years to come...

 

I think shaffaaf was trying to express that he is resisting arguing, not that you were arguing oman.

sam,
In all honesty I've see tons of new[er] asus mb's with no problems. If they were really as bad as you're making them out to be I would expect to have had at least a few of them fail. On the flip side though I probably wouldn't buy one since like you mentioned you can get the same features from a company without all this bad rep.

 

I'm looking for an upgrade from my Crossfire 3870's is there anything out there one would recommend im on a $150 per card budget. I've looked at the 5770 and they don't seem to wow me much. anything above that though is too expensive. would the 9800GTX series be a reliable upgrade. I've read the 250/260's aren't really great SLI performers.

 

The 9800GTX is seriously outdated and really isn't near the speed of modern cards. 5770 Crossfire would be your best bet.

 

i was looking at that the 9800GTX was the 3870's competition. anyway i know there older but for 25 dollars more do you think 2 4870's would kill the 2 5770 or would it be about the same. if its about the same ill go with the 5770's i don't see DX11 flooding the market in the next year so why buy a card that will be outdated by the time DX11 becomes mainstream, if the 4870's out perform the 5770 ill buy those instead. i'm only asking here because i don't trust synthetic benchmarks. too often have i looked at those an bought the card only to see that the real gaming performance is far less than the benchmarks would have you believe.

 

Maw: The problem is, Asus products generally are tested, so they rarely arrive DOA, thus their reliability issues don't really get picked up by mainstream reviewers. It's simply that, a few months or a couple of years down the line they fall apart. For stories about that you're left to measure all the negative reviews from consumers - a little biased, since people mainly only post reviews when there's something to complain about, unless they're fanboys, and the way Asus market things, they have more fanboys than their rivals. Same goes for nvidia in this regard, to a considerably greater extent.

DXR: Why use dual graphics out of necessity? Only reason to use crossfire or SLI is if the most expensive single card isn't fast enough for you. The HD5870 is massively more powerful than the HD5770, 90% more in fact, which is better than the CF scaling you're likely to get from a pair of 5770s.

 

I didn't mean boards others have reviewed or comments posted online, but rather mb's that are used in test systems where I work. Any way I'm not going to argue about the reliability of asus mb's, just felt like saying that I've seen hundreds of them running 24/7 and I've neither heard of nor seen any problems with them.

btw a 5870 is about 100US above his [DXR] budget.

 

Technically, so are HD5770s, reliable ones costing $170 shipped. Using an HD5870 as one card equates to 2x$195 cards. A question of worth really, an extra $50 to have that level of performance guaranteed without worrying about crossfire scaling. The HD5870's performance level is about 90% above that of the HD5770. In a 100% scaling scenario two HD5770s are faster by around 5%. However, such situations are relatively rare, typical crossfire scaling is 80%, which gives the HD5870 the advantage. This before we consider the fact that not all games ever work with CF (COD:WAW and COD:MW2 never have/will due to an engine incompatibility) and large numbers of titles don't work until 2-3 months later when a driver is released. Crossfire is a useful tool for squeezing more performance out of cards than a single card could ever offer for top-end users, but for those in the midrange, it's more hassle than is necessary when a single card could do the job.

 

I am giving my 4870 to my brother (other one died) so really want an upgrade. do i go for a £170 1GB GTX 460 or a £130 1GB GTX 285?

 

Definitely not the 285. Why not a £160 HD5830?
A GTX460 for £170 (assuming it's a 1GB one, i.e. a Palit Sonic) is not a bad deal, especially if most of the games you play are nvidia biased (e.g. DiRT 2, Bad Company 2 with AA, AvP and so on)

 

mw2, cod4/5 bc2. thats why im thinking of jumping the gun.

yeah palit one. why not he 285, thought it was more pwoerful?