The Official PC building thread!

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

But in my opinion:

1. Crossfire without identical cards will not have the same sweet sweet performance as SLi can pull

and therefore

2. Cost effective can kiss performance's you know what.

 

Crossfire cards have a compositing engine to mix the outputs together, you only need 1 crossfire enabled card to run 2 cards together, not only will it use the same 2 rendering modes as Nvidia Sli but will also have another 2 rendering modes, one of which called "supertiling" is more efficent than what Sli has to offer....also Crossfire will work with any 3D game unlike Sli, this is going to be some serious competion for Sli these cards should be out real soon, so we'll just have to wait and see ..oh and as for performance Ati has broken the 3Dmark 05 record with a score of 15598 with 2 o.c'd x850xt crossfire cards which kinda beats 2 Sli 7800GTX cards

 

I'm sorry reasons?, but loathed as I am to disagree, it's not just cost-effectiveness that ATi's solution has to offer, but also versatility. Most people can only dream of having two top-end GPUs in their system, but many of those who could afford it take time to gather funds for the second card, only to find that they need to get exactly the same card as before to run SLi, and oh look! They can't find one.

Crossfire won't give a damn about that, and besides, I hear compatibility will be better, and then of course there's supertiling, scissor mode and all the other bumph too, if they could get some decent catalyst drivers (someday...) they'll be no stopping them.

 

"Ati has broken the 3Dmark 05 record with a score of 15598 with 2 o.c'd x850xt crossfire cards which kinda beats 2 Sli 7800GTX cards "

Link please.

 

Ok so it was 15498 .... http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20050602010650.html , but it's still a record

 

"The new record is 15 498 marks, which is around 6% higher compared to the previous record held by a multi-GPU system based on NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra SLI platform."

Ok, here's for a little common sense. I won't pull out official numbers, yet, unlesss you make me, because my time way more valuable than you think.

The Highest (apparently, I don't follow GPUs very well, but this is ATI's best graphics cards no?) ATI configuration is pitted against the 6800's. By far not the highest card by nvidia.

Let's establish a few things with this "x-bit labs test".

1. The ATI's peformed 6% better.
2. ATI was using the $? x850 with a storm of specialized new chipsets etc.
3. nVidia was using the $1000 6800 ultra
4. On off the biggest tell tale card aspects is simply vertices/s
5. The ultra has 638 million v/s
6. The new 7800 GTX OC is only $600 and performs 920 million v/s

First correction is that you claim that the ati's bested the 7800's, they haven't yet, they have bested the 6800 ultra.

You might say the ultra is the best because it is $400 more. It's not. Aside from, in the end, menial bells and whistles, it comes down to the 512MB of GDDR3 that marks this baby up way high. The extra memory is overatted because of GDDR3's clock speed it can refresh the 256MB so fast anyway it doesn't matter, read:

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,121414,00.asp

It makes pefect sense to someone who knows a little about memory. 512MB right now is an over priced salse pitch.

Now, you want pretty right? Try testing two 920 million v/s 7800 GTX OC's and see what happens. They avoided the even cheaper cards for a damn good reason. $1000 for 512MB is half-baked at 638 million vertices/s, and they have an apparent ATI bias, or maybe even funding. I judge this off of an eval. of the site's archive of recent articles. Also see the link below, it mentions something about how the community looks at ATI at God. Bias, baby, ATI has grown power and bias since Alienware adopted it and the company took on a dark underground look.

The 7800's would smoke both those other two configs at a lesser price.

It doesn't matter in the end anyway, read this article from 2003:

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,110896,00.asp

What prevents them from doing it to the 05' software? Absolutely nothing. Hardware can manipulate software like cake can manipulate a fat kid, he just eats it up and doesn't know what the hell is going on.

(The fat kid is the testing software.)

I'll check this forum out tommorrow morning for your ATI grasp for breath. Then when I get back in town on Monday I'll bet you guys will have so much ATI propaganda, I'll have to spend a full 15 minutes finding an organizing atual evidence for you

Peace, this isn't edited for typos so enjoy.

 

If your thinking i'm a ATi fanboy you'd be wrong , i much prefer & use Nvidia but you can't ingnore the the performance capabilities of the ATi crossfire with the their current generation of cards, when they release the R520 ( if they ever get it right ) then i suppose that will be a fair comparison , yeah i shouldn't have compared them to the 7800 rather the 6800 my bad , as for the memory side of things 512 cards will come in to their own as newer game titles require more system resources ... oh and there is no need to spit your dummy out of your pram, i'm just going by articles i have read from various sources

 

With the clock speed of GDDR3 it'll be a long time till we need 512MB. All 512MB will do is be waiting for the outbound of DDR-400 in game and when loading it'll hold more, but you don't need a quarter of the game on GDDR3. When games get bigger it'll come in handy, which is on the horizon, but right the cards are just plain overpriced for a 1-2 fps gain, you can do that just by perfecting all your options or maybe overclocking a tiny bit.

 

But seriously has no-one noticed how much cheaper ATi cards are?

I can grabs me an X850XTPE for £263, yet a 6800Ultra is £322.
and as for a 7800GTX, a minor upgrade on the 6800 (yes i'm going to say it, minor - it is at this stage) £375!!

The CE card will have to carry a hefty premium to match those prices up...
Twin 7800GTX (cheapest brand) £751.
Twin X850XT PE add an extra £50 because the CE card will be more - £577.

if the performance difference between the two will be 1/2% then i think i know what I'd buy, not that i would buy the most top-end GPU ever because that's a WASTE OF MONEY PEOPLE!!!!

come on, people. How many of you play:

UT2004 - 1920x1200 Full detail
Doom 3 - 1280x1024 Ultra detail
almost all other games - 1600x1200 or higher

with your million-dollar twin GPUs compared to my lowly singular AGP 8x unit.

My GPU does everything i could ever want it to, and for that matter everything anyone would want it to do, your SLi madness will only come into being a couple of years from now, when cards like mine can't keep up. But of course, by then, you'll have something else...

Maybe i'm barking up the wrong tree, but i think it's madness....

 

A single 7800 GTX OC is well worth $600 and will improve graphics on every resolution, especially aliasing and other nice improvements. The 7800 GTX is the finest card out there and is resonably priced.

The dual GPUs get good when you either have a 24" 1900x1200 or two LDCs you want to hook up.

 

as i said, how many apps currently use 1920x1200?

and no i disagree the 7800GTX is not reasonably priced, its insane in my opinion.

 

guys have a question, instead of buying my next PC im buying all the parts nad haveing a custom pc shop put it all together, unless it is really easy to put together,

well here is what I have

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 bit FX-57
Motherboard: ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
Memory: 2 GB DDR PC 3200 Memory Corsair XMS
Hard drive: 2 Hitachi DeskStar 7K500 - hard drive - 500 GB - SATA II
Hard Drive Master: 2x 74GB Western Digital Raptor
Graphics: 2x nVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 256 mb
Case: Thermaltake Kandalf Aluminum Full-Size Case
Power Supply: Thermaltake 680watt
Optical Drive: 16x Plextor DVD-Burner Dual Layer
Audio: 8 Channel Audio
Network: 10/100/1000 MBps Network Interface Card
Expansion:2 PCI 16x, 2 PCI-x, 3 PCI
Operating System: Windows XP Professional Edition x64

My question first as far as a power suppy I have now a 650 watt unit dont know the name, but for the sata drives would I need a different PS. I know this case comes with one, but doesnt say if its for sata or what,

I dont now much about OC, but would it be wise to get a water kit with this? it might get OC during sometime.

any and all feedback is welcome

 

I dont really dont want to do anything with out researching on it first, and OC is not my area so I will leave it alone...

 

Why not get a dual core from AMD? They have them from $500-$1000. You'd be much happier when your browsing the internet while playing itunes, watching a video, downloading a file, or editing pictures and video. It would especially be nice to do other stuff while ripping and burning DVDs, without crashing the buffer up and down.

You'll be in for it if you get x64. There is no driver support for all the goodies you want, it's purely for business and won't perform any better for your system, mostly because you'll be screwed out of something in your list because... I'll reiterate here, it's for business. Wait for mid/post 2006 with Windows Vista, you'll regret x64 garunteed.

AI NOS will automatically handle safe overclocking for you.

If you use AI NOS on all those components, water cooling would be nice, you'd get alot more OC out of it. AI NOS OCs what you want while regulating heat, if you water cooled it, the AI NOS would have alot more room to work with.

Oh yeah, pretty soon AMD is releasing an even cheaper dual core for like $350. I would go with the 4800+ X2 64-bit, because the clock speed isn't that much different, but your getteing twice the L2 cache and dual cores. Way Way!! better deal.

If your looking for a serious gaming computer, the F-57 seems like the premium choice because of it's higher clock speed. The 4800 X2 has a 2.4GHz clock speed which may seem very different. But then, you have another core that will run all the windows background programs and processes without interupting the core handling your game. Also some games coming up will be coded to let a second core handle the sound, among other little things.

The 4800+ X2 is a much better choice overall. The F-57 may increase your fps, but it won't run as smooth or as cool with other stuff happening in the background of your computer.

The biggest thing, is not to use x64 edition. Configure your Raptors in Raid 0 for performance, and if you store DVDs or important info on the other two drives, then have them in Raid 1. You'll have 574GB total room, but 74GB for high performance core applications isn't bad, an have the 500GB drive mirrored is safe. You don't want to have to "back-up" all of your DVDs again or "Pay a music store" for all your music again

If you trust the reliability of those drives go for the 1TB, but I sure don't, the 500GB deal is new and not really proven over a long time yet. I would ave alot of money and just go with 400GB drives, or when you can get a 3.5" drive using parallel recording in 500GB or 600GB I would do that.

 

Aren't we forgetting something?

The Dual Core range isn't supported yet either. There will be far more functionality in a 64-bit CPU than a Dualcore and for gaming the FX-57 is the top dog. Trust me tra77, you made the right choice.

In a response to what you actually asked about the PSU, S-ATA drives need converter cables (Molex to S-ATA) IF the PSU doesn't have SATA leads attached already. With one of that rating I'd be surprised if that's the case, you should have the connectors already on there. If not they're not expensive. A 650W PSU by the way is a monster and should do everything nicely, and will people stop moaning about my QTEC one!!! I can't afford to buy a really snazzy PSU after having paid twice for this one!

And no I cant take the Magna one back because i bought it from ebuyer and that's just too much hassle to get just half of my money back. I'll just suffer the injustice like most have to.

BTW please delete the double post - i accidentally clicked the double-click button on my mouse. Sorry!!!

 

Aren't we forgetting something?

The Dual Core range isn't supported yet either. There will be far more functionality in a 64-bit CPU than a Dualcore and for gaming the FX-57 is the top dog. Trust me tra77, you made the right choice.

In a response to what you actually asked about the PSU, S-ATA drives need converter cables (Molex to S-ATA) IF the PSU doesn't have SATA leads attached already. With one of that rating I'd be surprised if that's the case, you should have the connectors already on there. If not they're not expensive. A 650W PSU by the way is a monster and should do everything nicely, and will people stop moaning about my QTEC one!!! I can't afford to buy a really snazzy PSU after having paid twice for this one!

And no I cant take the Magna one back because i bought it from ebuyer and that's just too much hassle to get just half of my money back. I'll just suffer the injustice like most have to.

 

I run a Thermaltake 480w butterfly psu and it comes with sata power leads, so i would imagine your 680w monster will, just to be sure why not check out www.thermaltake.com for the specs on it
please delete, double post ;(