OT: PC Gaming Hardware Thread

[Rodster]

According to Newegg the 5850's average about $275 while the 6870's average $240. Your right prices should come down in about a month. I'm just waiting on the 6970's to see the price and if they can get close to a 5870 in performance.

[Rodster]

DB I picked up this card today. It ain't quite a 5870 but it doesn't draw the power of that sucker. Anyway should be a nice improvement over my 4670 and 9800GTX+.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161349

[dbdynsty25]

Nice...that's definitely an upgrade.

Get that sucker in and let me know how you like it.

[Rodster]

Nice...that's definitely an upgrade.

Get that sucker in and let me know how you like it.

Oh I will

I was going to get the 6970 but the rumor is it's going to go for around $500-600 and requires a hefty PSU that can run a 5870 but puts out more heat than th 5870. From what i've read the 6870 get's in the 5870 performance by about 10%. Not bad for a $240 card.

[dbdynsty25]

I refuse to buy top end cards. The price to performance isn't even close in my opinion, so I always stick to the mid to high range.

[Rodster]

I refuse to buy top end cards. The price to performance isn't even close in my opinion, so I always stick to the mid to high range.

Word !

I do the same for all my PC parts.

[DChaps]

I guess I need to do some research on the new ATI line. I was about to buy a 5850, but it sounds like the 6870 may be a better choice? In the past couple ATI cycles the ##50 was the lower end budget card, ##70 the mid range, and the ##90 the high end. I have a 4850 that I have been very happy with, especially with reduced fan noise and power consumption. I was about to go with the 5850 though to be able to do triple screen with the eyefinity setup. Let me know how you like it rodster.

[dbdynsty25]

The 5850s should go down in price now that the 68's are out...I absolutely love my 5850 so if you can get it cheaper than the 68 then by all means do it. I can't figure out why the 5850s have literally stayed the same price as when I bought it a year ago (or whenever it came out). It's amazing to me. I'd imagine they would go down now that there is a slight performance bump to the 68's for the same price or sometimes even slightly cheaper.

[Rodster]

First impressions, this card is a beast.

It makes my 9800GTX+ look tiny. It's ultra quiet, runs easily on a 500 Watt PSU with 44 amps. My WEI Score went from 6.7 to 7.8

There's ATI drivers for OpenCL, i'll need to check what API that is. Does anyone know if it's similar to OpenGL, i've never heard of OpenCL?

I'm running the full CCC driver suite and i'm tweaking my profiles with RadeonPro utility.

[Rodster]

Hey DB what's the purpose of HD Audio on a Radeon? Right now i'm using on board audio from my mobo. Can I turn off on board audio and use the Radeon instead?

[LAking]

Hey DB what's the purpose of HD Audio on a Radeon? Right now i'm using on board audio from my mobo. Can I turn off on board audio and use the Radeon instead?

HD audio most likely means audio pass through over HDMI. Unless you are using a TV/audio receiver or a monitor with built in speakers and an HDMI port then it doesn't make a difference. Also, the HD is really referring to lossless audio for bluray, and if those words don't give you an AV nerd boner than you should probably not worry about it.

[dbdynsty25]

Hey DB what's the purpose of HD Audio on a Radeon? Right now i'm using on board audio from my mobo. Can I turn off on board audio and use the Radeon instead?

HD audio most likely means audio pass through over HDMI. Unless you are using a TV/audio receiver or a monitor with built in speakers and an HDMI port then it doesn't make a difference. Also, the HD is really referring to lossless audio for bluray, and if those words don't give you an AV nerd boner than you should probably not worry about it.

Yes, over HDMI to a stereo receiver or TV. No need to get excited. Use your on board or get a new sound card if your audio needs aren't being met.

[Rodster]

Thanks for the explanation.

[Rodster]

Since switching to ATI, I have a few questions about PhysX. What have you guys done about that, do you care, is it overrated? Honestly I played NFS Shift on my PC with an Nvidia 9800GTX+ and ATI 4670 and I have NO clue what I was supposed to see wrt PhysX when I used my Nvidia card.

[dbdynsty25]

The Physx stuff is just handled by the graphics card instead of by your processor, theoretically lessing the load. I can't tell the difference either way so I just leave all of the default settings usually.

[LAking]

In certain games the Physx can make things more immersive. If you leave the Physx effects on without a nvidia GPU it does tax the system. I have Mirror's Edge for the PC and the Physx effects look pretty cool (glass that shatters into thousands of tiny peices, banners and such blowing realistically in the wind), but the frame-rate really takes a hit with my ATI video card.

[DChaps]

The 5850s should go down in price now that the 68's are out...I absolutely love my 5850 so if you can get it cheaper than the 68 then by all means do it. I can't figure out why the 5850s have literally stayed the same price as when I bought it a year ago (or whenever it came out). It's amazing to me. I'd imagine they would go down now that there is a slight performance bump to the 68's for the same price or sometimes even slightly cheaper.

Looks like the 5850's have finally started to drop in price. Here is one for $199.99 after mail in rebate. I may jump on this to get to three monitors on iRacing. My only issue is I will probably need to upgrade my 450 ps, although it is fine for the 4850 I currently have in it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

[Rodster]

Don why don't you consider the 6870 it's about $50 more and a newer card?

[dbdynsty25]

Don why don't you consider the 6870 it's about $50 more and a newer card?

Newer doesn't always mean better...and is there really a 50 dollar premium over the 5850? I contend that there isn't.

[Rodster]

I don't know if the performance difference is worth an extra $50 but based on performance the 6870 is a tad quicker than the 5850 but a little slower than the 5870. Here's the 6870 review:
http://techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/

[dbdynsty25]

I'll take the 5850 at a 50 dollar discount...a few FPS doesn't matter when you're already running >50 in most games at 1920x1280.

[Danimal]

Ok well with my mother board failing on my Dell for the 3rd time I've decided to bite the bullet and get a new PC gaming Rig. I'm just not interested in building my own anymore, I haven't built one in probably 8 or 9 years and I just don't have the time.

So deciding against Dell, against Alienware (since they are basically Dell) and against a the well reviewed CyberPower because I didn't like they don't give a detailed list of parts. I went with Falcon Northwest, does anyone have any horror stories with these guys? I'm spending a lot of cash on this system and I want to make sure I didn't make a bad choice.

As for my system, I won't list all the spec but just some core ones. Any feedback on anything is appreciated.

Power Supply - 1000 Watt Modular
Motherboard - Rampage III Extreme
Processor - Core i7 950 3.06GHz
Processor Cooler - Improved Liquid Cooling
Memory - 12GB (6x2GB) 1333MHz DDR3
Video Card - (2) GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)
Sound Card - X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Pro

[dbdynsty25]

Only thing I'd change is the video card. Just not a fan of current gen Nvidia graphics at this point. ATI has passed them by.

Oh and 12GB ram is way excessive. Your bottleneck is already your CPU @ around 8gb, so why bother?

[Danimal]

In terms of Ram I had a choice of 6 or 12 in the configurations and I went with the higher because besides games I do video editing on the PC (yeah I know use a Mac)

As far as the graphics cards I've never actually used anything but Nvidia, I have 2 of those in there. What would you recommend for a high end card then?

[dbdynsty25]

ATI 6870, 6850, 5870, 5850...depends how much you want to spend. Those should be in order of price, starting at around 300 a card...if you crossfire, obviously you need two. I personally think that's a waste...better off getting one badass card.