nVidia GTX260 & 280

[nikokapo]

does noone hold to the idea of skill>money? with a bit of effort iv quartered to cost -> performance of a pc both gaming and pure power (fourier calculation times)

Agreed.

i saved like 200 dollars on the processor because i just OC'd it....and it works pretty damn well

 

[FrothyChimp]

On my home system I'm running dual 8800GTS SLI'd along with a 2.66 GHz Quad Core processor and 8GB DDR2 RAM and 64-bit XP. I haven't found anything that slows it down. I'll keep those for a while.

 

[happytomato]

PG Gaming FTW!

 

[VillageIdiot]

I want GTA4 on Pc. What's the point of having a nice computer if you can't play a great game on it?

 

[daguin]

I want GTA4 on Pc. What's the point of having a nice computer if you can't play a great game on it?

Erm . . .research . . . . . writing . . . . . . . communication . . . . . . .

Peace,
dave

 

[pseudolobster]

[quote author=VillageIdiot link=1211658202/12#19 date=1215327761]I want GTA4 on Pc. What's the point of having a nice computer if you can't play a great game on it?

Erm . . .research . . . . . writing . . . . . . . communication . . . . . . .

Peace,
dave[/quote]

You don't really need a *good* computer for any of those... I have a 200mhz pentium 1 laptop laying around for that kind of thing, works perfectly for that.

All I can think of that you'd need that fast a computer for is video editing... and for that you wouldn't need the fancy video card either... Nowadays you can't really say you need a top of the line computer for graphic design and CAD, even 3d design can be done just as effectively on computers from 3 or 5 years ago.

I have to say it kinda frustrates me to see people spending $2000 on a computer to check their email and write letters, or people who don't know anything who go out and buy the most expensive of everything they can find, but I'm sure hardware prices would be higher if it weren't for these people.

 

[pseudolobster]

I prefer to patiently wait for the best deals on hardware and if I can I prefer to get "the best from last year" rather than "the cheapest from this year", since computers depreciate in value so quickly it ends up being cheaper to buy the reliable high end stuff from a few months or a year ago than it is to buy the shoddy value-model of the latest greatest.

I've slowly accumulated my current system at about $100/mo over the last year or so... So far I'd say I've spent about $1500 including replacing a blown power supply, an upgraded video card, and having to buy a new dvd burner any time I want to burn a something to disc (hehehe).. I've managed to get pretty much everything for less than half its original cost...

I have an Athlon64 FX-60 dual core 2.4ghz oc @ 3ghz (original price: $1000) with 2gb "gamer" ram (orig price: $350), a fancy motherboard ($300), a 4-unit rackmount server case with 700w power supply, PERC5/i RAID card with 256mb battery backed cache(orig $800), 5x 500gb sata hard drives (orig $120 ea), and a radeon hd3870 with dual LCDs.

I got the motherboard, cpu, and ram for $400 off craigslist, the case for $80 off ebay, the raid card for $100 off ebay, the drives for $60-$80 ea off ebay, the video card for $150 off a friend, one of the monitors was being thrown out at work... I never had anything as quickly as I wanted, but I managed to save a ton of cash in the long run and still end up with a somewhat beefy system.

 

[danq]

You don't really need a *good* computer for any of those... I have a 200mhz pentium 1 laptop laying around for that kind of thing, works perfectly for that.

All I can think of that you'd need that fast a computer for is video editing... and for that you wouldn't need the fancy video card either... Nowadays you can't really say you need a top of the line computer for graphic design and CAD, even 3d design can be done just as effectively on computers from 3 or 5 years ago.

Disagree.

First, there's OS bloat (and software bloat in general). If you want manufacturer support, you need to run current versions of the OS and applications. So even to open a "command window" to run a DOS text editor, you'll need a computer that runs, say, WinXP.

And if you need to be able to work on that spreadsheet your boss started, that uses some nifty-flash current-version feature - the Boss always gets the newest toys, ya know - you'd better be able to run that latest version too, and that 200Mhz box isn't going to do it in time to make his deadline.

I have a 3.2Ghz with 1Gb RAM, but it is stupidly slow for some tasks that are critical for my work.
One such is GIS work - the mapping software itself often slows to a crawl, but I also need to process still photos from my 10Mpx camera, and aerials from Google and others. The photo editor I use (Paintshop) works fine on smaler files, but chokes on the big pics; and I can't just downgrade my camera in order to keep my computer hardware needs down.

When you excepted "video editing" were you including editing of stills, like jpg? Just to write a report (I'm a consulting arborist) I need to edit photos and import them to Word documents. My previous machine would bog down with more than a couple photos in the report; this one is significantly better but as photos get larger it's starting to show its age.

btw, I understand that there are many factors in a system's percieved speed - having been a computer professional for 30 years prior to becoming an arborist - but sometimes it does just come down to a factor of hardware.

DanQ

 

[djhenyo]

4870x2 is going to be an unbeatable $500 beast, and Nvidia will not be able to counter with anything. Tri-sli? More like "try anything because we know we will lose big time this year". The way it's meant to be played? I really have hated NVidia since the 8800 came out. No games needed it then (for at least 9 months!), and then when games finally did come out that could use a chip as fast, or faster, Nvidia released nothing. It is like they made their card look so fast because there was just nothing graphically demanding, and then when the card was put to the test (crysis, mass effect, any other game of the last 8 months) it was crushed, pitifully, and nvidia answered the demand for more necessary power with nothing. Then they did nothing for the next 8 months except release rehashed budget garbage (9800, 8800gt, 9600). ATI hasn't really impressed me since the radeon 9700, but it looks like they finally did it again. Nvidia has been playing the consumer market way too much the past two years, and I hope they really take a massive hit this time around.

 

[NovoRei]

Just waiting, there will be 2 X2. One with gddr3 and gddr5.

Very likely the price will be 450 and 600.

 

[nikokapo]

4870x2 is going to be an unbeatable $500 beast, and Nvidia will not be able to counter with anything. Tri-sli? More like "try anything because we know we will lose big time this year". The way it's meant to be played? I really have hated NVidia since the 8800 came out. No games needed it then (for at least 9 months!), and then when games finally did come out that could use a chip as fast, or faster, Nvidia released nothing. It is like they made their card look so fast because there was just nothing graphically demanding, and then when the card was put to the test (crysis, mass effect, any other game of the last 8 months) it was crushed, pitifully, and nvidia answered the demand for more necessary power with nothing. Then they did nothing for the next 8 months except release rehashed budget garbage (9800, 8800gt, 9600). ATI hasn't really impressed me since the radeon 9700, but it looks like they finally did it again. Nvidia has been playing the consumer market way too much the past two years, and I hope they really take a massive hit this time around.

4850 in crossfire work very well in crysis.


BUT, i still think that nvidia has won the PERFORMANCE battle. no card can beat the 280. NOT EVEN THE 4870.

on the other hand, they are very expensive and ATI will win the price wars, the 4850 will sell a lot IMO.

 

[Dr_Evil]

I got my 4870. I'm debating about installing it now. I would like to install it but I don't really want to listen to the loud fan. It will probably be at least a month before a full coverage water block comes out for it.

 

[nikokapo]

I got my 4870. I'm debating about installing it now. I would like to install it but I don't really want to listen to the loud fan. It will probably be at least a month before a full coverage water block comes out for it.

You got a 4870 and you wont install it?

WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!?!?!


if you dont want it, i'll take it !!



dude, i've got a MASSIVE cooler fan for the processor, its a big ass high cfm black fan like the ones used for lifts or small air extractors. and it makes a LOT of noise, and i really mean a lot. but i just put some music and it goes away

i'd recommend doing that


oh


also

you can control de speed of it

so when it's idle you dont need it at 100%

and im sure when you're gaming you have volume turned up, so you wont even hear the fan rotating.

 

[Dr_Evil]

I did install it. The only driver set out for it has a broken fan control. In other words, the fan sits at idle. There is a work around for it that I used but the fan speed still doesn't go up and down. It just sits at the speed you set it too.

A full coverage water block does need to come out soon though. I still have my old card in the loop because I don't want to get some more tubing.

 

[nikokapo]

I did install it. The only driver set out for it has a broken fan control. In other words, the fan sits at idle. There is a work around for it that I used but the fan speed still doesn't go up and down. It just sits at the speed you set it too.

A full coverage water block does need to come out soon though. I still have my old card in the loop because I don't want to get some more tubing.

ohhhh
now i know what you're talking about

some guy in youtube said he had the solution, everybody thanked him


search for some 4850 crossfire playing crysis or something like that on youtube, there you'll get the fix!

 

[Snytbaggen]

About the 4850/4870 fans, ATI has said they put the fan speed at ~20% on purpose to achieve a more silent card. The cards can handle temps over 100[sup]o[/sup]C, so the high temps on stock cooling (~80[sup]o[/sup]C) are no problem for the card. Some people say that changing the 4870 fan speed do 35% decreases the idle temp to 50[sup]o[/sup]C, while maintaining a reasonable sound level.