Gaming is easily the most demanding task you'll run on a PC, which is why you really need a dedicated gaming rig 😁 I'd suggest spending a portion of your budget on a solid GPU now, then saving the rest for a full new build in a year or so.
It seems a bit unwise to buy him another one just to use for six months, especially since the next generation from ATI and Nvidia is dropping in just a few months. For the same price, he could probably get both technologies in a single card later on. Well, twelve years? I assume you're only playing games then. Maybe just keep the 8600gt as a backup and pick up a new GTX275. Just make sure your power supply can actually handle it. If it can't, grab a new one; if it can, I guess you should just save the rest of the cash (tuck it away in a sock 😁). Or even better, maybe just stick with the 8600 for a while longer. Once those new generations finally hit the market, you could just build an entirely new PC, complete with an i5 processor. $1,000 is a pretty solid budget for a new setup.
You make a fair point. A single graphics card—even a single-core one, if you want to call it that—is unlikely to run upcoming games smoothly three years down the line. It’ll handle most titles just fine, but eventually, some massive release will come along and bring even the top-tier rigs to their knees, much like how Crysis did two years ago. I still remember those old YouTube videos with titles like "Crysis Very high on GeForce 8800 Ultra Tri-SLI"... I can only imagine what kind of rig you'd need to pull that off. 😁 Just look at this—two years later, and a high-end card is running Crysis smoothly, even though three of them could barely handle it back then. 😁 Those three 8800 Ultraces cost about $1,400, maybe a little less. For that kind of money, you could have picked up a new mainstream graphics card every few months over the last two years for solid performance, and you probably would have had plenty of cash left over too. To get straight to the point: if you don't go with CF/SLI, you're probably going to struggle to hit a smooth 40+ FPS in about three years. On the other hand, if you do decide to run CF/SLI, you’ll need to upgrade to a better power supply. That ends up driving the total cost way up, which might be money better spent elsewhere. Maybe you should just convert that to dollars and save it for a rainy day. Things are looking pretty uncertain right now... 😁
Go with the cheapest one. The actual GPU you're getting is identical regardless of which of the three manufacturers you pick. The only real differences might be the cooling solution or whatever extra stuff they throw in the box. If you don't care about the bundle, just grab the cheapest option.
Anything you're measuring in hertz can be overclocked. 😁 Yeah, the GPU's OC is the same thing. Maybe try a little Googling instead of assuming everything is a given?
I’m pretty sure this was already mentioned, but I must have missed it. Is cranking up the voltage on the PCIe slot just as risky as bumping up the CPU voltage? Does it actually lead to better GPU overclocking? Also, are the consequences of undervolting a processor the same as overvolting it—assuming we're talking about extreme levels of overvoltage?
It makes sense that bumping up the voltage leads to higher temperatures—that’s just physics. But I was wondering, does simply overclocking the CPU itself drive up the heat even if I don't touch the voltage? If it does, how much of an impact are we talking about? Would it be something significant, maybe upwards of 5 degrees?
Charles Brown said:Stupid question, I know... but here goes. Since I really don't feel like lugging my PC anywhere, is it actually difficult to install a power supply and plug everything in myself?
It’s not that difficult. You just slide the power supply into place, screw it in, and basically shove the cable wherever it fits. 😁
I’d probably suggest looking at the AMD Radeon HD 4770. It's pretty affordable, yet the performance is almost mid-range. Plus, if you overclock it—and it tends to overclock quite well—it could be great.
It depends on the context. If you're weighing two options where one is $5,000 and the other is $5,200, $67 I don't think that's a massive gap. But if you're looking at $50 versus $250, that's a different story entirely. It's all relative, I guess. 😁
Casey Gray3 said:Regarding resolution; my 17" native is 1024x768, but San set it to 1280x1024, and in games I often used 1600x1024....
Do you realize what wiredmarlin5 was getting at? Have you ever actually tried running a non-native resolution on an LCD and noticed how much worse it looks compared to the native one? Give it a shot.
Casey Gray3 said:and keep in mind that the Radeon is more budget-friendly..
Fine then, let's all just go out and buy cheap, outdated graphics cards.😁
First off, you're posting in the wrong subforum—this has absolutely nothing to do with peripherals. Second, there are a million different utility programs out there. Just Google CPU-Z.
It’s technically possible, though I’d say it’s going to be a struggle depending on what resolution you're running and which game you're playing. For something like 1680x1050, honestly, picking that GPU might not be the smartest move. I suppose if you don't push the settings too hard, things might run okay, but there are definitely better options out there.
I have a question that isn't strictly about buying graphics cards, but I wasn't sure where to put it. I figured opening a whole new thread might be overkill. Since hardware websites run their reviews using top-tier setups (like an i7 965, DDR3 at 2 GHz, and 64-bit Windows Vista), we see how these cards perform on a dream machine. It’s logical that they'll show much better performance there than what the average person gets at home on a Core 2 Duo or Phenom II system running DDR2 memory. How many FPS would be a realistic drop—depending heavily on the game, I suppose—to reflect the kind of performance most people will actually see? I feel like anyone would feel a bit "cheated" watching tests where the card they just bought hits 60 fps at 1920x1680, only to have it struggle at 40 fps on a 1680x1050 setup at home.
I know this isn't directly related to a specific purchase, but it's definitely about making the right choice regarding 😁
The cheapest Sapphire HD 4890 I can find is about $260, while the Nvidia GTX 275 sits around $275. GeForce tends to have more stable drivers, offers PhysX (which is a big deal, I guess), includes CUDA, and pulls less power when idling. AMD cards can sometimes run into driver issues, though they do support DirectX 10.1 and actually draw less power under full load. Decide for yourself 😁
The issue might stem from your processor if it's running slower than 2.4 GHz, but more likely, it’s the graphics card. You're currently supporting DX 8.1, but you really need DX 9.0. I doubt it makes sense to sink too much money into a high-end card right now, so if you're determined to play this game, maybe just grab whatever the cheapest option is that offers 2.0 shaders (to ensure DX 9.0 support) and fits an AGP interface. Newegg (you can probably skip the first two on the list, since they only support DX 8.1)