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Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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4. October 2007 @ 14:45 |
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waymon
kardson
abuzar
sammorris
dinc
Man, I did a full fledge multi-hour session on my gaming computer, and my case is so well ventilated, and my x850xtpe gpu is running so cool, I can't believe it. It always ran in the 90s, then I got it down to the 80s, and now my case is so cool, it maxed at 72 and stayed there the whole time. No screen jitters, no stalls, and no crashes. The default fan settings before were 14% all the time, 18% at 86, I think, then 100% at 94. (Ati factory defaults were letting it heat up to 94 before they ramped up the fan - can you believe that!)
Now thanks to everybody's great advice:
I have the kama bay taking up 3 5.25" slots in the front, with a 1600 rpm 120mm scythe fan. The other intake fan is the cpu fan - I think it's 100mm - pulls pretty hard - and I have that ducted to the side case cover round hole with the sunbeam overclocking kit - so it is totally isolated from case heat.
So that is two intakes, both with dust filters. I have four vent fans. 1. The psu has an inlet fan and an exhaust fan which used to be the only strong exhaust fan. 2. I replaced the weak 80mm back case fan, which was only running 1200 rpm, with a 2.5amp that blows hard 3. the lower rectangular opening now has the 120mm 800 rpm scythe that came with the kama bay, and 4. I installed the blitztorm pci slot fan with turbine, which includes a secondary regular fan blowing up at an angle on the graphics card. I normally leave the blitztorm turned off, which runs it at low rpms, but you can really feel it blow (and you can hear it) turned all the way up.
So ventilation-wise I am ready for the x1950 gecube. I hope I have enough watts left. I have an Allied 500 watt supply, but I figure that with the additional fans, I have probably added 100 watts (Edit 10 watts) of additional fan draw from how it was before. I showed my PC Trade buddy, Mo, and he said "I just hope you don't run out of power with all those extra fans." EDIT: I was off by a power of 10 - for example the powerful 80mm case fan I installed which really blows hard, is using .25 amps, whereas my memory told me 2.5 amps. With the true amperage at only .25, power usage is .25 amps x 12 volts equals 3 watts. That's all! Duh! So, like kardson told me a long time ago - fans don't use much power. I have probably only added about 10 watts of power usage with these extra fans! What the heck was Mo blabbing about!
Btw, for those of you who play Day of Defeat, and who don't like getting murdered regularly by the Axis side on Avalanche (the map where the Axis jump out of the window to get the Allied flag #1 and win the round) I have discovered the secret to allied dominance! We had about 12 guys on each team, and I was on a server that kept playing that map. We lost to the nazis 13 times in a row. I had decided that the reason was we couldn't control the house, so the little b**stards were shooting us from the window over our first flag and jumping down to take the round, toward the end, wiping us out in 30 seconds. It was humiliating! But working on the house didn't really help. Finally I decided to go through the first house and jump out the window whenever I re-spawned after we were down to just that last flag. I jumped down and recapped the flag, and set up a BAR on the ground partially behind the sand bags to try to cover the courtyard. That worked! I was just trying to stall the inevitable quick nazi victory, but astonishingly, they didn't get the courtyard. Then more buddies came up and we had all kinds of firepower on the ground covering that courtyard. Finally I advanced up and somebody else joined me, and we got that middle flag! And then we won! We proceeded to win 9 of the next 10 rounds, losing only when I tried something else beside a strong BAR defense of our flag #2. I think I like avalanche now! :) -rich
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 6. October 2007 @ 15:44
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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4. October 2007 @ 14:51 |
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Hey Kardson
I just got promoted to Member. (thank you in advance everybody for your congratulations :) I remember, Travis, when we both lost newbie status at the same time about a month ago, then your daughter got hurt (how's she doing - I hope better!) and now you're a few posts behind!
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Senior Member
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4. October 2007 @ 15:23 |
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Well congrats on the member status! Anyways, we Travis and I are going to play on Saturday at 6pm EST (not sure what server yet, I'll keep emailing). So we'll probably have the results by next week...
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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4. October 2007 @ 16:07 |
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Thank you senior member Ray. Let the matchup begin!
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kardson
Junior Member
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4. October 2007 @ 17:03 |
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Grats on the Member status.
Our plan is to play BF2 this weekend to final up the score and seem who reigns.
As for my daughter, she's doing fine. Starting to learn how to walk with the cast.
Should be off in like 2 weeks (toddlers heal fast)
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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4. October 2007 @ 17:41 |
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Hey thanks, Trav.
Oh, she's a little toddler, poor kid. What, like around 3 or 4? I'm glad she's healing fast. You guys must of been upset!
The matchup is finally gonna happen!! Yea!!
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kardson
Junior Member
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4. October 2007 @ 17:59 |
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2 1/2
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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4. October 2007 @ 18:33 |
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Awww, that's little! You bet, grumpy. I don't blame her. She hasn't even been walking all that long. So did all the kids draw cool pictures on her cast?
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kardson
Junior Member
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4. October 2007 @ 18:37 |
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Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 4. October 2007 @ 18:37
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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5. October 2007 @ 05:11 |
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Harvrdguy: Please be aware that when you add the X1950XT there's a high chance of all your components being fried by that Allied power supply. Get rid of it and get something of higher quality.
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kardson
Junior Member
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5. October 2007 @ 09:02 |
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I should mention that the FPS dips of 0 were because I was not In game.. not because my card was at 0fps
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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5. October 2007 @ 09:12 |
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How did you produce those graphs? I'm interested.
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Senior Member
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5. October 2007 @ 10:54 |
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its a function in ati tray tools. i will try to get something like that up here in a little bit, but probably not today. kardson, what were the avg fps? i cant really tell with that graph... Can you do something simular for the Crysis beta? Thanks.
Also, why are your env. temps so high? You're still using the Tec cooler correct?
EDIT; btw kardson, how long did you play for?
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. October 2007 @ 10:58
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kardson
Junior Member
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5. October 2007 @ 11:10 |
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The Graph was made by Ati Tray Tools
Go to the options and under the HARDWARE --> Monitoring Graphs
you'll be able to monitor different things on the same or seperate graphs...
Then start your game up and play for a while.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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5. October 2007 @ 17:25 |
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sam
What symptoms will I suffer if I turn out to be underpowered with the Allied 500watt psu - (gecube minimum says 450, and a newegg reviewer said his 460 Antec was running it fine.)
You say "fried" - will I suffer crashes, blue screens, or will my computer just die?
In other words, can I give it a try first? Or would that be like "trying" to mix a little nitroglycerine in with my petrol to see if my car develops more horsepower? :)
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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5. October 2007 @ 17:29 |
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Nice graph - looks like a minimum of about 30 fps, with average of about 40-50. Why did you turn off AA? Does even minimal AA like 2x, or 4x, have that much of an effect? (I thought 4x AA didn't take too much horsepower.)
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Senior Member
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5. October 2007 @ 18:22 |
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Well for me it does. I tried a singleplayer 16 map, fushee pass, with AA on all the way (I think its 8x, or maybe 6x, I forget), and I got around 20fps. Usually its a lot lower than that, like in the teens.
Regarding the PSU, I think sam is just worried because its an Allied PSU, and I havent ever heard of that brand before, so I think he worried that its not putting the watts out that it says it does. Most "other brand" PSUs put out less than what they're rated for.
kardson
Also, why are your env. temps so high? You're still using the Tec cooler, correct?
btw, how long did you play for?
Also, can you do something like this for the Crysis beta?
Thanks
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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6. October 2007 @ 03:51 |
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Harvrdguy: It's not the wattage, it's the brand. Allied isn't exactly a well known PSU brand, and it has appeared in a few 'do not buy from' lists I've seen. Essentially, cheap power supplies can never deliver the amount of power as written on the label, not that some won't work, but that not a single one will, due to the fact that the components inside are so cheap they will only work up to 200W before melting, shorting or just failing.
When you exceed the natural limit of a good power supply, it will shut down. When you exceed the natural limit of a cheap power supply, what I mentioned above happens. If you're fortunate, the PSU will be destroyed but nothing else. If you're not fortunate, a huge amount of current gets sent through your components, damaging several of them. When it happened to me with a 450W Qtec, I lost a hard disk (and of course its data), a stick of RAM and a floppy drive, the latter of which started to catch fire. if left on when you're out, a cheap PSU could in fact burn down your house.
If you 'give it a try first' you may very well regret it.
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kardson
Junior Member
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6. October 2007 @ 07:22 |
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It was about a 30minute session from that big dip to 0fps to the end.
I don't have the pactience to do the same for crysis, but I will say I was getting mid teens to low 20's FPS in crysis on LOW settings and 1440x900 resolution. There were dips to single digits making the gameplay unenjoyable.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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6. October 2007 @ 12:35 |
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What lower resolutions do you support - I wonder how bad it would look to scale down, like 1000 x 625 or some such, which would be about half the pixels - should help a lot on framerates I would guess, maybe 20 to 30 - much more playable.
I just wonder how much of an effect that would have on the look of the game? How about taking some screen shots of your current 1440 x 900, and then screens at half the pixels.
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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6. October 2007 @ 12:40 |
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Sam, you've got a future in the insurance business!
Wow, giving it a try doesn't sound like such a good idea any more. What power supplies do you recommend?
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Senior Member
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6. October 2007 @ 14:01 |
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Ok, I just played with kardson in bf2 for a short time, maybe 10-15 minutes, and it seams that he is getting about the same frames as me. Which was kinda odd since I have the omega drivers and was expecting an increase. He got around 70+ fps, while I got about the same.
heres a graph at the end of the game:
As you can see BF2 uses up all of the x1950xt's vram, which isnt real good. I'm sure if there was more, maybe 512mb we would have way better fps as well.
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Senior Member
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6. October 2007 @ 14:03 |
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Oh man thats a small pic, I'll try to get it inlarged in a minute....
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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6. October 2007 @ 14:10 |
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Hmm, 1440x900 is a low resolution to find a game unplayable at, the lowest I've had to go down to in order to get decent frame rates is 1680x1050, if you can't even get good performance at 1440x900, I'd say it's to do with running out of VRAM.
Harvrdguy: I recommend the OCZ Stealthxstream 600W and the Corsair HX 520W PSUs, they're well built, offer solid performance and the latter is incredibly quiet.
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kardson
Junior Member
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6. October 2007 @ 15:42 |
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Correction - My FPS hovered around 80 more than 70.
With Peaks to 93
so average was mid 80s with lows in mid 70s and highs in low 90s
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
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