The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Well, no company would stay in business, if 100% of their products were guaranteed failures. I'm not exactly siding with those who have advocated against Asus. Because I still don't see the failure rate they're suggesting. I would bet, that Asus was recommended to MANY green/new builders. Since once upon a time, they were the go to company. And since newbies don't exactly know how to handle stuff properly, that could be at least some of the failure rate. Improper overclocks, insufficient cooling, to which they don't know how to monitor. The list goes on.

I'm strongly considering going with another manufacture for my next board, for flexibility reasons. I like Gigabyte quite a bit, but I have had a VERY good MSI board. In fact, it was one of the faster involved boards, regarding the installation of windows 7. It would not hang, where the Gigabyte boards I've tested, hang during the installation. I should however note, that it had an Nvidia nforce chipset, that failed prematurely. Prematurely? Is that the appropriate word I wonder... because it's quite common for those to fail LOL! Before that chip failed, it was one of the smoothest boards I've used. My current Gigabyte board, has odd LAN issues. But those could be attributed to either Windows 7, or LAN drivers. I once read that the more expensive MSI boards are built higher quality. E.g. buy crap, get crap.

Can't wait til my next build. I'm tempted to start working a second job again. I still can't afford to build my NEARLY perpetual generator. I really don't like the hours I'd be required to work though. So, I'll use questionable tactics to raise funds LOL!

 

Oh, no, my Bonnie and Clyde comment took root! Kevin are we going to see your likeness up on the wall at the post office?

Regarding Sam's great photo link - bees vs yellow jackets - first of all. Whoever says that yellow jackets are trying to disguise themselves as bees? That's inaccurate. When we used to go on Boy Scout outings, yellow jackets loved to come visit when we had watermelon. The secret on bees and yellow jackets is, let them get close and then give them a swipe with your hand and knock them away - yes they may attack again, but just do it again. When I was 4-5 years old, some loony kid taught me to grab the wings of bumble bees as they sat on a flower, until one day I didn't quite have both wings, and the guy rolled over and stung me. Knowing that was a death sentence for the bee, I held out my finger with the stinger still implanted, so he could come back and get it. LOL I guess I was a tough kid.

So bees - no problem - I LOVE honey, and yellow jackets - where is the watermelon? But scorpions - I agree - vicious little buggars. What about centipedes?

The AMD video was funny as hell - looks like officially sponsored? Well, still, I don't find it in bad taste - timing is right with the new Showtime Ray Donovan series coming out with Liev Shreiber as the fixer, and Jon Voight as his mob boss dangerous lunatic dad. I don't get showtime, but I think I know where to get the series - but it's a secret!

Jeff, what are you talking about - the Fountain scene of World at War. I played that game at least twice - it was the one where I first realized how nice nvidia digital vibrance was - the game was so colorful - especially the woods on fire. I have no idea what you are referring to - a Fountain scene. Recently I realized I had never played the multi-player, and guess what - it isn't bad at all. Some of the maps are very colorful, like the Japanese compound - very nice.

Have any of you guys played any of the crouch servers that have sprung up? Shaffaaf I dare you to try one. You would go insane with boredom. I actually perform very well on those - but I can't stand how slow they are. You can't move except in a crouch. You have to have the patience of a saint - which by watching some of the Arma 2 videos - some of those guys really DO have that level of patience.

Rich

 

friend of mine has one of them gigabyte motherboards with the msata sdd(Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-iSSD)... i replaced the one they give with it(intel SLC 20GB) to a 64GB MLC crucial much better performance in loading and writing ^_^ hes pretty happy with his setup i7 2600K EVGA GTX470 and 8GB he used to have raid setup with rapid start or whats it called when it uses the msata sdd for cache.... but he can be a pain in the ass sometimes he just refuses to replace the cooler on that card... guess he likes it when its 60-90C lol... mine however has one of them AC coolers idle 36C under load depending on game... it can reach 70C mark just today i was playing tomb raider with tress fx enabled and holy crap i got passed 70C mark

 

have you tried bf3 knife only conquest? lol and that means no vehicles.. running around getting shanked lol... i used to play on high ticket servers aswell... nothing like 25k or 30k in metro i even once finished one of those rounds from start to finish was around 6 hours :3 got loads of levels xp from that ^__^

 

VIA stuff is a fairly cheap, low-cost low-quality affair, so failures aren't wholly surprising/
MSI have had a slew of bad products amongst a large pile of good ones. Generally MSI's Intel boards are safer bets than their AMD boards, the latter of which are known to catch fire under the load of 125W CPUs due to inadequate voltage regulation.
The capacitor plague is old hat now that solid capacitors are in use everywhere. You have to be seriously unlucky or use silly voltages to burst a solid capacitor, and that applies to all brands.
With Asus on the other hand, it's bad after bad after bad. Their graphics cards are poor (to the extent they sent a batch of all defective GPUs to reviewers on a new release, some of which went bang on camera, GTX580 was it?). Their top-end 'military grade' motherboards are even less reliable than their low-level consumer products, their designs are ill thought through and their quality is generally poor - deceptively so given the overall 'feel and finish' to their products is of a high standard.
Smoke and mirrors, what's underneath is the reason why for 5 years running Asus have been last or one from last in motherboard reliability charts.
Of course they don't all break, else as you say they'd be out of business, but the difficulty in RMA'ing items often means the actual failure rate of hardware tends to be an exponential on the actual reported figure - the more go wrong, the more likely it is people suffer multiple successive failures, and give up, writing off the product, as I have on numerous occasions.
One bad, no sweat it happens, two and it's unlucky. I have had now in excess of a dozen Asus products through me directly or indirectly. NOT ONE has lasted more than 15 months. This is all sorts of sectors, low-end boards, high-end boards, graphics cards, stretching from 2006 to 2012.


Omega is right, a lot of Gigabyte boards (all but one of mine) have a bug with the windows install process being delayed by 10 minutes, but Asus suffer it too - it's a Microsoft problem, not actually a Gigabyte problem.
Further, my latest Z77 Gigabyte board does not suffer it.

I can't in all honesty blame Asus for the premature demise of the A8N-SLI SE and the P5N-E SLI as all manufacturer's failure rates were high with nForce chipsets. But the sample with Asus goes far deeper than that.
Interestingly, Gigabyte produced one sole nforce board. It's failure rate was 1 in 6, versus Gigabyte's average failure rate of 1 in 40 (roughly the industry standard). Say much, does it?
Asus' failure rates with the Striker series boards was closer to 1 in 3 though. I've read at least 20 unique tales of people having at least 5 successive RMAs with those boards. I believe them.

Not to sound like a running theme here, but Arctic Cooling also have zero clue with regard to graphics coolers. They have released at least 6 coolers all fundamentally flawed such that the likelihood of destroying the card they are attached to is very high, even if carried out by professionals. They're fabulous when they work, very quiet and cool, but it just ain't worth the risk.
For the record, 60-90C is fine for a graphics card, they can (and do) run like that for 10+ years without issue. VRM cooling is more important, and most (but not all) third party coolers are lacking here, to the extent that VRMs often get hotter when replacing the cooler, because the cheap afterthought VRM pads don't have the airflow the radial stock coolers provide.

 

guess im lucky with my asus :3 i can relate to AC the gtx275 i have the fans broke down all 3 of them now its just sitting there being cooled by 120mm fan lol one of the fans gave up on my 580 aswell now just running 2 fans its a good cooler when it works so im pretty happy with it :3 i should order new fans but meh... next year ill probably get me 780...

 

'Next year' is a way away. Assess the situation then, it's generally inadvisable to make plans on hardware more than about 2 weeks prior to purchase date, as something better may have appeared otherwise.

As I say, not all Asus products break or else there'd have been some official inquiry by now, but they are statistically the least reliable manufacturer (although not for graphics, that award goes hands down to Sapphire, with 3x the failure rate of any of their competitors - not even Asus managed that). The clue is in the design of their boards - companies like MSI and Gigabyte use a base design then add to it with higher-end versions, the boards in a given product lineup (and even between lineups to some extent) all look fairly similar, just with bits added/removed.

With Asus, even slightly different boards are laid out completely differently, in a seemingly random order - it's a hallmark that either the design teams don't co-ordinate, or they don't know what they're doing, or both. Normally speaking you don't tend to get too many DOAs with Asus as they are tested before they go out the door, they're just engineered so poorly they don't last very long - annoying, as DOAs can be sorted out before a machine enters its usage phase (replacing an older system or being sold to a customer) - mid-term failures are more difficult to deal with, as a motherboard replacement (or worse, diagnostic period) is a time consuming process.

This said, you can still have a long motherboard fault-finding process even if the board isn't at fault - this is what Sapphire insisted on when they sold me two DOA 4GB HD5970s, a 'hand tested' flagship $1100 card with a limited production run of around 5000. When I told them one card was DOA (to the extent it shorted out the board and immediately produced that 'burning electronics'smell) they were difficult, but allowed a replacement. When I told them the second was DOA (a defective GPU attachment I believe) they refused to believe it saying 'you're wrong, these cards are hand tested' - eventually I managed to prove it to them and got a full refund (and still kept the free game that came with it). Still, this was only possible with the efforts of a very good retailer willing to plead the case for me. Things might have been very different otherwise, considering Sapphire don't actually have a technical support line of their own.

 

i had that burning smell from a zotac got it 2nd hand lol... as for getting 780 next year i dont mind if a better card comes out.. even if they make 790 or whatever or 880 ill still buy 780 ^_^ its a good upgrade from 580 for me :3

 

I did and apologies - I actually thought for a split second that you might be bothered by that - I should have listened to my gut - always the kidder but some things carry hidden danger as you well know what I'm talking about from our recent exchange. (Reminder: Now you need to edit out your request to me to edit out, lol.)

 

Yes, done thanks

 

Wow - that is an amazing and very scary story. When you say "defective GPU attachment" what kind of attachment would that have been?

Rich

 

I'm not entirely sure, possibly a solder bump or something like that. Bumps were certainly a real issue for nvidia (hence 'bumpgate') but really this is anything where a GPU (and only the GPU) is unstable, irrespective of temperature or clock speed. It could have been a faulty GPU itself, but that doesn't really vindicate Sapphire as that would have shown up in testing

 

Well, methinks it's time the comparative index chart got updated - in the process of investigating this I realised it's quite outdated - the most demanding games of today really do take advantage of newer graphics architectures considerably - such that the numbers are considerably higher (30% in some cases), when compared with earlier (HD5 generation) cards.
This data is derived from a baseline of the Arma III Beta - a very high-demand but neutrally-balanced current title.
A couple of interesting trends are worth noting - values on the left are at 1920x1080, 2560x1600 on the right. It's evident that with the exclusion of the HD6850, almost every AMD GPU is equal or better at the higher resolution. Compare that to the Geforce line where the best results are universally attained at 1920x1080, and leads slacken/disappear altogether beyond that point, significantly so for the biggest GPUs.
Also worth noting here is that these architectural improvements allow, with the near 100% scaling in this title from AMD and 90% from nvidia, the previously considered unattainable performance index score of 800 to be reached, using two commonly available GPUs.
For reference, the Arma III Beta itself carries a score of 430/615 at 1920x1080, and 730/835 at 2560x1600.

HD5770: 93-97
HD4870: 100-100
HD5850: 155-155
HD5870: 195-195

HD6850: 136-128
HD6870: 167-168
HD6950: 195-199
HD6970: 226-226

HD7750: 121-128
HD7770: 158-168
HD7850: 239-239
HD7870: 288-297
HD7950: 319-328
HD7970: 369-381
HD7970GE: 409-421
HD7990: 701-731
ARESII: 797-833

GTX460 1GB: 143-128
GTX470: 174-159
GTX480: 214-199

GTX550Ti: 93-102
GTX560: 143-155
GTX560Ti: 162-173
GTX570: 202-204
GTX580: 257-244

GTX650: 130-115
GTX650Ti: 198-173
GTX660: 288-244
GTX670: 357-306
GTX680: 406-350
GTX690: 753-651

GTX770: 437-376
GTX780: 484-443
GTX Titan: 524-474
GTX780 SLI: 918-815

 

Sam, it occurred to me that when you said faulty gpu attachment - while I thought you meant a noun, as in something attached to the gpu - maybe you meant HOW THE GPU WAS ATTACHED, in other words a verb - the action of attaching the gpu. When you talk about solder bumps - now I'm getting that idea.

Did Sapphire actually insist they had tested 100% of the boards before shipping them?

This remains a very scary story, that keeps me firmly with Newegg and their easy RMA process, as long as you act in the first 30 days.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention - I assume when you say

you mean, with 730/835 at 2560x1600 for 60 fps average/60 fps minimum.

But - maybe it's my cpu - I am just barely able to get low 30s with two 7950s at 975 clock (similar to regular 925 clock 7970s) and I have to back slightly off one setting. So is it my cpu? - or maybe the 30" numbers should be even higher?

Rich

 

Somehow missed my reply to this :/

That's what the retailer told me that Sapphire had said to them, and I believe it given how good the rest of their service was. I wouldn't have been able to speak to Sapphire directly as they have no RMA/warranty service of their own (Not entirely sure how that's legal to be honest, but that's another story!)

Correct on the numbers. Your CPU is likely to be a holdback in Arma III, when you turn the CPU load up to the max, you get some very low numbers, CPU is clearly important.

This is all worst case, not typical gameplay figures, but still, there's things you can do in the game to make things decidedly choppy on even the best CPUs, especially AMDs.

 

Sam, that graph is interesting. I wonder what might happen if you extrapolate that 1100T to 4 or 4.2GHz, though I admit that all the other CPUs there are capable of quite good OCs as well. Still, it would do a lot to show the relative performance differences between BD/PD and Phenom II. I think that would also put it above some of the Intels.

CPU Northbridge overclocking on AMDs also makes a noticeable difference. 2000->2600 on my own netted many benefits in several areas. Sometimes as large as 10%. Thuban has fantastic untapped power. Overclocking transforms them. If only they scaled as high. Considering the relative upper end of Vishera, topping at about 4.8-5.0GHz unless you get a particularly good bin, 4.0-4.2 on a Thuban is almost enough to render them useless as an upgrade.

Also, I wonder why exactly the 955 seems to be the faster CPU, when the 1100T has 100MHz and a superior memory controller. My own benchmarks have shown a relatively significant gap between the two architectures, depending on the scenario. Thuban is a whole different beast than Deneb.

I truly don't mind buying behind the curve when the market is right. Right now, my 1090T is hardly a limiting factor in my performance, and in the long scheme of things is still a fairly good performing chip, considering you need a 4.6-4.8GHz Vishera to match it. I could gain MUCH more video power before it becomes a noticeable issue. I get a lot of pleasure from doing the best I can with what I have. I basically like to hang onto components until they are no longer adequate. The Thuban is currently overqualified for this rig.

Might have some buyers for my 6850s for a pretty good price

Kinda looking at prospective cards on both sides of the fence. Something $200-250 would be nice. I've waited long enough that single cards easily outpace my two in Crossfire. Haven't been keeping up on graphics in a while though and wondering what represents good value and what to avoid. Open to both brands.

Currently checking out the GTX760, the 7870 GHz Edition, and maybe a 7950.


The GTX 760 seems like a very solid performer, and faster than or equal to a 7950 from the benchmarks I've seen. That might be my best bet. The 6850s are NOT reliable in Crossfire, so even a boost over a single card would make me pretty happy.

Suggestions? Keep in mind that playing at 1920 x 1200 gives me lots of breathing room, and Nvidia's high-res failings will not become a factor for me. The GTX 760 is very attractive, but the 760 Ti is due to come out soon, driving the price of the base model down a bit. I'm especially interested in a 760 Ti. Buying mid-range won't bother me when my current cards are sooo dated. I'm past the point of buying the best, or going dual card. I just want proper performance in my games. Nvidia's x600's and x60s have always had quite good performance in their class, and I thoroughly enjoyed them, being a former owner of a 6600GT, 7600GT, and 9600GT. The current state of games development means I can probably get away with one quite nicely. And when I finally score a 990 board, SLI would be an option as well. Considering SLI's decent reputation and the good performance of the 760, which would have dropped in price by such a time.

 

as far as Nvidia is concerned they've said multiple times there wont be a TI version of the GTX 760. having purchased the 760 recently i noticed its memory clock is severely under clocked for the type of memory. ive gone from 1500MHz to 1760MHz and have remained stable. the highest clock Ive gotten was 1850MHz but was only stable for about 30 minute. i'm sure with a decent aftermarket cooler i could easily maintain that, i should have waited a week or two to get a 4GB card with a custom cooler. jumped the gun and got stuck with a reference fan.

 

4.2Ghz is a 26% overclock for an 1100T, which assuming the gain is linear (it probably isn't, but I doubt it's above linear) then you'd be looking a a minimum of 14 and an average of 26-27. It's not quite touching the lowest Intel there, which is a 4 year old i3 dual core. You'd have to go about 15% further still to reach the first quad cores which are the original i5s from 2009 - my i5 750 has been 54% overclocked since the day I bought it, over 40 months ago. You admittedly can't go much higher, but like for like when overclocked, this is not an AMD-friendly title.
That may well change, as apparently the most recent update to the alpha made things slightly worse in that regard, but still not ideal.
I've seen this 'lower results X6 vs X4' in a few game benches, and I believe it's to do with the fact that games decide which cores do what, differently if you're using a 6-core versus a 4-core CPU - it seems to spread the load out more evenly, and for whatever reason, that ends up with a slight performance deficit. Here are two more graphs from the same article that might help explain it:



Just be careful when buying a Geforce on an AMD chipset. Most of the time they work fine, but unlike AMDs, nvidia architectures work such that there are random board models/chipset types that just point blank don't work with certain geforce cards. The GTX460s were the worst for this, but afaik it continued. Even Intel chipsets had this issue as well though I'll point out.

As DXR said, currently official word is that there is no GTX760Ti. It may be that such a card will only appear if another AMD offering is released, which currently looks unlikely until the release of the HD9 series.

 

DXR88 thank you very much for the figures. I will be purchasing the Gigabyte version with the excellent 3rd party cooler, so it sounds like I'll be doing some OCing with it

Thanks for the info Sam. Interesting indeed. I understand the work units per cycle thing, but Intel should simply not be that far ahead. The game is currently a bit broken IMO. Alpha and all that.

Ummm, other than possible compatibility issues, which I doubt would happen on this board(though I won't write it off), do you think the GTX760 looks like a solid buy?

Prices will be shifting a bit soon, but this is going to be done within a month or two. Planning for it now wont hurt. I'm looking at raw performance per value, and the GTX760 seems to be heads and tails above the equivalent AMDs in the price range. $250 is not a cheap card, so I want to make sure something like a 7950 wouldn't put me in better stead. Just wanted to know if I was right about the 760's speed and not being misled.

 

To all intents and purposes it's an HD7950 but cheaper. I'm not seeing much of a downside here, to be honest...

Oh look, my imageshack sig came back... Weird.