The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Hey rich! How ya been?

A 650TX or 620HX should be good for 2 4870s.

 

Hey boozer and sam,

Yeah, I jump on the forum only every wed now - my gaming day and computer technology day - otherwise I'm trying to sell houses the rest of the time. (To afford the new equipment. lol)

So I hear you sam, terribly loud on the 80s - ok you guys - well boozer, sam has recommended maybe even a zalman 850watts - what do you think of that?

 

The main problem with 80mm PSUs is that while they're quiet at idle and low loads, such as video encoding rigs, add high powered graphics cards to the mix and power load is up to double, if not more than that, which really makes them loud as a tiny fan has to spin very fast to cool the unit.

 

id recommend them aswell, and a be! quiet dark power pro 750/850W shame its not in the US!

 

A 620HX will fully power 2 4870's. You have to use the adapter, but it works well enough if you have a good PSU. So the option is available if I choose to do so.

Been stressing my new OC for a few days now. Orthos Small FFTs and IntelBurnTest Max stable.

It seems that most people have problems with RAM while running IBT. I haven't had any problems. My RAM is sweet...

 

Well you can get the Zalman 850W unit and I'm sure it will do fine, but then the whole overkill thing. If you can afford it go for it. If you want to save some money then a 650TX or 620HX will also work fine.

 

IMO, the 620HX is your "all bases covered" PSU. It has the power for high end setups, is modular, quiet, and top quality. If you must go higher than 2 card SLI/Xfire, try to use Corsair, Zalman, PC P&C, Gigabyte... any one of those would be fine.

Edit:

They are also under-speced at 620W. Corsair could easily get away rating it as a 750W PSU.

Okay, I did some game testing with the 4870. I turned the fan to 35% so it idles at about 45-48. A little noisy but not loud or annoying. It loads at 58-63. So you guys with the low 80's temps... you don't have to put up with them... just so you know.

Okay, first up is Crysis.

1920 x 1200. All high with Cheap very high settings with the CCC and TOD mods.

The benchmark gives me a 42FPS average!! Without the mods, I get 37FPS average. Very nice

Versus 35FPS average on the 8800GTS. 1680 x 1050 all high with medium shadows and Cheap very high settings. 40 with the mods.

A definite improvement in Crysis. Though I think the Quad isn't helping so much due to a video bottleneck. But it still seems to make a difference in how smoothly the physics, loading, AI and everything are handled. I'm getting much fewer performance drops in heavy parts of the game. So I'm pretty sure it's working to some extent.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2

1920 x 1200 maxed settings. 8xQMSAA 16xAF

Averaging about 110FPS in normal play. Minimum of about 70 and a high of about 180.

A spectacular looking game and it runs GREAT!!! 'nuff said

Call of Duty 4

Maxed at 1920 x 1200. 4xMSAA 16xAF.

Averages about 55-60FPS in most areas. A minimum of about 25-30 and a high of like 125 or so.

It runs silky smooth and looks absolutely fantastic. CoD4 was a big improvement over the 8800GTS which had to use regular 4xAA and 8xAF to remain playable. And it still wasn't quite as fast


3Dmark 06

The score at stock 2.4GHz was 14,400. OC'd to 3.4GHz was 15,113. Some people have seen over 16k at 3.8GHz. So there may be some bottlenecking even with a single 4870. But I doubt it really.

3Dmark 2001SE

Just for the heck of it, lol. I got a 63,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!

 

:bump:

Sorry for the double, but... read my pseudo review above 0.o

 

Curiously enough, the benchmark runs poorly on my system, I get a far lower frame rate than I do in game - however, the speed at which the benchmark scrolls means my full-up HDD has to work flat out to load all the information required, as crysis only loads two thirds or so of the game's required info at the loading screen, since the environments are so large.

The bump was necessary, I only received an email about this thread when you bumped it, not during your original post.

 

The benchmark has always been pretty accurate for me. The average FPS I get is usually spot on with my FPS for the first part of the game. I'm seeing the same performance in-game so far, so I'm pretty satisfied with it.

You can make an estimate at FPS in other parts of the game. I'm sure it's not far off from where your HD4870 was.


And yeah, I figured. That one post sat there for like a day. Then I edited it. Then I bumped so everyone would read

 

Always was for me too until the 4870X2 came along...

 

But gameplay is fine? I don't see how it could be an incompatibility with Crossfire. It IS the game, not a benchmark based on the engine. You can even fire the weapons, though they are invisible.

Weird

 

Hmm well, gameplay is fine for the most part. I played through the entirity of Paradise Lost the other day and it was OK, but my PC was definitely struggling through a few sections, nothing horrendous, but it did make aiming a bit tricky sometimes. It tends to be when I get severely injured and the screen gets its red tint, all my 'benchmarks' were without geting beaten up, and when that red glare appears, your frame rate drops 40% for no reason - a little like Forged Alliance's range rings, highlight a unit and your frame rate drops 30% just so it can show you how far that unit can fire. Absurd - highlight a whole troop of 50 units and watch the frame rate die - that game's not even really CF compatible, at least Crysis is... Can't wait to play Warhead, it looks fun and sounds like ot really will run better than the original - DriverHeaven had a reliable 35-50fps out of a GTX260 at 1920x1200 on 'enthusiast' setting, which apparently is the Warhead analogue for all High, but perhaps not 'very high'.

 

Had to make a new account.

So hows life? Any new graphics cards coming out?

 

What? Why?
New graphics cards, none to my knowledge at the moment, the only current 'hardware I'm waiting for' list is Core i7 and the 1500GB Hard drives from Seagate.

 

the GTX260 + to be launched soon, and the 4850x2

 

The HD4850X2 I forgot about. The GTX260+ sounds like a typical nvidia pointless release of a new product. Where is their product that fits between a 9800GTX+ and a GTX260?

 

ummm seems like a good release to me, 216 SP instead of 192, and its the same price as the current GTX260 with a 10% increace, ill wait for a few benches and see if its this or a 4870 for me

 

Is that the GTX260's recent price, or the one after the very recent price drop (in the UK At least)?
To be on par with the HD4870, the GTX260+ will need to be 10% ish faster, which sounds roughly like what it will be. However, it will need to cost less than £175 at the cheaper stores. Whether they'll pull that one off is yet to be seen. I'm also keen to see what the price of the HD4850X2 will be, I'm willing to bet it'll be around the £199.99+VAT mark.

 

Asus' rather unique HD3850 Trinity reviewed...
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=629