Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

Well okay, Ray. Regarding RAM, off the top of my head, I thought the x2900 used DDR4 memory. Yeah, I found it a couple pages back: here's what you said about it:

And then here's what Sam said:

So anyway, I was talking about system RAM, those two really nice looking ATI DDR 2 RAM sticks. I don't know how much more expensive DDR3 is than DDR2, or how much faster, but I think all the p35 chipset boards support DDR 3 now, right Sam?

(So where did kardson disappear to - Hawaii?)

You got any links to that case of yours, Raymond? Or any pictures? What do you like about it - how's the ventilation?

-rich

 

Well I just looked on newegg at the ddr3 ram, and it is very expensive. I think the cheapest pair (2GB) was $470, which is twice as much as the kind I wanted. DDR3 is way faster though, the sticks I want are PC6400, while the DDR3 sticks are 10,070 I think. They go all the way up to 15000. (basically, the higher the number, the faster then memory)

As for the 2900XT, I found this which is pretty amazing:



now, regarding my 900 case, I dont have any pictures at the moment, but I will try to take some and get them up here as well as some benchmarks.

 

Hey, don't bother about DDR3. I just read an Anandtech review matching up DDR2 versus DDR3.

anandtech ddr2 versus ddr3

Here's what they said:

Btw, they also talked very enthusiastically about the board you are planning to get!

They also talked about something else - the ability of the newer processors to run on the 1333 front side bus, even though they aren't officially rated to do that.

I am not exactly sure I understood what they said, maybe Sam can clarify it. It looks to me that if you make sure your p35 board supports 1333 fsb, and I think they all do, and that your processor runs at least at 1066, then you will be able to get painless overclocking by specifying 1333 on your fsb.

Thanks Raymond! Those crysis demo results were awesome. Did you notice that the ATI 2900 board which was kicking ass over the 768mb 8800GTX, has the standard 512mb DDR3 memory.

Wow, let's look at that again! (ATI is kickin some ass!)

...................


How would your Diamond have done, with 1 gig of DDR4?

Yeah, when you get around to it, I'd like to see some pictures of your case.

Rich

 

I wonder if that anandtech article was a little dated - back in May I think. Maybe the latest DDR3s, as you say, are waaaay faster, and pricier, and maybe they will make a difference.

 

Not yet, their speed is better but they have worse latency. By the way GDDR4 is DDR3 ram I believe.

I wasn't kidding my full name is Abuzar Baloach lol.

You guys know whats up with SLI or Crossfire ram? What difference does it make from high performance ram running in dual channel?

 

There's no such thing as SLi or crossfire RAM, they just put the brand names on their as a marketing gimmick. They're standard high performance memory modules underneath.

Note that GDDR3 does not equal DDR3, different tech, different use. However, GDDR4 is worth having for graphics cards, DDR3 is not yet worth having for system RAM. Nice benchmarks, looks like the 2900XT may finally prove useful! Shame that it uses so much power and makes so much noise though.

 

I think I am alive again.

Used the last couple days to set up Wake on Wan on my home computers.
Thus allowing me to POWER ON the computer from work... Pretty nifty since I remote to it to talk to you guys.

Side Note.. Pain pills are GOOOOD once the severe pain is gone.

Anyhow, Im up for a little BF2 this weekend.

 

Scratch what I said before. GDDR3 RAM was ALMOST(shared the same tech base) as DDR2 but GDDR4 is not related to DDR3.

 

Fair enough, I had no idea. It's worth noting that DDR2 at much above 1Ghz is rare, but quite a few graphics cards use GDDR3 almost at 2Ghz.

 

Well, nice to have kardson back, and I can go play BF2 this saturday after 12. Just give me a server name and a time, and I'll be there. Im on the east coast, just so you know and we dont get our times all mixed up.

I really hope that the 2900XT will play Crysis the way the graph that I posted before says it will. Everything on high, and constant fps above 40! Thats awsome. I just wonder how well the Gecube will play. Ill get the demo on the 25 and post some bench marks.

Btw, I am at school now, and the internet SUCKS! it took me like 4 minutes to load this page so I can reply, so dont expect me to reply a lot right now.

 

Only one way to find out I suppose...

 

I'm good, my trusty 7600 GT will give me awesome frame rates of 5 FPS!

@Sam
I didn't say they were the same, it's just that they are based of the same technology. It would be awesome to have 2Ghz RAM wouldn't it?

 

yes it would. I just found a part in Extraction point where I only get 5fps. At 1680x1050 as well! :-(

 

karson
sammorris
abuzar
waymon

Hey dudes,

Travis, you're back!

So maybe we're on for the BF2 Matchup!

Maybe you should send a private message to Raymond so you guys can hook up on instant messenger or something so you can synchronize the match. (We'll find out for once and for all if omega drivers rule .... or not!)

Hey Travis, I'm making progress on the computer airflow. I've been cutting holes in my case like crazy! Trying to run the kama bay fan-less didn't quite work so I'm waiting for Sam's 1600 rpm scythe to show up. They dropped it from $30 to $20 on newegg so I ordered it. (Hey, if anybody knows, could they tell by a cookie that I had looked at it before, and did they drop it for me - do they do marketing stuff like that? I just thought it was odd - they had a big slash through the $29.99 new price $19.99. Or do they run specials all the time? I was going to pay the $30

I picked up a big square grill to cover the expanded rectangular vent that I had, and I picked up a sunbeam overclocking kit for the hose and now the cpu is direcly ducted to the outside round hole. You should see the cpu temp start jumping up when I block off the hole! Anyway, the point is that my cpu is completely protected from the Gecube heat - it doesn't matter how hot the inside of the case gets.

Sunbeam even included a small square grill with plastic cover holding on a filter - and the kama bay has a filter, so all my intakes have filters. And my case has a little bling with two decent looking grills. (I tried to take a picture just now with my cell phone but it came out too dark even with the lamp - it's a black case.)

Hey regarding the Diamond 1 gig benches. I read a strange review that compared it to the stock ATI 2900 with 512mb - they were trying to see how much the memory helped. On one game for sure, I forget the game, maybe oblivion, the extra memory really increased the framerates, like about 30%. A couple of others they couldn't tell. But in a few games, the framerates were actually lower????? Why would you ever get lower fps with more memory? Does that make sense to anybody? Sam, got any theories?

Good luck with the matchup!

Rich

 

Wow, a game that has Sam slowed down? I thought you always turned that Dell way up to 2500 x 1600, all high settings, with your close-to-7000 3dmark rig.

Hey abuzar, how come you don't join us in Gecube heaven, so you too could have nightmares with the tec cooler?

 

Well I have a 7600 GT and I'll get a new card when the Nvidia 9 series comes out and prices go down. Sorry guys, I guess I can't share your misery.

 

Oh man, come join the x1950xt misery clan! lol

But anyways, my sn is Waymon3x6 on AIM, so you can im me if you want... As for the 1gb doing worse than the 512mb version, I have no clue why that would be. Can you shoot me a link to that review? Thanks

 

Oh this is pretty cool: http://www.crysisdemo.com/crysis-demo-download/crysis-system-requirements-ea-store.jpg

It's a screen shot of the crysis minimum system requirements that were posted on the EA web site, but then they got deleted



Damn, 16GB of hard drive space! Thats one hell of a big game!

 

One more thing, lol. Here are the bench marks rich wanted from my antec 900 case. I played BF2 Singleplayer 64 on Daqing Oilfields for about 25minutes, and here are the temps:

GPU Highest: 47.74C
GPU Lowest: 38.50C

Environment Temp Max: 35C
Environment Temp Min: 33C

CPU Max: 141F
CPU Min: 106F

(GPU core was at 675, mem at 837, cpu at 3.75Ghz, and tidewater on full)

 

I fixed the problem by turning off shadows, it now runs at max 2560x1600. The shadows on FEAR are very tough to render. To max the game out fully and it run smoothly all the way round you'd need a good 15,000 3dmarks at least.
I think Abuzar has a PCI express system so he doesn't need to join you!