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The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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19. January 2011 @ 15:38 |
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If you're willing to settle for large drops in performance in certain places you can play it on reasonable hardware now. At 1680x1050 medium with no AA, you can average 60fps on a lowly HD6850.
Even 2560x1600 with mostly high settings could possibly be run on two current cards, it depends on crossfire scaling. The results in italics are derived from crossfire/SLI benches that considerably underperform results derived from single cards, indicating poor multi-GPU scaling. This may no longer be an issue with more modern cards.
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Red_Maw
Senior Member
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19. January 2011 @ 16:55 |
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I was mostly joking, but my idea of satisfactory is 1920x1080 high with some AA, average 60fps and no drops below 50fps. Call me unrealistic but if they put the graphical detail in there I want to see it lol.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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19. January 2011 @ 18:15 |
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Well, a minimum of 50fps at 1920x1200 with some AA gives you this:
Low AA, Very High AF, All Very High settings, 1200 View distance: Three HD6970s
As above, but Normal AA and 1600 View distance: Four HD6970s.
I don't have any nvidia figures for 1920x1200 with AA unfortunately, but interpolating the 2560x1600 results, I would guess:
Low AA, Very High AF, All high settings with very high terrain, 1200 view distance: two GTX680s, whenever such a card appears
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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20. January 2011 @ 13:39 |
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LOL ARMA II.
Thanks for the performance numbers Sam.
Omega, I'd say bite the bullet and play it now. I played my whole first time through on a single 4870 which runs it a bit worse than a 260 and I'd say its playable enough to enjoy. SRSLY you're gonna skip a great game because you can't average 60? I would never have played anything to begin with then...
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388 |
AfterDawn Addict
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20. January 2011 @ 13:55 |
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I never said I'd skip it lol! And actually, I've found GTA IV (when playing with settings) to dip down to 30FPS, and it doesn't bother me. 60 is nice of course. Time is more my problem. Plus at this time, I'd feel guilty playing games. Let's just say that the household is suffering a financial fiasco :( Sure wish I had a second job. Making money on computer projects on the side isn't covering it.
Man, a friend just asked me to look at their friends computer. Virus or something. Apparently they called somebody, and this somebody wants 100$ just to come out and look at it. I laughed about that. I generally don't charge anything If I can't fix it :p But google and I are very close. I don't give up easily!
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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20. January 2011 @ 17:45 |
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Well, I hear you, Kevin, about finances. I am thinking of making a move to increase my house sales to get my finances into better shape. Not for Arma II - since that's 3 generations out still, or even for Metro 2033, which, while Jeff said some interesting stuff about the amazing graphics and lighting, is still basically a futuristic subway system shooter. That's too much of a stretch for me since I'm basically World War II, with some zombie detours, courtesy of you guys having gotten me hooked on L4D, lol.
My friend Mo, with his computer store, made quite an increase in his basic analysis charge, since the competition is like what you mentioned in your post - they charge $100s just to take a look. Since your time is valuable, Kevin, you might consider telling your friend that you don't mind trying to dig in and fix the situation, but they need to come up with $50 up front for you to start tinkering with it - and that is non-refundable. Tell them you'll try to get it fixed for that - if possible, and you'll be very reasonable about additional charges - but you have bills to pay like everybody else.
I like your flip, versus flop discussion, Sam. So you have a flip - a radical upgrade, whereas for you a sandy bridge cpu would be a flop, a refinement.
For me, I guess a sandy bridge would be a flip - moving from core 2 quad cpu, to i5 or i7, but I think I'll stick with the 9450 for the time being, and expand my memory.
Since you discovered, Sam, that you don't need more than 6 gigs of memory to run Warhead, and it is running so well that you don't think putting it on an SSD would make much of an improvement, that tells me that if I max out my P5E motherboard with 8 gigs of DDR2, I should be okay for a while.
Plus it's a crossfire motherboard, with a full 16 lanes of pci-e per card, not that that seems to matter all that much, as you have pointed out many times. Anyway, with a 64 bit O/S, 8 gigs of memory, some basic overclocking on the 9450, and at least one 6970, maybe moving to another one later on, I should be okay, even maybe for Warhead, provided I don't mind fps in the low 30s. And you mentioned that my power supply, at 750 watts, Toughpower, should handle that. Plus I could move everything to the spedo, and get the psu out of the hot box case.
So right now, besides the 6970 upgrade, I am pricing out 8 gigs of memory. I have 4 slots, but they are all used with 4 x 1 gig of memory. My board will take PC9600 (1200mhz) but what is in there now is PC8500 (1066 mhz.) Newegg has 8 gigs of G.Skill 1100mhz PC8800 Cas 5, timings 5-5-5-15, for $199, and it has 4 gigs of G.Skill for $84, times two kits = $168, same latency and timings, but slower at 800mhz. So based on those numbers, going from 800 to 1100mhz, from $168 to $199, is 18% more cost, but 37% faster speed.
There is also a lot of new and used memory on ebay, especially 4 gigs in 2 x 2 gig kits. I can get brand new kingston, cas 5, 5-5-5-15, 1066, for $76 each, two kits coming in at $152 - one vendor has 7 kits available.
Do you guys have any memory advice for me to consider? On the 8 gigs, if I try to deal on ebay, should I try to get the same brand of memory, or does it matter that much as long as the speed is the same.
Rich
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 20. January 2011 @ 17:54
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AfterDawn Addict
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20. January 2011 @ 18:06 |
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Thanks for the advice Rich, I may just do that ;) But I'm still too green to be asking that much. My friend is bringing their computer tower to me. So I won't charge much at all. I don't like going to meet strangers. People make me unnaturally uncomfortable. Can't help it :( I have a social anxiety. Nothing like you'd understand. I border on panic attacks. I've developed SOME control over it, but I'm still highly nervous LOL!
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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20. January 2011 @ 18:19 |
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It's a little odd, as despite the fact that LGA1366/1156 were the flip, they consituted less of a performance increase in more cases than LGA1155 has done.
With 1366/1156 vs 775 you got 20% more performance per clock, and clock speeds pre-overclock were about the same, 10% higher post-overclock.
With 1155 vs 1156 you got only 10% more performance per clock, but clock speeds pre-overclock are a good 15% higher on the range, and 25% higher per unit cost, and post-overclock clock speeds are still a good 20-25% higher than LGA1155.
As it stands though, for a gamer, Sandy Bridge doesn't allow me to do any more than I already can, it's more of an upgrade for process worker machines, video encodes and renders etc. will be quicker.
Quote:
it is running so well that
That isn't the expression I'd use :P
Power-wise, the highest I have seen my system draw with the 6970s is 605W AC, in Crysis when looking at the flare on the ground in 'contact', which always caused performance leak issues (I think the animation for it is bugged).
At my PSU's 87% efficiency, This represents 525W DC draw. A 600W unit would handle my system comfortably, as it turns out.
Typically I only see 530W ac, 560W only in Crysis, 460W and 485W DC respectively. A big improvement on the 700W of the dual 4870X2 system.
$152 for 8GB of DDR2 is still a lot of money. The 8GB of DDR3 I bought is only $115 on newegg, and if you're spending $370 on an HD6970, or worse, $740 on two, you really need a faster CPU to avoid a bottleneck.
What I'd recommend, is going with HD6950s. They're 90% of the speed, for 81% of the price. They still have the 2GB of memory, and the high resolution resilience of the 6970.
Add the $152 you would spend on DDR2, the $140 you save on the graphics cards, and you have an 'upgrade pot' of $292.
An i5 2500K, P67A-UD4 and 8GB of XMS3 RAM are $534, so that's only $234 extra to raise. You simply won't see the benefit of crossfire without a faster processor.
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Senior Member
4 product reviews
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21. January 2011 @ 06:03 |
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Originally posted by sammorris:
It's a little odd, as despite the fact that LGA1366/1156 were the flip, they consituted less of a performance increase in more cases than LGA1155 has done.
With 1366/1156 vs 775 you got 20% more performance per clock, and clock speeds pre-overclock were about the same, 10% higher post-overclock.
With 1155 vs 1156 you got only 10% more performance per clock, but clock speeds pre-overclock are a good 15% higher on the range, and 25% higher per unit cost, and post-overclock clock speeds are still a good 20-25% higher than LGA1155.
As it stands though, for a gamer, Sandy Bridge doesn't allow me to do any more than I already can, it's more of an upgrade for process worker machines, video encodes and renders etc. will be quicker.
Quote:
it is running so well that
That isn't the expression I'd use :P
Power-wise, the highest I have seen my system draw with the 6970s is 605W AC, in Crysis when looking at the flare on the ground in 'contact', which always caused performance leak issues (I think the animation for it is bugged).
At my PSU's 87% efficiency, This represents 525W DC draw. A 600W unit would handle my system comfortably, as it turns out.
Typically I only see 530W ac, 560W only in Crysis, 460W and 485W DC respectively. A big improvement on the 700W of the dual 4870X2 system.
$152 for 8GB of DDR2 is still a lot of money. The 8GB of DDR3 I bought is only $115 on newegg, and if you're spending $370 on an HD6970, or worse, $740 on two, you really need a faster CPU to avoid a bottleneck.
What I'd recommend, is going with HD6950s. They're 90% of the speed, for 81% of the price. They still have the 2GB of memory, and the high resolution resilience of the 6970.
Add the $152 you would spend on DDR2, the $140 you save on the graphics cards, and you have an 'upgrade pot' of $292.
An i5 2500K, P67A-UD4 and 8GB of XMS3 RAM are $534, so that's only $234 extra to raise. You simply won't see the benefit of crossfire without a faster processor.
Don't forget the DRM that's on the Sandy Bridge chip. P3 Processor Serial Number all over again if you ask me.
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AfterDawn Addict
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21. January 2011 @ 08:54 |
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Doesn't affect anything I do, don't see how it's relevant to be honest.
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Senior Member
4 product reviews
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21. January 2011 @ 20:40 |
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Originally posted by sammorris:
Doesn't affect anything I do, don't see how it's relevant to be honest.
Just thought i'd throw it out there.
it has the potential to be disastrous on so many levels but people will slop it up no matter Simply because its the Fastest thing on the block. Intel Knows this and there strong arming it.
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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22. January 2011 @ 02:31 |
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Quote:
An i5 2500K, P67A-UD4 and 8GB of XMS3 RAM are $534, so that's only $234 extra to raise. You simply won't see the benefit of crossfire without a faster processor.
I agree there, it takes a heavy duty system to properly utilize Crossfire. My 955 is barely enough to keep these 6850s happy, let alone a pair of 6970s. If you can get a decent overclock out of the CPU it will help buty it would be better matched with either slower cards or a faster CPU. That CPU at 3.4GHz+ would have no issue pushing my system just for the record and for the most part a pair of my cards would handle 2560 okay.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 22. January 2011 @ 02:33
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AfterDawn Addict
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23. January 2011 @ 23:54 |
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for shame AMD. pulling an nvidia and renaming the 5770 to a 6770. bad move.
MGR (Micro Gaming Rig) .|. Intel Q6600 @ 3.45GHz .|. Asus P35 P5K-E/WiFi .|. 4GB 1066MHz Geil Black Dragon RAM .|. Samsung F60 SSD .|. Corsair H50-1 Cooler .|. Sapphire 4870 512MB .|. Lian Li PC-A70B .|. Be Queit P7 Dark Power Pro 850W PSU .|. 24" 1920x1200 DGM (MVA Panel) .|. 24" 1920x1080 Dell (TN Panel) .|. |
AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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24. January 2011 @ 00:07 |
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Eh the going has been rather slow for me lately. My only game seeing any real play time is Bad Company 2. Been playing some Dirt and Grid and will probably start picking up new titles as the big wave comes out this year. Looking at Crysis 2, Homefront and Rage specifically. Call me an FPS junkie :P
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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24. January 2011 @ 00:17 |
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I need an FPS fix jeff! LOL! I crave like you wouldn't believe. I wanna crank the speakers, and dim the lights and go crazy. But my circumstances won't allow. I need another part time job badly. I've been scouring the web for an answer to no avail. Yes, I'm being picky...
I must admit though, a pizza delivery guy seems appealing! Easy money, and sounds like good tips in the right area ;) But I believe I use my own car, and I'm not gonna do that to my new ride :p
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AfterDawn Addict
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24. January 2011 @ 00:45 |
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Currently bouncing around seasonal jobs and going to school a few credits at a time. Thus my ability to play a few games regularly. I do try to get some game time in every day. Later this year like late summer all the way through December I'm busy every day, so I'm playing what I can.
Mainly I have a backlog of games from the Golden Era of consoles ie Gamecube, PS2, Xbox etc and a few of the bigger ones on the current gen. Everything worthwhile on the PC in the past few years I've at least finished once.
If you wanna talk time spent look at me and Half Life 2. The game is a good 20-30 hours of play if you take some time and enjoy it and I've beaten it some 25 times. I really enjoy the story and gameplay and it always puts me in a very nostalgic place with my X800GTO :) Was the game that made me so passionate about the power of gaming on a PC.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 24. January 2011 @ 00:46
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AfterDawn Addict
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24. January 2011 @ 07:42 |
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Originally posted by shaff:
for shame AMD. pulling an nvidia and renaming the 5770 to a 6770. bad move.
It's only going in OEM PCs, it won't be sold at retail, so I don't really care. I can see why they're doing it, as being a number step behind will suggest the cards are out of date, and sticking with the 40nm process they can't really do that much with them, at the low-midrange.
Came back last night from one of the better LANs I've had, was a great laugh. Was actually in a room with two other 6970 owners, so for S***s and giggles we decided to all turn our fan speeds to 100%, an HD6970 quartet lol.
Was some Left 4 Dead 2 scavenge going on as a prize tournament (we're sponsored by crucial, so there's usually some mediocre RAM to give away), and alas won our first round, but our team (me, one of the guys who plays with us regularly online, and two less-skilled players, not bad, but still) was no match for the winners, a team consisting entirely of 4 of the people we play with regularly.
Some UT2004 Team deathmatch went on as well, some stupidly close matches there, we won both, with 60 versus 59 kills, and 101 versus 100. We also had the benefit of the room's AV system setup (we use university classrooms) and we had it playing oldskool game soundtracks from UT/UT04, Quake 2, Daytona USA and Need for Speed 3 playing whilst we were gaming. Damn epic.
LONG session of CS:Source gungame occurred as well, with some hilarious knife exploits going on. Loads of crazy maps I'd not played in before, including one which was essentially gg_punishment (you may not know it, but a very popular gungame map) but re-modelled, around the nvidia headquarters! lol
Had a couple of short games of TF2 as well to almost complete the Valve multiplayer spectrum (We've had some HL2:DM before, even as a tournament, but not this event sadly), which I found out seems to have some issues with Crossfire. Didn't get round to trying it with CF disables though, as there's easily enough performance to run the game on one GPU there.
Was lots of GRiD, we must have had around 20 races, probably more, another interesting performance shernanigans here, was getting 350fps, which seemed a bit high, until I realised that I had no shadows being rendered. Turned out the game had reconfigured itself to low. D'oh! 180fps after turning it back up. Still, not bad.
Had some Trackmania going on too, which also appears not to work with crossfire (although only on my PC, not on the CF rig next to me, which was also fine in TF2, but couldn't run UT04 in CF), but this time it was not a performance/artifacts issue, it was a quality issue. CF seemed to force mipmaps to minimum quality, so half the game looked like 320x240 res. Yuck. Again, easily solved though.
Had a few moments spare to play some DiRT2 as well, which I haven't done so far, plays pretty well on my system, not that I'd expect otherwise.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 24. January 2011 @ 07:43
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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25. January 2011 @ 00:06 |
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Originally posted by Sam:
Came back last night from one of the better LANs I've had, was a great laugh.
That was some amazing LAN party! Some close games also - 101 to 100, 60 to 59, you guys did okay! And what a spectrum of games - lots of Valve action sounds like. (I still have yet to take TF2 for a try - afraid of the learning curve I guess, lol.)
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Originally posted by sam:
$152 for 8GB of DDR2 is still a lot of money. The 8GB of DDR3 I bought is only $115 on newegg, and if you're spending $370 on an HD6970, or worse, $740 on two, you really need a faster CPU to avoid a bottleneck.
What I'd recommend, is going with HD6950s. They're 90% of the speed, for 81% of the price. They still have the 2GB of memory, and the high resolution resilience of the 6970.
Add the $152 you would spend on DDR2, the $140 you save on the graphics cards, and you have an 'upgrade pot' of $292.
An i5 2500K, P67A-UD4 and 8GB of XMS3 RAM are $534, so that's only $234 extra to raise. You simply won't see the benefit of crossfire without a faster processor.
Hmmmmm. Well, interesting perspective on the situation. You have a good point. If I substitute 6950s, I save $70 per card, or $140 for the pair, at 90% of the performance of dual 6970s I guess. If dual 6970s are going to overpower my Q9450, even overclocked, then it would make sense to save a bit and throttle back to 6950s.
BUT, if I am ultimately going to ditch the Q9450 platform, it would make more sense, possibly, to take the more powerful 6970 with me over to the spedo with the new 1155 motherboard.
So here's another way of looking at it: The 10% faster 6970 may help me smooth out a game or two, on my current platform. For example, BC2. Let's say I invest in $152 of DDR2 - ok I see your point - I have thrown good money into a dead end platform. Precisely what I did with the p4 when I spent $75 on the 670 chip that took me to 3.8mhz up from my 3.2. On top of that I spent another $50 on an extra gig of memory, so that I could have two gigs for BF2. Ok - so I blew $120 on antiquated hardware - but it allowed me to string along until this Q9450 platform with the quirky Asus p5e mobo, fell into my lap.
So similar logic for the Q9450. If I upgrade it with $152 worth of memory - memory that I can't take with me to a new 1155 platform - then I have pulled that money from my upgrade budget.
BUT - 8 gigs is going to run smoother than 4, even with just one 6970. (I'm back to talking 6970, because the extra $70 for that card, versus a 6950, is NOT a dead end investment - I can of course take that card along with me to the new platform.) And so, the grand total of $520 upgrade, consists of $370 that I get to take with me, and $152 sunk in a dead-end platform. However, the $152 increases the effective life of the dead-end platform for me - but I guess your main point is that I might as well forget about Warhead for now with the Q9450. OK.
I don't think I worded the above very well. Let me summarize in this question: Warhead aside, is there any point in my spending $152 on DDR2 memory?
I already have 4 gigs. I WILL be installing the 64bit O/S very soon. Let's say I leave Warhead sitting on the shelf (literally - I already own it, lol.) With a Q9450, maybe slightly overclocked, and a 6970, I think we all agreed a few weeks ago that I should see mid-30 fps from BC2.
So if I stay away from Warhead, and Metro, and those other hardware stressing games, do I really need more memory for BC2? With a 6970, would the game run smoother for me with 8 gigs of memory, when Jeff or Shaff are trying to nail my butt to the wall, than with my current 4 gigs?
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Originally posted by Kevin:
I must admit though, a pizza delivery guy seems appealing! Easy money, and sounds like good tips in the right area ;) But I believe I use my own car, and I'm not gonna do that to my new ride :p
You have a new ride? What did you invest in? Is it the same car with the metal flakes in the transmission?
By the way, how would you handle the occasional social panic thing with those groups of total strangers you'd be delivering the pizza to. (Of course, you'd be riding in as the hero - the deliverer of VERY good eats - that probably would help a lot.) Some of what you said reminded me of a documentary I saw yesterday about the making of The King's Speech, which now I badly want to see. He had a panic issue which caused severe stammering. Have you seen the movie?
I like the other thing you said: "I need an FPS fix jeff! LOL! I crave like you wouldn't believe." That's exactly what caused me to start playing Condition Zero on my business desktop after too many months of abstinence. I had such an intense need to shoot something, it was crazy!!
By the way, Jeff, speaking of you, I note your BC2 concentration - it's the game that is getting the most use these days, you said. My gaming weekend is coming up this Friday through Monday, and I will be taking BC2 for a spin for the first time - still however on the 8800GTX - but the game put me at 2560x1600 resolution - which seems nice - but to do that I don't know how jaggy etc it's going to look - I don't know how it's going to play.
Shooting-wise I anticipate a steep learning curve until I am more of a help than a hindrance, but I'll try to jump right in on squad speak, if the other guys are using it. I noticed that the game apparently stresses squads more than BF2 did - I saw the button "Let us put you on a squad."
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Originally posted by Jeff:
If you wanna talk time spent look at me and Half Life 2. The game is a good 20-30 hours of play if you take some time and enjoy it and I've beaten it some 25 times.
Holy Crap! That's over 600 hours!!
Crazy - I was thinking of the game just today! (You guys won't believe me but a small group of family made a surprise visit to Seattle from LA when Miles was living up there - I think the occasion was his birthday. His wife met him at the back door of Valve for lunch, and the rest of us were just standing there when he came out and gave her a hug. Miles looked over at us, and he went into shock - he was dumbfounded. He didn't recognize any of us for a few seconds. Hahaha. It was priceless.
Anyway, he invited me in to playtest Half Life 2 for a few hours - I was stunned! "Yeah, sure, I'd like to do that.") He had already been telling me a lot about it. But in thinking about the game again this afternoon - I have already played it at least 4 times - a few years would have to pass before I'd go back to it again.
Still, you're right, it was soooo amazing. Handling my normal altitude nausea while running rapidly from combine rocket fire on the support tresses of the bridge - hundreds of feet above the water! The crazy "river ride" through the LA-like drainage canals. The spooky and sentimental visit to Alyx's old neighborhood, "We don't go to Ravenholm any more."
That was her old neighborhood Man! How dare those ghouls roam around jinxing that place up!
I think the most gripping part of the game for me, was meeting up with the rebels at the little "ranch" on the coast, after evading the ants in the dune buggy. I told Miles by phone later about the trouble I was having with the rocket launcher. He said I didn't pay close enough attention to the instructions. He said it would be better if I shot the weapon by firing randomly backward over my shoulder. With that tip, my game-play improved tremendously. The interaction with the citizens, for me, elevated that game to a special place in the single player fps genre.
I can see, Jeff, why it catapulted you to a focus on PC gaming. Come to think of it, it probably did the same for me, although I had never played on a console before going to a PC. (And virtually still haven't - maybe 10 minutes once trying an xbox!)
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Originally posted by DXR:
Don't forget the DRM that's on the Sandy Bridge chip.
Is that some kind of HDCP type of thing?
By the way, mentioning HDCP, after 60 days in route from China and a bunch of official-looking customs stamps on the package (my brother already got his money back and gave the guy a demerit) the $90 LG GGW-H20L optical drive my brother ordered from an ebay retailer for his phenom, finally arrived. (Newegg carried the product at one time.)
It seems like a great value, but probably won't last long - like Asus mobos, lol. He needed it because he had made a mistake and bought about 20 HD-DVDs - the "idiot" thought he was buying BluRays, lol. (I can say idiot - he doesn't read this forum - I HOPE!)
Anyway, I installed it out on the test bench, and it wouldn't initially play the HD-DVD on the arcsoft player, saying I flunked the HDCP test. I ran BDHD advisor, and saw that it was the Dell 20" LCD monitor that was the issue. The Cyberlink player also failed - but told me to switch from DVI to VGA. I did, got no screen image, put the DVI back on, and the movie started playing lol!
I defeated the HDCP! Take that Bill Gates!! Hahahaha. But the Toshiba big-screen 47" is indeed HDCP compliant, as I knew it was, so everything is now perfect.
We have to test the drive with a BluRay disk, and I told my brother that if it passes, he then has to pay the poor guy and reverse the bad rating, haha.
Rich
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7 product reviews
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25. January 2011 @ 01:07 |
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I'm buying my brothers 1996 Ford Explorer. Pretty good shape. I've always wanted an SUV :D
Social situations vary for me. On the job, things are more professional. I enter a kind of Mode. I have multiple different modes LOL! Some are more uncomfortable than others. Family gatherings for instance make me very nervous. Border on panic attacks. Interviews of course(like everyone else), Though I think I take it to an extreme. I panic so bad I shake. I pray people don't see this... On my computer, I feel half way normal. But not quite. In my own solitude, I can even make myself anxious. I know...That's not right. Believe me, I want to see a doctor about this, But talking about it is probably the worst nervousness...
Any way, back on topic.
How will my GTX 260 run on Dirt 1 and 2 I wonder. I may be coming in to some time to play. My Left arm may be approaching a medical situation. Long story :(
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 25. January 2011 @ 01:08
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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25. January 2011 @ 04:14 |
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I don't think it's quite 600 hours just on Half Life 2 Rich. Consider the Episodes, mod content, etc. Just an expression more than an exact figure. But yeah I've played a lot of Half Life 2.
So my biggest time users are(approximately):
Battlefield 2 - 250 hours
Bad Company 2 - 200 hours(as of yet)
Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion inc mods, expansions etc - 200 hours
Crysis/Warhead inc tweaking, modding - 120 hours
Grid/Dirt - 100 hours
Half-Life 2/Episodes 1 & 2 - 200 hours
Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 - 150 hours
All just guesses of course but don't be surprised if it's pretty close. That's the large bulk of my PC gaming.
Add another 300 or so hours for everything else on PC and another 300 hours for console games and that's my entire gaming history since about 2005.
Without a proper way to track my entire history of gameplay that's the best I can come up with. Who knows? Maybe it could turn out to be way more, or way less...
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 25. January 2011 @ 04:18
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AfterDawn Addict
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25. January 2011 @ 04:25 |
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xfire logs it if you need. thats what i use.
on xfire i have over 1500 hours of cod4 played, though i mus thave played a good 30-50 hours before using that.
MGR (Micro Gaming Rig) .|. Intel Q6600 @ 3.45GHz .|. Asus P35 P5K-E/WiFi .|. 4GB 1066MHz Geil Black Dragon RAM .|. Samsung F60 SSD .|. Corsair H50-1 Cooler .|. Sapphire 4870 512MB .|. Lian Li PC-A70B .|. Be Queit P7 Dark Power Pro 850W PSU .|. 24" 1920x1200 DGM (MVA Panel) .|. 24" 1920x1080 Dell (TN Panel) .|.
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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25. January 2011 @ 04:29 |
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LOL 1500 hours on one game. You can count me out.
Also, I have issues with Xfire. Never liked it much.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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25. January 2011 @ 08:42 |
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If I thought 6970 versus 6950 was a dead-end investment, I wouldn't have bought them for my system.
4GB versus 8GB really affects very little at this point. Of the games that need more than 4GB it encompasses crysis/warhead and GTA4. That's about it.
Anything else, if it does break 4GB, if I close a couple of background apps, it's under. The performance gain in games you can actually play on that Q9450/8800GTX is nil with 8GB of RAM at this point. It is only something that will be necessary after you make the graphics upgrade. You notice that I didn't upgrade my RAM until after the 6970s had been ordered.l
Even if the memory was transferrable to a new system it'd be silly to buy it now, since it isn't, it's completely pointless.
I'd have to hazard a guess at my playtime for these
CS: Source (mostly gungame) -c. 200 hours
Unreal Tournament 2004 - c. 500 hours
Unreal Tournament 3 - c. 100 hours
GRiD - c. 75 hours
Hl2/Episodes - single playthrough each, so 40 hours
Left 4 Dead 1/2 - c. 400 hours
Originally posted by Jeff:
Also, I have issues with Xfire. Never liked it much.
+1. It was terrible.
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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25. January 2011 @ 08:54 |
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Basically agreed with you Sam. There's really no benefit to going with 8GB of RAM unless building a system like yours or mine, and even then only Crysis needs it that badly. I found GTA4 to have very few differences while Crysis was pretty much completely transformed. Playing at maxed and I mean truly maxed settings sans AA is perfectly smooth and essentially hitch-free.
Also of note I only upped it to 8GB of RAM this month when I got a good offer, otherwise I'd still be on 4GB.
But to get to these settings you need quite a bit more than that 8800GTX. Again I stress greatly that if you care to overclock the CPU to a reasonable level, the Q9450 is still a monster performer. You can buy video cards first then, and do a platform switch later. CPU and platform aren't quite as time sensitive as video cards. The 8800GTX was truly a monster of a video card in it's day, but even two of them in SLI really lack the horsepower to play the newest games fluidly.
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+1. It was terrible.
Didn't like it auto-updating my games, the voice quality was terrible(Steam is magnificent in comparison), caused really long boot times, the program itself is not generally very stable or reliable, need I go on? If it were more useful I would certainly have given it a better shot. But as it stands it's like having Steam in an application that didn't call for, and never needed it. If I need in-game voice and friends networking, Steam does it better. And to make my point clear I don't find Steam to be very well made either, but certainly a longshot from Xfire.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 25. January 2011 @ 09:16
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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25. January 2011 @ 08:57 |
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If it helps, my memory usage whilst playing Warhead (with all my background stuff open) is 4.7GB. I'm sure that 700MB could be shaved off other places.
In other news, the Geforce GTX560 Ti is out in the UK, at £210 ($275).
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