Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

Oh really, that is interesting as hell. The games are changing to take advantage of multiple cores??? Wow!!!

So I think I finally understand your post a couple back.

When you say "it doesn't need 64 bit to kick ass" you're meaning is that it doesn't need 64 bit software, isn't that what you are saying. It is a 64 bit chip, right, they all are now, right? (Remember I know even less about cpus than I knew about fans a week ago.)

I did a quick google on the E6750. They're selling the 2.66 E6750 for about $200. That outperforms the 1.86 core 2 duo, which benched similar to the pentium D at 3.6Ghz. It outperforms in the ratio of 2.66/1.86. So, take 3.6 and multiply it by 2.66/1.86 and it would be like having two cpus, each one running 5.2Ghz, compared to my one cpu running 3.2 Ghz.

Yeah, fast!

Do you still prefer AMD. I read that they are extremely price-competitive and everybody has great offerings under $300.

 

kardson

Travis, I need your help, and you're the perfect person still here in the agp world with me. So are you off the meds enough to help me out? I hope you're feeling better, btw.

Sam was answering my question about putting more memory in my computer, maybe another stick. Several posts up I was asking:

So Sam admittedly is not really an expert in this area, and doesn't need to be anymore since as you said some time back, PCI express does the memory allocation on the fly. Should I get the extra stick, and will it help? Should I get two sticks and max out at 2 gigs?

Thanks all you guys,

Rich

 

Btw sam, in my bios the 1.600 volt is the lowest it will go before the standard 1.5 something... which wont even let me get to 3.7ghz

 

sammorris
waymon

Hey guys, I am trying to get a little more cpu savvy by reading through some wiki articles. I just came across this in an article about the P4:

Sam, is this what you were telling Raymond about?

Hey Raymond, it looks like you have the same P4 I do, 3.2.

The quote implies that you can go to 1.7 volts, and that the problem does not begin until you go past that voltage. I believe, Sam, you mentioned 1.6 as the upper limit. Were you being extra cautious, or did you have some other data? You talked about him burning out his cpu in the course of a few months no matter how cool it was running.

Rich

 

Another quote from wikipedia. Sam, is my P4 3.2 a Prescott, that sounds familiar to me. It is hot as hell. It does support hyperthreading.

Hey Raymond, if you can push yours to 4 Ghz, you will fulfill what the factory tried to do on a production basis, and then gave up on. (Although they talk about a 5.2Ghz Prescott - it must have been some type of overclocked heavily cooled monster.) Also, Sam, I don't find the Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome showing up in the discussion of the Prescott. So the worry over Raymond's cpu slowly burning itself out over the next few months if he amps his vcore too high, is that not applicable to the Prescott?

Waymon! Look at this:

Sh*t, if they can hit over 8, then I think you can hit 4, Raymond, and I'll be right behind you (after I get the Gecube installed and working.) What do you think, Sam?

Rich

 

sammorris
waymon
kardson
dinc

Hey dudes!

Sam what does this quote mean? Is this what you were talking about, games beginning to use multi-threading?

(Red added by me.)

...

These testers used some program of theirs to optimize multi-threading, which they were able to turn on and off. The XP task manager is thus showing two cpus, each multi-threaded (4 windows) with the optimization turned off, top set of 4 windows, and turned on, bottom set. Look at how much more evenly spread out is the cpu utilization on the bottom set of windows.

Then, the exciting part, the "proof of the pudding", the framerates, are on the right. On each set of bars, the upper longer and better bar comes from turning on the multi-threading feature, versus turning it off. As you said Sam, even if the game is single-threaded, at least in this case, Nvidia is multi-threading the graphics processing (and I am sure ati does the same thing, or soon will.)

By the way, the quote and graphic came from here - a bench of core 2 duo vs amd.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/10351/5

I am seeing what you are talking about in terms of architecture, Sam - the "wide" path, superior power per watt ratios, and modest clock cycles of core 2 duo architecture, (similar to amd) versus the narrow long path of Prescott in the earlier attempt by Intel to push to 10Ghz and be the clock cycle king, (until the chips started burning up.) Yeah, you told me to stop thinking of Ghz - I get it. However, since we already own these Prescotts, I still want to see Raymond push to 4Ghz, and me right behind him!

(Wow, Diamond viper has a 2900 card with 1 gig of DDR4 memory! vents out the back) http://www.diamondmm.com/2900XT1GPE.php

Rich

 

Well yes, but of course that implies a 64-bit operating system. To my knowledge you can't run 64-bit software on a 32-bit operating system without emulation, and the best 64-bit thing we've managed to emulate in windows so far is the Nintendo 64, a triumph, but nonetheless it's not exactly great considering you need at least a 2Ghz P4 to guarantee good performance emulating something that hada processor less than 100mhz.

AMD are still competitive, but now at the lower end of the market, they've had to slash their prices to compete with the core 2 duo since the Core is a superior product. You can find some absolute bargains, but the best performance is intel side, and given the cost of the e4300 now, you may as well go with that rather than an AMD, especially if you overclock. Keeping everything stock and using standard quality parts, 10% would be a good overclock for an Athlon64 X2. With a core 2 duo you should be ashamed if you can't manage 30%, 50% is a good target to aim for.

Waymon: Ah, I didn't realise the stock voltage was that high, I'm used to 1.325V! No problems then, 1.65 would be better than 1.7V really, but if you can't choose it I suppose 1.7 would be OK. I run my Chipset 0.3V higher than normal, it seems ok, but boy does it get hot!

That's exactly what i was telling Waymon about, but it stands for any processor, not just a Northwood. His is probably a Prescott anyway.


Your 3.2Ghz is also probably a prescott, they are the newer generation of CPUs (despite the fact that they're not as good as the Northwoods they replaced, just like how the P3 was better than the p4)

Do you guys have any idea the lengths people go to in order to get those overclocks?
It involves using Liquid nitrogen (pretty cold stuff!) to cool the CPU and a Vapour compressor to cool the chipset, running both at sub zero temperatures. I can assure you now that 4Ghz, while very impressive for a Prescott, is not that easy to achieve cost-effectively and permanently.


Multi-threaded drivers presumably mean that 3D data can be sent to the graphics card using two cores, which would ease off the frame calculating of the CPU a little. Games would have to be multi-threaded as well to take full advantage of that fact, but it was a start.

Diamond may have a 1GB HD2900XT but the sad reality is that the much older 768MB 8800GTX is still faster, and by now probably cheaper. It too vents out the back, and has done since it was first released nearly a year ago.

 

wow sam, what a coincidence! I was just getting bored last night and decided to put a list togeather to upgrade my computer to PCI-e this summer. It included:

Western Digital 10,000rpm 150GB Raptor X
OCZ GameXstream 700watt PSU
OCZ Ati Crossfire 2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 800
ASUS P5B LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Ultimate
Diamond
DIAMOND 2900XT1GPE Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB 512-bit GDDR4

Total Cost is around $1520USD

Is this ok? What do you think?

Oh yea, regarding the processor question, I have a Socket 478 Prescott 3.2GHz HT processor, running at 3.759Ghz according to CPUZ right now. So you think I can get to 4Ghz with 1.6v? Or will I need to up it more? The Bios goes (from smallest to largest) 1.6, 1.7, 1.8,1.9 blah blah blah.


EDIT: Btw, I found this cool video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...=37&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

 

It's pleasing to see that using GDDR4, the HD2900XT is finally a product to outperform the 8800GTX. I had no idea until I just looked how much better the Diamond Viper peforms. it being able to overclock to gain an extra 15% performance boost only sweetens the deal. That will be a kickass PC, Waymon, if a little loud.

I highly doubt you can get to 4Ghz with 1.6V. If you can't get there with 1.7V, don't try to get any further or you'll risk damaging the CPU. 4Ghz was a pretty amazing goal a while back, so don't think you'll have a doddle of a time of it.

 

Yea, I think I will only try to get to 4Ghz when I get all my new stuff, that way I can rsik blowing the $30 processor and replace it with a $250 one...

Any recommendations on a mobo though? I need something that will have 1 PCI-e slot since I wont be doing sli or crossfire, and I need 3PCI slots and something that has ddr2 800 as its main memory, any ideas? All suggestions are welcome since I'm still a noob at looking for mobos.

Oh yea, is it ok if I keep my processor at 3.75Ghz with 1.6volts? Or will the cpu blow later on?

 

1.6V isn't that much above stock, you should be alright. With regard to the motherboard, the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 revision 3.3 is a good one to go for.

 

Waymon
Sammorris

That was an awesome video Raymond! Just what Sam was talking about.

Sam, you said that you read some stuff showing the Diamond outperforming the 8800 - the benches I read showed slightly underperforming? Can you link me to what you were reading. Thanks!

 

Well I read that the 8800 does outperform the 2900 in only some tests. In other tests the 2900 outperforms it... So I guess its half and half. I just dont ant to spend $650 on a graphics card... I would like one with GDDR4 and 1GB of vram, that way I can be ready for the future.

 

and the 2900 is only $450 right now, right?

 

$520 on newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103044

 

You guys gonna give this thread a rest? lol

BTW Why get a 2900 XT, when you can get a 8800 GTX for about the same price?

 

Well, the 2900 has 1gb of ram... Also has 320 stream processors, a higher core clock and memory clock... It runs with less heat also. Not really sure if my tidewater will fit it though... Or if it will even keep up with the heat.

Dont really want to spend $650 anyway, I want to stay under $1500 with my upgrade.

EDIT: sammoris, you really think my x1950xt will be able to play crysis? It comes out in 9 days here in the US, hope I can play it....

 

Waymon

Sam said it would - not your laptop. I'm counting on it, 'cause I want to play it too. It's finally coming out - awesome! You most likely won't be able to max all the settings, but .... Well, we'll have to see how you and kardson do with it.

Rich

 

Well the thing that scares me most is that I just downloaded the World In Conflict demo-fantastic game by the way, and got fairly good fps in the beginning, but then they were pretty bad, usually about 10-15... I just hope I can play Crysis with medium, some high at 1024/768 with at least 20fps...

 

Wow I would think so at 1024 x 768. Maybe start out with everything on low settings, making sure you're at least getting 20 to 30 fps, then you can turn a few things on. I recently found out that I take a big fps hit with AF, but AA is not too bad, and vsynch doesn't hurt at all if I throw triple buffer in there which is supposed to fix the vsynch hit. However, with only 256mb on the Gecube, you might have to be careful about high settings on textures, fog?, etc. etc.

(That's why I like your thinking on the 2900 - 1 gig of memory, and all those shader pipelines doing 5 things at once versus the 8800 doing one thing at once - maybe not being fully implemented in programming now but I believe you're right about providing room for future growth.)