My first graphics card review

[3870x2]

untrue, UT3, TF2, Lost planet Extreme Condition, just to name a few.

not to mention todays intel quad cores will oc as well as a dual core.

i call 4+ ghz to be a good oc, wouldn't you guys?

cant wait to see the review DrPepper, looks like a good spread of games how are you going to take care of having nvidia and ATi drivers on the same box?

until i7 or q9650 and the QXs, it isnt worth getting a quad for just gaming. They dont OC as well, and are much more costly.
Also, all the games you named before that mentioned quads I could run with a pentium 4 and ATI x1800.
course, if you already have a quad, its no problem, but the extra money you save on getting a dual could go towards some real action in the likes of a better GPU.

 

[DrPepper]

"Qarl's Texture Pack 3" and "More than almost everything viewable when distant"

Sounds crazy I'l try get it done but I've only got the 4870X2 til tuesday and its 2am. Plus I need to reformat twice so there is absolutely no driver conflicts. The 3450 review will be later than the rest and the 4870X2 in the morning.

 

[MilkyWay]

okay nice review waiting for the x2 4870 see if it match up well in crossfire against the single gtx260

the 3450 lol that is interesting see how well it does might surprise me tho i dont hope for much

this will give me a good read while im f'k bored in college

 

[DrPepper]

GTX260 OC benchies now available.

In the morning the 4870 will be benched for your satisfaction.

 

[wolf]

nice dude, nice ~10% gain from that oc, and good to see MIN FPS improve so well on a few of them especially, keep it up

 

[DrPepper]

Okay I'm having issues with the 4870X2 such as artifacting in vantage and it wont do 16XAA etc.

 

[craigwhiteside]

Okay I'm having issues with the 4870X2 such as artifacting in vantage and it wont do 16XAA etc.

Is that with it overclocked or at stock?

 

[DrPepper]

Stock

Interesting new development: During the call of juarez the pc shut itself down completely. I believe my psu isn't powerfull enough even though on a psu calculator I've got a about 75watts free.

 

[newtekie1]

First of - don't do it on a Quad Core CPU for god sakes! There is no game that takes advantage of Quad Core CPU more than over higer clocked C2D CPU! C2Q is for video editing for god sakes - it actualy makes me sick when gamers start whining "i want C2Q". BS..
And don't OC your CPU! A standart AMD 64 Athlon X2 6000+ or Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 should do just fine...

This is the first review that we did on our new Core i7 based VGA testing setup, the older E8400[@3.6GHz] was just too slow to let the GTX 295 show its full potential in many benchmarks.

Dual-Cores, even highly clocked ones, are holding back the high end graphics cards. Quad-Cores are not just for video editing anymore, they truly do help in modern games. Do gamers need a quad-core? No. Should they want a quad-core? Yes.

I would have agreed with your statements a year ago, but things have changed. On top of that, doing the benchmarks on a Quad-Core can only help, so why not? His Q6600 is running at 3.0GHz, so even in the games that don't benefit from the 4-Core, it will still perform roughly the same as a stock E8400.

Stock

Interesting new development: During the call of juarez the pc shut itself down completely. I believe my psu isn't powerfull enough even though on a psu calculator I've got a about 75watts free.

A 700W should handle an HD4870x2, but you can try disconnecting anything that you don't need to help free up some power. Pull a few fans, disconnect the DVD Drive and any extra hard drives you might have plugged in to the PSU. The HD4870x2 is the most power hungry card on the market after all, so it could very likely max out a power supply.

Also, you might want to try using one of those 4-Pin Molex to 6-pin PCI-E adaptors for one of the cards power connectors. It might be that you are maxing out the PCI-E rail.

 

[DrPepper]

Dual-Cores, even highly clocked ones, are holding back the high end graphics cards. Quad-Cores are not just for video editing anymore, they truly do help in modern games. Do gamers need a quad-core? No. Should they want a quad-core? Yes.

I would have agreed with your statements a year ago, but things have changed. On top of that, doing the benchmarks on a Quad-Core can only help, so why not? His Q6600 is running at 3.0GHz, so even in the games that don't benefit from the 4-Core, it will still perform roughly the same as a stock E8400.



A 700W should handle an HD4870x2, but you can try disconnecting anything that you don't need to help free up some power. Pull a few fans, disconnect the DVD Drive and any extra hard drives you might have plugged in to the PSU. The HD4870x2 is the most power hungry card on the market after all, so it could very likely max out a power supply.

Also, you might want to try using one of those 4-Pin Molex to 6-pin PCI-E adaptors for one of the cards power connectors. It might be that you are maxing out the PCI-E rail.

Hmm I've tried all that and it still artifacts like a bitch in vantage and other benchies are slow as hell. I did put it on a stability test oc'd to about 860mhz with the fan 100% and everest to max out power usage and never had any crashes. I'm on the 9.2 drivers and a fresh install of vista basic x64.

 

[newtekie1]

And your running the fan at 100% when it crashes and artifacts?

 

[phanbuey]

It sounds like PSU issues... 700W is enough but its not uncommon for PSU's even of that size to completely wig out under heavy load. No blue screen during shutdown?

Damn, that sucks.

 

[DrPepper]

And your running the fan at 100% when it crashes and artifacts?

Tried it at auto 50 75 and 100. Temps are no more than 70 degrees because it is absolutely freezing here.

It sounds like PSU issues... 700W is enough but its not uncommon for PSU's even of that size to completely wig out under heavy load. No blue screen during shutdown?

Damn, that sucks.

Never bluescreened me when it shut down.

 

[wolf]

sounds like a lower issue given it varies depending on the difference in application and load stress....

honestly though i would have considered a 750w to be ample for a system + dual gpu gfx card.

what is the system like that it usually lives in? this may be the key... also did the owner ever have any such issues?

 

[DrPepper]

No the owner had motherboard issues and it was the same motherboard as mine. He is getting a P5Q tomorrow and we'll see if that is the problem. I thought the 700 watts would be enough for a couple GTX260's at most. I don't think it was the gpu because even on the crysis benchmark it did really shitty and when playing the game on his pc it ran nicely. Also I couldn't get 16XAA on anything which made my comparison obsolete.

 

[wolf]

investigate a new PSU for sure, maybe if you can borrow his just to test wether its the issue or not?

makes me glad i opted for a 850w to power my multi GPU setup, i doubt ill ever have more than 2 GPU's at a time

 

[DrPepper]

investigate a new PSU for sure, maybe if you can borrow his just to test wether its the issue or not?

makes me glad i opted for a 850w to power my multi GPU setup, i doubt ill ever have more than 2 GPU's at a time

It will be tested on a 1200w toughpower tomorrow.

 

[wolf]

It will be tested on a 1200w toughpower tomorrow.

ahhaha niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice, 1200 "should" just about cut it

 

[DrPepper]

ahhaha niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice, 1200 "should" just about cut it

I think I might be needing dual PSU's tbh

 

[wolf]

I think I might be needing dual PSU's tbh

im not so sure you see, my PSU is a Zalman 850w as per my specs, and ive run a Q6600 OC, 8Gb ram, 6 HDD's, 8+ fans, and 2x4870 512 in CF and max load drew under 500w at the socket.

really the single X2 should have 0 issues on a 1200 watter

 

[DrPepper]

im not so sure you see, my PSU is a Zalman 850w as per my specs, and ive run a Q6600 OC, 8Gb ram, 6 HDD's, 8+ fans, and 2x4870 512 in CF and max load drew under 500w at the socket.

really the single X2 should have 0 issues on a 1200 watter

forgot to add /sarcasm at the end

 

[wolf]

forgot to add /sarcasm at the end

hahah too right buddeh

oh and are you going to correlate your results in the form of graphs? they are super easy to make, i can totally help/make up the graphs for you if you like.

 

[DrPepper]

hahah too right buddeh

oh and are you going to correlate your results in the form of graphs? they are super easy to make, i can totally help/make up the graphs for you if you like.

Could you please I can't make graphs worth shit.

 

[wolf]

not a problem bro ill start with the current GTX260 vs GTX260 oc results

 

[DrPepper]

not a problem bro ill start with the current GTX260 vs GTX260 oc results

Yeah thats a good idea, I want my 8800GT back from asus as well so I can get a mainstream gpu in there.