The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

I would personally get a 4850X2 if I were buying any time soon. Honestly best bang-for-your-buck. With any up-to-date Crossfire config, a few FPS WILL NOT make much of a difference and certainly won't be anywhere near the difference in price.

They're still all the same thing AFAIK. I'd personally go for the Sapphire myself though. They are ATi's main manufacturer much like Evga is with Nvidia. That basically means, if you want a bone stock card exactly like the reference design, use those companies. That's why I used them. I'd also recommend ASUS or HIS. They both make good quality ATi cards.

The MSI 8800GTS was a pleasant surprise though, also being a stock reference card. That's also where I got my copy of Crysis

Another interesting thing I noticed today when going through my library of games: UT GOTY('99 I think) supports widescreen resolutions and runs flawlessly on my Crossfire setup. WOW, for such an old game it sure has kept well. The graphics are comparatively poor these days but it really looks sharp for its age. Not to mention it's still fun as hell. Graphics may enhance a game, but they're not necessary to make the game fun. My Pokemon Blue version has probably seen well over 3000 hours of gameplay over 10 years and I still beat it regularly. I swear, I have the game down to a fine science now. Definitely in my top ten. I'm going to post my Top 10 list soon, lol.

LOL!!! Just in: my idiot friend with the $300 9800GTX just got a 4870X2 and a 2.8GHz AMD X2(to replace a Q6600). AND a 19" widescreen which he refuses to replace. LOLOLOLOL he ignores my advice. Idiot's bottlenecked everywhere and he wonders why his 3Dmarks went down!!! LMFAO!!! Sorry if this makes me an elitist smacktard, but he's got the money to buy a top-end system that would put mine to shame. So I don't feel too bad for ripping on him.

Oh well, can't say I didn't try... He's got the money and no brains. I narrowly helped him avoid a 600W Ultra PSU as well. Got him turned on to a 650W Antec at least.

He says he wants me to set him up now. So I'll see what goes down and if he really wants me to do it. If he really wants to use that 4870X2, I need to convince him that an Intel Quad is better. But he's pretty much locked on his AMD X2. I told him I wouldn't help unless he took my advice, so we'll see what happens.

 

Heh, from what I read the 4850X2 is nearly the same price as the 4870X2, so it seems pretty pointless, which is a shame. Also, from the picture, is it even longer than the 4870X2?

 

Well, if they're so close in price, it might be better to get the 4870X2 then. I'm not totally "in-the-know" on those dual cards. It was a big enough step to go Crossfire

Either way, I'm fairly confident that I'm within 10% of a 4870X2 at all times. 512MB is seriously not a big bottleneck yet. Even Crysis is silky smooth at native res. Can anyone point me to an article showing the performance difference between an X2 and 512MB Crossfire?

 

Estuansis, you're completely right about the bang for your buck on 4850x2 - I can't believe that in some cases it's within 2% of 4870x2, other cases within 90-95%. The price is 80% - so that tells the story - it's the best bargain.

BUT IT'S ONLY $100 DIFFERENCE!

And like I mentioned, my new build now has a budget right around $2,000, so what's $100 bucks more - the slight difference might be worth 2 - 5 fps more, depending on game, and that could reduce the lag in some cases, considerably. Besides, you know what Shaff says about epeen. Hahahahaha.

Regarding model of 4870x2 - right now I've got HIS picked out, at $529.

Your friend is funny "idiot's bottlenecked everywhere" Hahahaha. Actually I don't think that makes sense - you can't be bottlenecked everywhere by the definition of bottleneck, but it's still funny as hell. Yes, you're an elitist smacktard. WTF??

No help him select an AMD product. We're having a lively discussion on the other thread about supporting AMD instead of automatically directing people to Intel - after all, ATI is allied with AMD, and if that ship sinks it's greeny heaven ... er, that would be greeny hell, for ATI fanboys like me and sam - you too I would say with two 4870s. Russ on the other thread has been building with this hot new $65 mobo that AMD has with their new 780 chip and on-board "current gen" 3200 video card. The onboard graphics, using current generation, is so far ahead of what you find on an intel motherboard, that you can add a $45 video card to the mix, the onboard chip will automatically crossfire with it, and you can play most games at shader 4.1 vista DX10, at 1024x768 res. (not crysis of course - well, at low settings) When did you ever hear of onboard graphics crossfiring with an added video card?

Yeah Sam the 4850x2 is the longest card made in the universe!! Hahaha. Really. It also is arguably better designed, with two fans, however it doesn't vent out the back, so that's not so good. I'm waiting for Coolit in Canada to finish up their 4870x2 waterblocks - we'll really need them for the 5870x6. Lol

Those tech reports that sam links to are outstanding. They definitely show x2 versus regular crossfire - but I don't recall that the 4870s in crossfire are 512mb. This link takes you to Tech Report list of gpu reviews and you'll find several reviews of the x2, lower on the page, compared to other cards. Check out the setup info and maybe you'll find the 4870s are 512mb. As I understand it, the extra memory is not going to hold you back at 1920x1200 - it would come into play more if you jumped into a 30" 2560x1600 monitor. So you're probably dialed in just fine - at more like 95-96%.
-Rich

 

They are the 512MB versions being tested, so those tests are accurate. As you will see, at 2560x1600 there's no comparison, yet at any other resolution, there's no difference.

 

Yeah, 2560 is not a very common resolution either. I'd think more people will have a 24" or similar. Yeah, I'm not really robbed of any performance by 2 512MB cards. Hopefully that will hold true with newer games as I AM NOT upgrading again any time soon

And Rich, you're right. I'm going to see if he's willing to go Phenom. I think the 9950 BE can hit 3GHz without issue and that should be enough to remove a good chunk of the CPU bottleneck. Now only to convince him to get a bigger monitor... a 4870X2 in 1440 x 900 is like using a Formula 1 car to pick up groceries...

 

I finally started playing crysis properly today

I mean for more than 5 mins and on a desk.
And for some reason all the hummers I have seen till now are like this:


WTF???????????

I've seen 4 of these and they are all like this
Did this happen to anyone else

PS - I'll take down the image if it is 2 big

 

I don't know about the image thing or anything, but WOW does Crysis look crappy when you turn down the settings...

 

Thanks for that NOT
I'm playing it on medium at 1280x800 and its not that bad.
I'll be tweaking it and applying some mods tomorrow


What I really want to know is whether or not anyone else had their back tires disappear

 

lol

Dude it looks HORRIBLE!! haha

Halo 2 looks better than that!

 

Ray92
i play crysis and i have not had the problem before the first time i have seen that. have you got the latest patch for the game witch is 1.2.

@abuzar1
are you still running a celeron?

And thought we were here to help people and not take the mick out of what people have got. we arnt all ritch.

 

I've had the same issue. Start a new game and it should be fixed. It happens when you load up a save after installing a patch. Happened to me a couple times. The unpatched save conflicts with the patches and can't load the wheels.

 

Well I sure hope people don't think I'm insulting their computers or anything. That dude has a way faster computer than mine!

I just like playing around haha.

I got rid of my celeron. Now my desktop is a AMD Athlon XP 3200+ and a Core 2 Duo laptop.

 

I've seen it once, but thought it was my doing, as you can blow the wheels off the hummers. Lol @ the Halo 2 reference. Got my 3008WFP today, hooked it up to the xbox to play Halo first, and while the game is completely transformed in 1080i / 720p (tried both), I still long for the crispness of PC games...

 

I've tried Halo 2 as well, and this just looks bad beacuse of the sky, it actually looks quite decent when playing in the jungle and such.

I know you're just messing

Thanks for that, I'll make a new game once I've installed some mods that will let me play in high.

I'll get back to you guys

 

Also don't forget the capacitance effect of a game when it's moving, not just staring at a blank screenshot. Graphics look far more impressive in motion, as the human eye's inability to entirely perceive a moving image negates the effect of jaggies and lower resolution textures.

 

i bought left for dead yesterday and played for about 3 hours. it is amazing. if anyone wants to play my steam id is "krj15489"

 

New nVidia drivers are out. Let's see benchmark differences. http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15921

 

The performance boost looks to be pretty nice. I might have to try FC2 on the 8800GTS and see the supposed "38%" performance increase

 

The 15% boost from Cat8.11 is lies, I think I saw around 3-4%.