Neilp Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 The only time I kept up on the graphics card front was when I was at uni, if someone wanted a pc built I would basically sell them mine and upgrade with the profits... I remember having 2 voodoo 3dfx cards running sli, with 8mb on each.... I was the envy of the uni, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit in xvga no less with all the bells and whistles.... Lol I had voodoo fx3d tv also lol. Huge purple plug thing that came with it lol. I can remember getting my first DVD drive and sitting amazed at the quality of a DVD. If I remember right it was waterboy I watched lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beavis Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Had a Voodoo 2 3DFX card myself.........happy days! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Funny PC Format gets mentioned, I used to be the top poster on their forums until I got temp banned for calling someone a c*nt, even though they were and they'd deleted the entire database. A group of us disbanded and ran off to set up our own forums without any rules at all, which is still going strong long after the PCF forums have been swallowed up into whatever Future are doing now. /reminisces I gave up on building PCs years ago. My time is worth more to me than I can save by self-building, and I'd much rather have a warranty and be able to throw stuff back at the manufacturer to make them fix it if it breaks. I used to spend a fortune on PCs and gaming: I had one of the original FX5800 (the hoover!) cards, then I went SLi and thought nothing of spending £1K in one go on two cards. These days I couldn't care less about PC gaming as it's still shockingly fussy to get stuff working so I spend my cash on consoles for the games and just run a fairly basic PC setup for interwebs and PS. I say basic, it's still a 960 i7 with a shedload of RAM and decent HDs, but it's now running whatever crappy nVidia card it came with just to power the monitor. It's also housed in the most basic case I could get, as I don't care what the box looks like any more: Those days of cutting windows into the side of the case are long gone for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 The only time I kept up on the graphics card front was when I was at uni, if someone wanted a pc built I would basically sell them mine and upgrade with the profits... I remember having 2 voodoo 3dfx cards running sli, with 8mb on each.... I was the envy of the uni, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit in xvga no less with all the bells and whistles.... Lol I had voodoo fx3d tv also lol. Huge purple plug thing that came with it lol. I can remember getting my first DVD drive and sitting amazed at the quality of a DVD. If I remember right it was waterboy I watched lol I remember getting my first CD burner + 100 Verbatim CD's.... cost me about £250 I think I think I managed to successfully burn about 40 copies of Tomb Raider 2 and making a profit though 1:1 copying, over an hour a disc which more often than not turned out to be a coaster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulletMagnet Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I had one of them 7950 GX2 cards, basically two cards in one kind of thing, that thing got loud once it built up heat, haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sk3lph Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 SLi is stupid, had it before and it does not split the load evenly between cards, one ard would run 100% with the other kicking in wen needed. can't comment on Crossfire. Came to this thread late and it's been an interesting read. I'm still very much a PC enthusiast and gamer with BF3 being my game of choice. SLI GTX480's work very well and give almost double the performance depending on the resolution and game. SLI didn't start well, but now I think it's well worth considering. Oh and +1 for a self build as you have more control over the components. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo-ninja Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 So of the three pcs listed it looks like the fastest phenom, sell out the gfx card and buy one of the ones recomended in pcformat for £100 is the best bet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulletMagnet Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 SLi is stupid, had it before and it does not split the load evenly between cards, one ard would run 100% with the other kicking in wen needed. can't comment on Crossfire. Came to this thread late and it's been an interesting read. I'm still very much a PC enthusiast and gamer with BF3 being my game of choice. SLI GTX480's work very well and give almost double the performance depending on the resolution and game. SLI didn't start well, but now I think it's well worth considering. Oh and +1 for a self build as you have more control over the components. It does not "almost double" the performance, it does however do a double kill on your wallet and guess who is laughing all the way to the bank, especially that once you spent it, they lure you with newer cards within 3 months time..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo-ninja Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 How about this spec people: Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 251596 431 in stock £171.77 £143.14 £171.77 Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler 176157 328 in stock £14.99 Asus P8Z68-V LX Socket 1155 Onboard graphics output 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard 281367 48 in stock £76.37 £63.64 G-Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX Memory Kit CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5V 264750 246 in stock £40.00 £33.33 £40.00 £33.33 Coolermaster Elite 334 Black Mid Tower Case with Coolermaster eXtreme Power 460W PSU 192207 21 in stock £64.67 £53.89 XFX HD 6850 XXX Edition 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 290512 119 in stock £123.05 £102.54 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sk3lph Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 It does not "almost double" the performance, it does however do a double kill on your wallet and guess who is laughing all the way to the bank, especially that once you spent it, they lure you with newer cards within 3 months time..... A quick google turned up this review for GTX480 SLI. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_480_SLI/1.html Performance figures for a couple of games Crysis 2560x1600 4xAA single 480 - 19FPS SLI 480 - 36.2FPS Dirt 2 2560x1600 4xAA 16xAF single 480 - 63.1FPS SLI 480 - 116.4FPS I did say it depended on game and resolution - lower res and the second card makes less sense. I game at 2560x1600 with as much eye candy turned on, so SLI is good for me. For multi-monitor set-ups it may also be a good idea to go SLI and you may also get better performance for the cost of an equivalent single card. With regard to your other comment, I've had the 480s now for about a year and a half - they were pricey to start with and the 580 has not offered enough of a improvement - the lure was there but I resisted. So overall I disagree, under the right circumstances SLI is definately not stupid - although it doesn't look like it would suit the OP's requirements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulletMagnet Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Looks alright in first glance. Recycling the harddrives I take it then? Not a bad idea to be honest, I did the same. Until SSDs become more affordable that is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo-ninja Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 Looks alright in first glance. Recycling the harddrives I take it then? Not a bad idea to be honest, I did the same. Until SSDs become more affordable that is yh its currently around £90 over budget, so just going to do some looking on ebay at that price and see what i can get. Is there anything you would change? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulletMagnet Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I have that CPU, the CPU cooler has a solid reputation, so have all the other parts. Don't know much about the mobo, but Asus is usually alright. When reusing your old HDDs, and it fails to boot up, go into BIOS and check that the SATA is set to IDE rather than AHCI, that's what caused non booting when I upgraded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo-ninja Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 How do you think it will cope with games? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSet Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Recycling the harddrives I take it then? As long as you have a SATA drive to recycle then there's no problem. If you have one of the older IDE drives then be aware that most motherboards no longer have an IDE interface. I just ran into this problem when I upgraded. Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulletMagnet Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 It does not "almost double" the performance, it does however do a double kill on your wallet and guess who is laughing all the way to the bank, especially that once you spent it, they lure you with newer cards within 3 months time..... A quick google turned up this review for GTX480 SLI. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_480_SLI/1.html Performance figures for a couple of games Crysis 2560x1600 4xAA single 480 - 19FPS SLI 480 - 36.2FPS Dirt 2 2560x1600 4xAA 16xAF single 480 - 63.1FPS SLI 480 - 116.4FPS I did say it depended on game and resolution - lower res and the second card makes less sense. I game at 2560x1600 with as much eye candy turned on, so SLI is good for me. For multi-monitor set-ups it may also be a good idea to go SLI and you may also get better performance for the cost of an equivalent single card. With regard to your other comment, I've had the 480s now for about a year and a half - they were pricey to start with and the 580 has not offered enough of a improvement - the lure was there but I resisted. So overall I disagree, under the right circumstances SLI is definately not stupid - although it doesn't look like it would suit the OP's requirements. SLi is still stupid and isn't worth the outlay in my opinion. To get those figures you'll have to not only have both cards but a powerful platform to run it from. We are talking best CPU money can buy, best mobo, best RAM, etc. You can't tell me those benchmarks are achievable on an Asrock budget mobo and value versions of the supporting hardware. Bottleneck is always going to be your slowest component no matter which one it is. Be interesting to see what the hardware was in the aforementioned bench test. Just my opinion, if you are happy to run SLi then that's up to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 How do you think it will cope with games? It should 'cope' ok but don't expect to run anything too fancy or too high resolution. For example I only have a 8800GT, it plays most games in a decent enough resolution to look good on a 46" LED TV but nothing special... I mostly play games on my Xbox or PS3 anyway... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo-ninja Posted February 21, 2012 Author Share Posted February 21, 2012 How do you think it will cope with games? It should 'cope' ok but don't expect to run anything too fancy or too high resolution. For example I only have a 8800GT, it plays most games in a decent enough resolution to look good on a 46" LED TV but nothing special... I mostly play games on my Xbox or PS3 anyway... By that are you implying that it will struggle on say SKyrim, BF3 etc? if so what should i be looking at improving? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 How do you think it will cope with games? It should 'cope' ok but don't expect to run anything too fancy or too high resolution. For example I only have a 8800GT, it plays most games in a decent enough resolution to look good on a 46" LED TV but nothing special... I mostly play games on my Xbox or PS3 anyway... By that are you implying that it will struggle on say SKyrim, BF3 etc? if so what should i be looking at improving? Specific games vary but I would imagine for BF3 you would want a higher spec graphics card to play at 'decent' levels of detail It would certainly play both those games but you may have to compromise a bit that's all... On another note I have finally joined the SSD brigade, only a 120gb one which was £100, just loaded Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit onto it and it boots up in about 18 seconds Will obviously slow down the more I install but I am seriously impressed so far... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sk3lph Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 SLi is still stupid and isn't worth the outlay in my opinion. To get those figures you'll have to not only have both cards but a powerful platform to run it from. We are talking best CPU money can buy, best mobo, best RAM, etc. You can't tell me those benchmarks are achievable on an Asrock budget mobo and value versions of the supporting hardware. Bottleneck is always going to be your slowest component no matter which one it is. Be interesting to see what the hardware was in the aforementioned bench test. Just my opinion, if you are happy to run SLi then that's up to you. You can see the test system that was used on page 2 of that review and the components are not in the stratosphere in terms of cost and are not the best of the best. The mobo they used you can pick up for £125. An i5 processor on a decent motherboard clocked up to a reasonable speed will comfortably balance a system if going the SLI/crossfire route - which looks like the option thats been taken. neo-ninja is a gamer so graphics are an important factor in the final system - so I'd suggest getting a motherboard and PSU combo that'll support the extra card and then the option is there of getting a good FPS boost in the future when the cards come down in price or when funds allow. The mobo choice of the ASUS P8Z68-V LX has good overclocking capability and is actually crossfire compatible to boot, so you could add another HD 6850 if the PSU can cope with it, although tbh, you'll probably find you're happy with the system as it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulletMagnet Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Just had a look at the test setup and back then (2010) that gear was high end stuff, which tells me that in order to enjoy SLi the way it's intended, the outlay is rather high. And to gain fps that your human eye won't even notice, personally I find that there is little to no value for money with these setups. Again, if you are happy with SLi then fine, just not for me and I find it upsetting that marketing makes you feel like you "need" this as a gamer to play certain games better (as long as it has a SLi profile), and then have new hardware pop up that "blows previous cards away". I know if you were to wait for a definitive card you'd wait forever, thus I usually wait till the newest one comes out and pushes the price down on the previous "top dog". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSet Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 For example I only have a 8800GT, it plays most games in a decent enough resolution to look good on a 46" LED TV but nothing special... I mostly play games on my Xbox or PS3 anyway... I was running a batch of 460GTX cards but they were costing me a small fortune to run. I found a Dixons/PcWorld overstock shop selling 240GT cards for £29.99 and replaced the lot of them. Very little noticeable difference on the games I run which are hardly bleeding edge though. My daughter said that on The Sims 3 she noticed no difference, although that will run O.K on a laptop. A good budget card is the 240GT, it uses very little power and is as fast a 9800GT. I've been running one 24/7 on an old 300w PSU I had knocking around for several months now. Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo-ninja Posted February 21, 2012 Author Share Posted February 21, 2012 Hi All, Thanks for all your help so far, i think from the sounds of it the setup i proposed is the way forward although its about £100 over budget and will mean using my old hdd. I will stay clear of SLI and crossfire setups as dont have the cash to buy the extra gfx cards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sasha@lazytrips Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 How about this spec people: Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 251596 431 in stock £171.77 £143.14 £171.77 Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler 176157 328 in stock £14.99 Asus P8Z68-V LX Socket 1155 Onboard graphics output 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard 281367 48 in stock £76.37 £63.64 G-Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX Memory Kit CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5V 264750 246 in stock £40.00 £33.33 £40.00 £33.33 Coolermaster Elite 334 Black Mid Tower Case with Coolermaster eXtreme Power 460W PSU 192207 21 in stock £64.67 £53.89 XFX HD 6850 XXX Edition 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 290512 119 in stock £123.05 £102.54 I've got the i5 2500k processor and generally very similar on everything else (built my computer almost exactly 1 year ago. On the parts, My only suggestion is to have a read of the graphics cards - I am running 470GTX (bought for SLI) and I have a premium motherboard (had a number of features I wanted at the time including some funky BIOS options). On the whole, building your own computer wins hands down. You get infinitely more for your money, you know exactly what goes into the box & you can plan for future upgrades and reuse high quality components. In addition, my 1 year old computer still feels, runs and functions as though it was brand new (touch wood) - this will not be the case with mass manufactured units which in my personal experience deteriorate significantly faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo-ninja Posted February 21, 2012 Author Share Posted February 21, 2012 How about this spec people: Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 251596 431 in stock £171.77 £143.14 £171.77 Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler 176157 328 in stock £14.99 Asus P8Z68-V LX Socket 1155 Onboard graphics output 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard 281367 48 in stock £76.37 £63.64 G-Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX Memory Kit CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5V 264750 246 in stock £40.00 £33.33 £40.00 £33.33 Coolermaster Elite 334 Black Mid Tower Case with Coolermaster eXtreme Power 460W PSU 192207 21 in stock £64.67 £53.89 XFX HD 6850 XXX Edition 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 290512 119 in stock £123.05 £102.54 I've got the i5 2500k processor and generally very similar on everything else (built my computer almost exactly 1 year ago. On the parts, My only suggestion is to have a read of the graphics cards - I am running 470GTX (bought for SLI) and I have a premium motherboard (had a number of features I wanted at the time including some funky BIOS options). On the whole, building your own computer wins hands down. You get infinitely more for your money, you know exactly what goes into the box & you can plan for future upgrades and reuse high quality components. In addition, my 1 year old computer still feels, runs and functions as though it was brand new (touch wood) - this will not be the case with mass manufactured units which in my personal experience deteriorate significantly faster. Thanks bud, the GFX card was recommened in PC Format and when i looked online it seemed to get a bit of a hammering when it was full price but now its dropped it seems to get very good feedback, for the price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.