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Corsair 450w VX + HD5870 ?
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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1. October 2009 @ 15:08 |
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I'm as yet undecided. An upgrade certainly will happen, but I'm sticking it out for a bit to see what everything's going to be like. With the HD4000 series I had the benefit of happening across extremely cheap cards which were being sold off for charity ex-Driverheaven (one of the sites that reviews graphics cards) and thus one of the X2s in my PC right now is the very card that produced the crossfire benchmarks on their site. Assuming I won't be so lucky here, I'm playing it safe while prices are high, for several reasons:
1. The HD5870 is in limited supply period, thus prices are inflated
2. I can't actually afford any new hardware until mid October when I receive another loan payment :P
3. nvidia have yet to release a DX11 card, it could be better, or even if it isn't, it will still push prices down
4. The 5870X2 is not yet released, and I am almost certainly going to try for a 2-GPU card again in order to leave options open for another tri or quad graphics setup.
5. I want to perform a CPU upgrade in order to justify more graphics power. The core i5 and core i7 is my upgrade of choice, but as to which I'm not yet sure, because...
6. The first Lucid Hydra motherboard is due for release in a few weeks' time. This is potentially the answer I'm looking for as the Core i5 is better for games than the i7, but lacks in PCIe bandwidth - which the Ludic chip will solve. Better than that it could mean I can pair any two cards together.
7. I have lots of other hardware to buy with regard to storage and cooling, along with some console stuff - funds are reasonably limited this time around.
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Member
1 product review
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1. October 2009 @ 15:17 |
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Originally posted by sammorris:
I'm as yet undecided. An upgrade certainly will happen, but I'm sticking it out for a bit to see what everything's going to be like. With the HD4000 series I had the benefit of happening across extremely cheap cards which were being sold off for charity ex-Driverheaven (one of the sites that reviews graphics cards) and thus one of the X2s in my PC right now is the very card that produced the crossfire benchmarks on their site. Assuming I won't be so lucky here, I'm playing it safe while prices are high, for several reasons:
1. The HD5870 is in limited supply period, thus prices are inflated
2. I can't actually afford any new hardware until mid October when I receive another loan payment :P
3. nvidia have yet to release a DX11 card, it could be better, or even if it isn't, it will still push prices down
4. The 5870X2 is not yet released, and I am almost certainly going to try for a 2-GPU card again in order to leave options open for another tri or quad graphics setup.
5. I want to perform a CPU upgrade in order to justify more graphics power. The core i5 and core i7 is my upgrade of choice, but as to which I'm not yet sure, because...
6. The first Lucid Hydra motherboard is due for release in a few weeks' time. This is potentially the answer I'm looking for as the Core i5 is better for games than the i7, but lacks in PCIe bandwidth - which the Ludic chip will solve. Better than that it could mean I can pair any two cards together.
7. I have lots of other hardware to buy with regard to storage and cooling, along with some console stuff - funds are reasonably limited this time around.
Wow, good job on the X2 :P. I wish the same could've happened to me.
I also keep forgetting my (b)otherboard only has one PCI-E slot, so that's pretty crappy. It also only supports Core 2.
I wish I could afford to get an i5 and a motherboard, but it's either Graphics Card and Case or Motherboard and CPU and Memory. And my 3850 is severly outdated.
But I don't want to bottleneck my 5870, so I'll need to get a C2Q to balance it I guess.
Computers are a Money Pit.
I've never heard of the Lucid Hydra, I'll check it out.
CPU -Intel Core i5 750 @ 3.36GHz w/ F7P Rev 2
GPU -Gigabyte HD6950 2GB
RAM -G.Skill 8GB (4x2GB) 1600Mhz
MoBo -Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L
HDDS -WD 320GB 16mb/ST 500GB 32mb (decommissioned)/Samsung Spinpoint 1TB + 2TB
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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1. October 2009 @ 15:26 |
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That's just the rap, I have two full 16x bandwidth slots with my Core 2 board, which I actually lose if I go i5, unless I use a Hydra board, and how much performance do I really get? Only way to tell is to try really. I'm tempted to get a QX9650 off ebay and see how far I can clock that instead, as long as I can find a cheap one - I'm mainly limited by FSB speed since I run so much out of my motherboard (4 GPUs in particular take a heavy toll on that) so an unlocked multiplier will be very welcome in alleviating the CPU bottleneck.
Trouble is, a QX9650 is likely to be £250-£300. An i5 750 with 4GB of DDR3 and a good motherboard is likely to only be £350, and if I get a QX9650, all I can sell is my old processor, whereas going i5 I can sell my old mobo and RAM as well - it might cost almost the same, and the i5 is certainly preferable - but what if I can't sell the old bits? :S
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 1. October 2009 @ 15:29
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Member
1 product review
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1. October 2009 @ 15:32 |
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Interesting.
What memory do you have now? I might buy it from you.
CPU -Intel Core i5 750 @ 3.36GHz w/ F7P Rev 2
GPU -Gigabyte HD6950 2GB
RAM -G.Skill 8GB (4x2GB) 1600Mhz
MoBo -Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L
HDDS -WD 320GB 16mb/ST 500GB 32mb (decommissioned)/Samsung Spinpoint 1TB + 2TB
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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1. October 2009 @ 15:36 |
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4GB Corsair XMS2 Dominator PC8500 (2x2GB). It'll be a while before I'm upgrading though, I'll make that quite clear, at least November, possibly even after christmas - also, unless you live in the UK, shipping won't be that cheap.
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1 product review
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1. October 2009 @ 15:44 |
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Originally posted by sammorris:
4GB Corsair XMS2 Dominator PC8500 (2x2GB). It'll be a while before I'm upgrading though, I'll make that quite clear, at least November, possibly even after christmas - also, unless you live in the UK, shipping won't be that cheap.
This might be a dumb question, but are they dual channel? And I thought you had mushkin :O?
I live in London, so shipping should be fine, and same, I'll only buy the memory from you after I buy the 5870 and the case, which is New Year+.
I'm a bit traumatized from memory though. I think I said before, I ordered 4GB Corsair memory, 1066MHz, it came (from ebuyer) very quickly in an envelope (memory ftw) but I was getting bluescreens. I'm using a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 motherboard and the ram I used before was 2x1GB 800MHz Corsair XMS2 Dual Channel..
Got any ideas why that might've happened? It booted up fine, but I went to run Company of Heroes and it bluescreened after the second cutscene. It has never done this before. So I went to the bios and changed the voltage and reset the CPU to normal FSB and everything, same thing happened.
I RMA'd it and they said it was faulty, but I never really did a Memtest on it.
Maybe I was just extremely unlucky with the memory, but I'm still a little weary.
Also, how much would you be willing to sell them for?
EDIT -
Also, when I turned the PC off, took the memory out and put the 2GB Dual Channel memory in (the one I already had) it wouldn't boot up. Maybe because the 4GB of ram I ordered wasn't dual channel and I put them in dual channel slots? I highly doubt that though, because Dual Channel memory can work in Single Channel mode...
CPU -Intel Core i5 750 @ 3.36GHz w/ F7P Rev 2
GPU -Gigabyte HD6950 2GB
RAM -G.Skill 8GB (4x2GB) 1600Mhz
MoBo -Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L
HDDS -WD 320GB 16mb/ST 500GB 32mb (decommissioned)/Samsung Spinpoint 1TB + 2TB
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 1. October 2009 @ 15:49
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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1. October 2009 @ 15:52 |
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Faulty memory can happen, but I've not tried using such high-speed memory in an older board, so I can't say for sure how reliable that is. Ebuyer often don't test RMAs (thankfully, as any intermittant faults are rejected by companies that do test) so them saying it was faulty is no 100% guarantee.
I'm not disclosing a price here because trading is against the rules, and memory prices will change in the time between now and then.
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Member
1 product review
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1. October 2009 @ 16:00 |
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Originally posted by sammorris:
Faulty memory can happen, but I've not tried using such high-speed memory in an older board, so I can't say for sure how reliable that is. Ebuyer often don't test RMAs (thankfully, as any intermittant faults are rejected by companies that do test) so them saying it was faulty is no 100% guarantee.
I'm not disclosing a price here because trading is against the rules, and memory prices will change in the time between now and then.
Definitely, I was going to edit my post again but I thought you would've already read it and I didn't want to double post again :P.
I guess we'll just have to talk again until new year.
You have steam don't you? Well if you don't really feel comfortable here you could always add me, you don't have to though. Vader_GotSkill.
I wish I had some 1066MHz memory to test..-_-. Because I need some fast memory so I can up my CPU from 3GHz to around 3.2ish, it really does make a difference on CounterStrike and other games/programs.
CPU -Intel Core i5 750 @ 3.36GHz w/ F7P Rev 2
GPU -Gigabyte HD6950 2GB
RAM -G.Skill 8GB (4x2GB) 1600Mhz
MoBo -Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L
HDDS -WD 320GB 16mb/ST 500GB 32mb (decommissioned)/Samsung Spinpoint 1TB + 2TB
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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1. October 2009 @ 16:09 |
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Counter Strike in particular is very CPU bound. I actually get the same performance with two 4870X2s as I did with my old HD3870 if I set my CPU speed the same...
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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2. October 2009 @ 09:33 |
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Weird, I just got an email saying this thread had been updated but there's no message here... :S
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1 product review
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2. October 2009 @ 09:40 |
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Really? I just got the same message!
CPU -Intel Core i5 750 @ 3.36GHz w/ F7P Rev 2
GPU -Gigabyte HD6950 2GB
RAM -G.Skill 8GB (4x2GB) 1600Mhz
MoBo -Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L
HDDS -WD 320GB 16mb/ST 500GB 32mb (decommissioned)/Samsung Spinpoint 1TB + 2TB
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