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Official 2008 "I Need A New PC" Thread
- Thread starter Kosma
- Start date
I had a 9800GX2 that I've had to RMA 3 times since it's having issues with my PSU, XFX offered to give me another brand new card or a credit for the card. I took the credit. Now I'm looking for a lesser gaming card.
I can't decide between these 2:
Geforce 9800GT OC+ 119$ w/ MIR
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=33062&promoid=1084
or
Diamond Radeon HD 4850 199$ w/ Promotional code.
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=33502&promoid=1084
Suggestions?
I can't decide between these 2:
Geforce 9800GT OC+ 119$ w/ MIR
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=33062&promoid=1084
or
Diamond Radeon HD 4850 199$ w/ Promotional code.
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=33502&promoid=1084
Suggestions?
EGM92 said:
The 4850 is faster, but it's apparently more expensive. I think the 4800 series has gone up slightly in price over the last month, due to it's popularity. Depends on what you're looking to spend. The 9800GT OC is slightly faster than the 8800GT (not as fast as 9800gtx+).
Zzoram said:
I want something to cover Starcraft2/Diablo 3/Farcry 2/Dead Space. I don't run it at large resolutions 1440x900 would be the Max res I'd use, with medium/high settings, looking to get stable 30fps, more would be better, of course I'll be OC'ing which ever card I'd get.
Why is the 4850 Faster exactly?
EGM92 said:
The 4850 is faster because it is? :lol I can't explain it, it's an architecture thing.
Either should be able to run most things good, the 4850 is around ~20% faster though. It makes the difference between playable and not in some cases, but if you want to save money the 9800GT OC is probably fine.
Zzoram said:
Alright, I'm still hearing people bitch about ATI cards having problems with some games, sorta like the Bioshock glitch or the BIA:Hells Highway glitch, are these common?
Also
http://www.ncix.com/products/index..../48500+T352&manufacture=Palit Multimedia Inc.
Is that card better than the 9800GT OC+? How does it compare to the Diamond card I linked earlier?
Thanks
EGM92 said:
I think the glitches may have been driver issues, but the latest 8.10 drivers seem pretty solid.
The Palit 4850 is fine, should be like every other 4850. Every 4850 is better than the 9800GT. The only thing is Diamond will have better warranty support than Palit down the line, but most cards that fail are dead on arrival and can be RMA'd anyways. It's up to you, but I'm personally not a fan of mail-in rebates, and I'd get the Diamond instead.
I got a Visiontek 4870 on sale a while back, no problems with it yet. I've only played Starcraft Broodwar, Team Fortress 2, Farcry, Crysis Warhead and The Witcher on it though.
Awesome, got everything up and running. Though the catalyst control center seems a bit sluggish. I like how the Asus came with hookups that help you connect the wires from the case to the motherboard, that was really convenient and helpful. For me that's the hardest part, is hooking all that up correctly.
Time to start installing games off of steam and discs
Time to start installing games off of steam and discs
captive said:Awesome, got everything up and running. Though the catalyst control center seems a bit sluggish. I like how the Asus came with hookups that help you connect the wires from the case to the motherboard, that was really convenient and helpful. For me that's the hardest part, is hooking all that up correctly.
Time to start installing games off of steam and discs
Congrats!
What are your system specs again?
Antec 1200chespace said:
Corsair 750w PSU
8gig ddr2 800 ram
Intel Q9550
Powercolor 4870 1gig
Two 500gig maxtor satas
Two 24" monitors
Cd/dvd burner
The Antec case is nice, keeping everything nice and cool the air coming out of the top and back arent even somewhat warm.
Well I did read most of the thread and your posts.chespace said:
So I borrowed from what you were doing.
Only things were I knew I had the drives, I knew i wanted a quad core and i knew i wanted 8 gigs of ram since Im going to mess with virtualization to learn it for work.
And I always had dual monitors, more screen the better.
Also knew i didnt want to spend that much on a video card.
All in all everyone was pretty helpful, even if i wasnt really posting in the thread at the time.
TheHeretic
Banned
Two 24" monitors is pretty fucking insane. Seems to be all the rage now.
And congrats chespace, you stuck with it and it all worked out in the end
And congrats chespace, you stuck with it and it all worked out in the end
i've been looking for a new PSU for my new rig. turns out the stock one doesn't have enough wattage for anything in the 9800 series. i'll be getting an Asus or XFX 9800GT or GTX with a second hard drive. any suggestions for affordable 600-800W PSU that won't fry my system?
TheHeretic
Banned
doomed1 said:
You need 550 watts MAX for that setup. Any Antec/Seasonic PSU will do the trick.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Is v-sync on? Those benches look a little fishy. I mean, two cards at exactly 60fps? And one with a minimum 11 fps higher than the other?chespace said:Looks very playable at 1900x1200 with my 4870x2
And while we're looking at benches, I thought it would be a good idea for people to be able to ask "What kind of experience can I expect in game X with this hardware setup?" Benchmarks alone cannot tell the whole story. For example, there is no benchmark that makes it seem like World in Conflict is playable on a single core processor, but it certainly is. The in game bench gives lower framerates than the actual game, and since its an RTS framerates in the 20-30fps range are just fine. There are also plenty of settings to tweak that will raise the framerates without a noticeable drop in visual quality.
So I got a sweet deal on a Shuttle (SP35P2):
E8400 Core 2 Duo
2GB DDR26400
8600GT (gonna replace with a 4850 later )
Pretty stoked, BUT:
There's no POST beep. I can't find anything about whether or not Shuttles do a POST beep.
When I turn it on, the fans go full but nothing happens.
2nd or third time I turn it on, the fans start, go back to usual quiet & it boots into Windows.
Which is annoying as
I've sent a support ticket to Shuttle, but I doubt I'll get a reply until after the weekend.
Any ideas?
E8400 Core 2 Duo
2GB DDR26400
8600GT (gonna replace with a 4850 later
)Pretty stoked, BUT:
There's no POST beep. I can't find anything about whether or not Shuttles do a POST beep.
When I turn it on, the fans go full but nothing happens.
2nd or third time I turn it on, the fans start, go back to usual quiet & it boots into Windows.
Which is annoying as
I've sent a support ticket to Shuttle, but I doubt I'll get a reply until after the weekend.
Any ideas?
Tisan said:So I got a sweet deal on a Shuttle (SP35P2):
E8400 Core 2 Duo
2GB DDR26400
8600GT (gonna replace with a 4850 later
Pretty stoked, BUT:
There's no POST beep. I can't find anything about whether or not Shuttles do a POST beep.
When I turn it on, the fans go full but nothing happens.
2nd or third time I turn it on, the fans start, go back to usual quiet & it boots into Windows.
Which is annoying as
I've sent a support ticket to Shuttle, but I doubt I'll get a reply until after the weekend.
Any ideas?
I absolutely love my shuttle, but Shuttle tech support can be... tricky. Sudhian and the forums there were more useful in general along with just plain old google.
I am using a very old XPC box (4-5+ years SN41G2) no post beep. Might actually even be a BIOS setting.
This is only a VERY VERY rough outside possibility, but... My shuttle had slightly similar problems not too long. I'd get full fans, but then my HD would just start clicking. It seemed as if my hard drive was dying, but something didn't feel right about that diagnosis to me. Managed to get my hands on a power supply tester and that was the problem. My power supply wasn't giving my HD enough juice to start up. Replaced it with a 300W 'silent' revision and it's humming like new again.
i'm tired maybe this will make sense after I finish my reports for the night :[]
bee
Member
nvidia 180 beta drivers are out for vista 64
http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/Nvidia_Forceware_180_Series_Preview/6110.html
Download
http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/Nvidia_Forceware_180_Series_Preview/6110.html
Download
godhandiscen
There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
In where do I need to put this file? I really do not want to install the configs, last time I did it, it took way too long and borked my Crysis installation.Waikis said:
So apparently Vista installs with balanced power mode option set to default. I know I didnt set it to that.
I ran Counter strike stress test and 3dmark vantage with that on, maybe thats why everything seemed choppy and the performance was not very good, even for such an older game such as CS source.
Also I think the catalyst stuff didnt install correctly. For one the CCC was sluggish, now its just not even running when i open it, it just acts like its frozen when i try to go into it.
Wow task manager shows CCC.exe as using 600mb of ram(wtf?) and steadily using 20% of my CPU.
I ran Counter strike stress test and 3dmark vantage with that on, maybe thats why everything seemed choppy and the performance was not very good, even for such an older game such as CS source.
Also I think the catalyst stuff didnt install correctly. For one the CCC was sluggish, now its just not even running when i open it, it just acts like its frozen when i try to go into it.
Wow task manager shows CCC.exe as using 600mb of ram(wtf?) and steadily using 20% of my CPU.
Chiggs
Gold Member
captive said:
Ah, ATI and their stupid CCC. I had this same problem and I kept uninstalling and reinstalling until I got it right (about 3 times). I also used Driver Cleaner and Win Utilities' registry cleaner to rectify the problem.
By the way, I have the same card as you.
captive said:
Holy crap. Are you using 8.10? I know some of the earlier drivers have memory leaks (again, congrats, ATI).
Yea, Im using the latest straight off their website for Vista 64. Didnt even use the drivers off of the disc, it was a clean install right after i got the computer up.Chiggs said:
What kind of performance do you get?Chiggs said:
Tbh I was not expecting any shacky or studdering during counterstrike source stress test, game is like 8 years old. Said the average was 58fps.
Hell my dads comp running a 3850 averaged well over 100fps for CS source.
Now im wondering if I ran these tests while ccc.exe was hogging a bunch of ram and CPU cycles AND while my computer was in "balanced" power mode. :lol
Chiggs
Gold Member
captive said:
As much as I've been ragging on ATI's drivers, I have to admit that my card has been performing extremely well. Noticeably better than my GTX 260 in my lanbox. It's just that the initial driver install was really annoying, and the 8.9's weren't very good.
captive said:
It's certainly possible. Question: Did you install the mobo chipset drivers first?
Chiggs said:
Yup, on a clean Windows Vista install, I always do ATI drivers last.
I have to say though, that CCC's been very good the past couple days.
I don't even need Rivatuner to override the fan controls for them to actually work. :lol
Tathanen
Get Inside Her!
I've been running dual monitors for a while now and all it's been doing is ticking me off since I always mouse over to do something near the edge of one screen, and curse as I overshoot it on to the other screen due to years of expecting the mouse to stop at the monitor edge.
Does anyone know of any dual monitor software where the mouse only goes from one monitor to the other with a keystroke, or by clicking a particular button? And once it's there, it's LOCKED into that monitor until you keystrike it back? I'm running Vista.
Does anyone know of any dual monitor software where the mouse only goes from one monitor to the other with a keystroke, or by clicking a particular button? And once it's there, it's LOCKED into that monitor until you keystrike it back? I'm running Vista.
Actually no I didnt. I did the mobo drivers disk right after the ATI drivers.Chiggs said:
So i just left the computer idle, I had to go do some work, and yea theres a nice healty memory leak going on ccc.exe is now using 1.2gigs of ram(this is after i killed the other ccc.exe that was using 600mb and restarted the service)
So unistall the ATI drivers and the mobo chipset drivers and start over?
Big Takeover
Member
Ultramon does this, but it's 40 bucks. It does tons of other stuff too, so maybe you'll find other features that would justify the cost. There's probably others out there, but I bet Vista support is still dicey at best.Tathanen said:
Thought this might be as good a place as any to ask.
I have an old Dell Dimension 4500 with a 2.4ghz P4 and a Radeon 9600. I'm planning to upgrade one of these days, and would like to keep the older computer around. The problem is that it's a total space heater. The case uses the dell design where it has the one large fan out the back with a vent over the heat sink. I'd just like to know if anyone has any experience stopping this thing from turning my room/office into a sauna.
I have an old Dell Dimension 4500 with a 2.4ghz P4 and a Radeon 9600. I'm planning to upgrade one of these days, and would like to keep the older computer around. The problem is that it's a total space heater. The case uses the dell design where it has the one large fan out the back with a vent over the heat sink. I'd just like to know if anyone has any experience stopping this thing from turning my room/office into a sauna.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Do P4s support automatic underclocking (like AMD's "Cool and Quiet")? That cooling solution sounds like a good idea, especially if you want to put a beefier video card in there.Lmo911 said:
evil solrac v3.0
Member
are there any plans to make a mobo that can support both ATI and Nvidia cards?
evil solrac v3.0 said:
It's not really a mobo limitation, more of a driver/os issue. This isn't my computer but I know it's been done:
http://www.zimagez.com/full/fd20d638eae710306cf1a1e1e2ac62f372c19973823b216d93932f7eeb4095d6.php
But with mixed cards you would choose one of the other to play a game on, you wouldn't get a SLI/Crossfire like speed advantage from having two. But it should allow you to pick the best card for whatever game you are playing.
Chiggs
Gold Member
evil solrac v3.0 said:
There's some sort of technology that is being worked on that allows an ATI and an Nvidia card to be used in unison. The name evades me, but the work shown thus far has been extremely promising.
I imagine Nvidia and AMD will do everything to destroy it, and I think they might win.
Edit: Found it, called the Hydra Engine.
http://www.insidetech.com/news/2888-hydra-technology-may-render-crossfire-sli-obsolete
