more video card help..

[SITTINGDUCK]

ok,,,,think i have the sli thing under control, now im looking at video cards...way to many of them out there.

think it would be easier just to get a friggin biplane..

pretty much settled on the e8400@3 gig, will not try and overclock it at first.

so i know my cpu is not going to be up to snuff with my video card, but still want something that will keep up with mp and cpu if i upgrade and/or oc.

not so much looking for specific cards recommendations as i am card spec recommendations...then i can find the card

i realise you cannot take any one factor into consideration at a time, you have to look at all the card factors at a whole. But trying to figure out what card factors should be at the top of the list, and which should be at the bottom.

as i understand it right now...dual gpu at a min of 1gig video ram is pretty much the place to start(ie #1 priority)

after that, clock speed of at least 2000mhz would be the next criteria, and is more important than core speed

finding it hard to determine just where the stream processor factor comes into play....some have as few as 120, some cards have as many as 800 (ati)

so if anyone can tell me where they would place all the card factors i should be paying the most attention to, and which are at the top of the list, and which are not, i would appreciate it.

just a quic add on....compared nvidia 295 with 4870x2, and according to the specs i see,,the 4870 wins hands down.....any thoughts?

[Parky]

Price

[SITTINGDUCK]

lol...so,,just get the most expensive one?? funny,,thats what the guy at the computer store said,,,but then,,he didnt know what stream procesors were either

[ovs]

I have an GT260 and I just finished Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway on full everything... it was un-friggin' real... or so real I was ducking when shot at!!!

I get about 25-60 FPS consistantly, and I haven't even OC'd anything yet.. not sure if I even will.. unless Parky tells me how.

OvS

[Parky]

lol...so,,just get the most expensive one?? funny,,thats what the guy at the computer store said,,,but then,,he didnt know what stream procesors were either

Neither do I. Anytime anybody asks me for some kind of hardware advice, I invariably tell them "Just throw money at it". Didn't want to break with tradition, or my personal "trademark" so to speak.

Oh well.....there goes another dissatisfied customer. What on earth shall I do now for amusement?? Oh I know....I'll just tell you to enable V-sync and Triple Buffering for all your D3D based games. Unfortunately, triple buffering won't work in DirectX, simply because that function can't be called directly from the application programming interface from or at the basic driver level. You'd have to use something like D3D Overrider. It's a somewhat buggy approach at the best of times, even if you do know what you're doing with it, but it does work. Gets you the best of both worlds actually. Frames locked @ a maximum of 60 with V-Sync enabled (typical if you're running a 60hz LCD) without that nasty bottoming out that you'll see withough TB enabled.

Still wouldn't know a shader clock from a stream processor, or from a horse's ass for that matter......guess I'll have to read up a bit.


In reference to your original question though, you get what you PAY for in most instances. Buy a $250 card and you'll get $250 performance. Buy something that's worth $700 and I'll bet you my a$$ you'll see a significant difference between the two, as long as the rest of your hardware is up to snuff. I didn't wanna' be accused of being just "wordy" enough to cloud the issue though, ergo my original response......PRICE....and that's where I would be focusing most of my attention, merely as a starting point of course.

I don't mean to suggest that you have to drop a mortgage payment to get a decent card, but the rule of thumb is, the more you spend, the better the hardware will be. It's not rocket science.


Cheers, and good luck with it.


Parky

[SITTINGDUCK]

well..unless i do some more reading and change my mind again,,,,looks like the 4870x2 is the route i am going to go.....2 gb dual gpu,,,3000mhz clock...gdr5, and cost more than my first car....that should do it..

[Parky]

Duck,

In all seriousness, please be careful with that particular card. It has a history of suffering from "micro-stutters". Not sure if they've cleaned that up with the latest Catalyst drivers, but it was cause for concern just a short while back. Make sure it's been addressed before you take the plunge. I have a feeling if the condition still exists, it may be even more pronounced (evident) in this particular game.

Cheers,

Parky

[Siggi]

I think there's a case for the belief that a $450 latest-gen card doesn't have the bang-for-buck of a 3rd-gen card at $100. Which is why I stopped buying latest-gen cards. I got my pair of 8800GTXs when they were down from £400 each to £200 each, and the ONE I'm using now eats OFF up. But only after I swapped my Q6600 CPU (at 3ghz) for an E8400 (at 4ghz).

I've seen the 8800GTX for $100 online. I don't think they'll be around much longer.

[cliff527]

My $.02: Parky makes a point, so does Siggi.

You *do* get what you pay for - the problem with the 'more is better' approach is that newer technology is almost *always* overpriced as hell. Wait until it comes down, if you just gotta have that latest, greatest thing. Buying a $700 card doesn't by far mean you'll get 3.5 times the performance of a $200 card.

In the meantime, and especially for those of us who can't *justify* spending $700 on a video card (regardless of how well it performs), I'd go with "bang for the buck", as Siggi described. And, in that category, the not-so-latest thing will almost always win, simply because the price comes down dramatically after it's been in the market for awhile.

Finally, IN MY OPINION: Stutters are not limited to ATI cards in OFF. More to it by far than that. Caveat Emptor.

[RAF_Louvert]

SITTINGDUCK, for what it's worth, I built the follwoing system, after a fair amount of research and pricing around, for $930 US, including TIR4 Plus and the OFF disc.

CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0ghz Wolfdale 6mb 1333fsb 45nm with Arctic Cooler
Memory: 8gb DDR2 PC2-6400 800mhz
Mobo: ASUS P5QL Pro
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA II NCQ 500gb 32mb
Opti Drive: LG 22X DVD+/RW Dual Layer SATA Rewrite
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512mb
PS: 550w deluxe switching dual fan

It runs OFF BHaH with TIR4 Plus at nearly full settings across the board and hardly flinches. I have the CPU overclocked to 3.6ghz and everything runs nice and cool and steady. Hope the info helps.

Cheers,

Lou

[SITTINGDUCK]

lol..thanks for the replies...

I'm sure you understand what i mean when i say i cant go out and buy a card cause someone in the forum posted that its a good card...

and,,,yeah,,i definately agree with siggi, up to a point....I wont see the performance of a cutting edge card cause i cant afford a cutting edge mb/cpu....

but,,,sometimes there is a thin line between saving money on a "lower end" card and wasting money cause you got a "lower end card". Not to mention that if you do settle in on one specific card,,there is always another card 30-40 bucks less that looks like it will perform just about as good,,and another card 30 bucks less than that one,,etc,,etc...

if anyone caught my post on sli, my line of thought was maybe 2 more affordable cards would be as good as one top end card,,,,,u guys shot down that thought right away....

hell,,,first card i picked for a new system was a pny 856mb card for 139.00 and it still looks pretty good...

last computer i built was around 2001. the ti4400 was the cutting edge card back then.. and with things heading the way they are these days...next computer i build will probably have to last me about the same time...

and, there is some security in buying "top of the line" cause it takes some of the guess work out,,,,,

but,,unless your a friggin genius,,,when you start to look at alll the cards below the "cutting edge" cards...its next to impossible to figure out whats best. which is why i put up the first post..I if i can just get the top 3 factors in determine which video card gives me the most for my money...would help in making a decision....or maybe i should say it might help in making a decision......(ie...dont buy anything with less than xxmb ram,,,dont buy anything with less than a xxx clock speed)

gotta admit,,,with allll the searching ive done,,,have never seen anything about stuttereing on the 4870,,,but will research it..

damn,,,glad i didnt ask a question bout the mb/cpu combo im looking at.....

[Parky]

Lol,

Sure you don't want some advice on liquid cooling solutions?

Seriously, one of the guys I play a fair bit of COD5 with bought a 4870x2. Asked me if I had any idea how to "cure" this micro-stutter phenomenon. It only really impacted his gameplay if he ran it in crossfire mode and was more pronounced in certain games. We tried every combination of driver settings you can imagine. Nothing seemed to work. I suspect the problem has something to do with two gpu's on the same board not being able to "sync" smoothly. Could be ATI's already addressed it with their latest Catalyst Suite, but I can't find any accurate info to reflect that.

If you're buying a card mostly to play BHH, it may not be too serious a problem as you won't be running crossfire anyway. In terms of bang for your buck, the 4870x2 would certainly be right at the top of the list. The GeForce 280's and 290 series are way overpriced as far as I'm concerned. Only for those who live lifestyles of the rich and famous (when even they can't really afford it....lol).

It's fairly common knowledge that ATI cards can also suffer from problems related to BHH that Nvidia users don't experience. That can usually be solved by a couple of configuration tweaks, but it's also something that should be considered. Hopefully you'll get direct feedback from somebody in here who's actually running a card similar to or identical to the one you're looking to invest in.

In direct answer to your question about the various features incorporated into the hardware itself, there is no definitive response. As a rule of thumb though, the more memory, stream processors, raster units, the higher the memory, core, and shader clocks are, the better the card will be. Then you have to look at overall bandwidth, floating point operations per second, pixel and texture fill rates and yadayadayada....... You already knew that though....lol.

You're talking to a diehard Nvida fan here. Having said that, nobody in their right mind is going to try to tell you the 4870X2 is a piss poor card. It's absolutely smoking fast. When you consider it's pricepoint, it's certainly a very attractive alternative to Nvidia's higher end 200 series cards, as long as you can get it to run smoothly.

Happy to have been able to confuse you a wee bit more. I never charge for that service by the way :kiss:


Cheers,

Parky