What do you think about VGA reviews on LGA1156

[Scrizz]

aren't x58 boards cheaper than the P55s?
I've seen them in the low $100s

 

[Polaris573]

Go with W7 64-bit. I think most gamers have made the transition, or will when W7 comes out.

 

[wolf]

I say stay on the X58 to keep true 16x/16x for high end GPU review, we don't want the board even pretending to be a factor there.

Also I Love W7 64-bit and yeah my money is on that.

Also going for 4+ ghz on the i7, even if that means spending dosh on a new d0 stepping 920, would be really nice to see just for kicks

This its techPowerUp's benching rig we're talking about after all!

 

[lemonadesoda]

I recommend a DUAL Nehalem-EP setup with 2x true PCI-e 16 2.0. Take away ANY possibility of CPU limited, or PCI-e limited. Make it PURE, RAW, NAKED GPU.

W7-64bit on SSD. It will also help us decide if we want to upgrade due to your higher benchmark scores than our rigs

Please get one of your minions to also run some older cards for comparative reasons. (Not all, just a representative from each generation)

 

[rampage]

after doing some googling im going to change my vote to the p55

as said its got the higher frequency (i7 680 (2800 mz / 3467 mhz) vs say the i7 920 2667 mhz / 2933 mhz)

dual chanel ram will be fine, there isnt a huge advantage to tripple chanel

and with only 8X pci-e slots when using 2X GFX cards i dont see that being a big problem as now the pci-e controler is now lower latancy as its now in the cpu - or is this only with certain cpus ?

 

[mlee49]

I voted P55 cause the relevance to our average review reader will be more useful.

What was the specs before the i7 rigs? E8400 at 3.8Ghz? why no Q9650 at 4.0Ghz, or Q6600 for that matter? I think the scope is more important, but not yet defined.

Wiz, please clarify the purpose of the benchmarking hardware review such that we understand why the other hardware is used.


From previous debates/review questions I've formed an opinion that the reviews were provided to give an Average User's point of view. I see this with the benchmark numbers, obviously we could compare them to the 3D06/Vantage threads and see the comparable differences. If the intention of the review is to provide such then the P55 would be my suggest choice.

 

[DanishDevil]

We want to give our readers something useful. It would be great to compare VGA cards on the average user's system, but we absolutely do not want to cause a bottleneck anywhere and skew results, so I think we need to bench them on the i7 system.

 

[newtekie1]

I really think before a real decision can be made, we need to know how much of future reviews will really be using multiple GPU setups. If there will be next to no future reviews with multiple card setups, then the x8/x8 argument is moot.

Even if there will be a decent amount of reviews with multiple GPU setups, I think the x8/x8 board will handle dual-GPUs just fine.

aren't x58 boards cheaper than the P55s?
I've seen them in the low $100s

The cheapest one on newegg is $160. The cheapest P55 is $95.

 

[aCid888*]

At the end of the day, this is a GPU review, not CPU, RAM or other....therefore, the "best" parts should be used to rule out any bottlenecks in the system and leave it purely to the card to prove its self.

That being said, I think an "upgrade" to a i7 920 D0 is in order..they do 4GHz without issues and would be faster than the 8xx CPU.

You already have the X58 board, tri-channel RAM and all it would take is to drop in another i7 that clocks better instead of learning a whole new system.


If you wanted something the average user can afford, you could always say you should get a Phenom II because they are cheaper as a whole and seem to be very popular in every circle, gamer to web user alike.

 

[jagd]

Gigabyte X58 Extreme + Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8

64 bit OS ofcourse

 

[Mussels]

i voted the wrong one >.< i meant to vote x58, for the multi GPU testing

 

[dr emulator (madmax)]

there will be one setup .. i am not going to work with over 2000 or 3000 benchmark scores in every review. yes, we have 1000+ individual scores in every vga review

so 64-bit it is, now only the cpu/mobo/chipset debate

poll added, gogo vote, but also keep that thread going, if i had an answer myself i wouldnt ask.

also ask yourself whether we should bench on a highest end system or on something that is affordable for most of our readers.

see what the most popular system the readers have and go with that ,although i could afford a bizaarely overpriced cpu motherboard and graphics card, i'm not going to, as most people know pc components depreciate in value very quickly, so what i could buy today for £3000-£4000 with bells and whistles on , won't look so appealing 6 months down the line

yes to many benchmark reviews would make people bored, and then they would probably look for somewhere else that has fewer, i feel sometimes the less waffle a review has the better ,short sharp and to the point

 

[Mussels]

the point that made me think of the x58, is that the platform has more power (more bandwidth per slot, 3 slots for more GPU's to be tested) - its going to be valid for longer, and for more cards.

The longer the lifespan of the bench rig, the longer the results are comparable - you know, so we have apples to apples of a radeon 4870 vs a radeon 9890 in 5 years time

 

[ToTTenTranz]

The highest end rig is used in video card reviews so that the rest of the system isn't bottlenecked, and the video card can be used to its highest potential.


It makes sense but.. that's pretty much what every reviewer does. And thanks to that, many people end up buying a gaming system with an i7, while spending some $130 on a HD4870 -> which is ridiculous.


In my opinion, the general graphics card review should be made with an i7 because of bottlenecking.
However, one or two resolutions of each application (for example, 1920*1200 with and without filters) should also be made with a mid-low-cost, high performance/price system, for example a Phenom II X4 @3GHz with a 790GX or so.
This way, people could also evaluate how much the CPU matters for their system.



In order to save some time, all resolutions bellow 1680*1050 should be cut from the reviews with medium to high-end cards. There aren't many people with monitors smaller than 20" for gaming, nowadays.

 

[WhiteLotus]

In order to save some time, all resolutions bellow 1680*1050 should be cut from the reviews with medium to high-end cards. There aren't many people with monitors smaller than 20" for gaming, nowadays.

There are loads of people that game at below 1680*1050. I have lost count of the times when someone has come on here, asked if they should get a new GPU or CPU but be told that they should go and get a new, bigger, monitor because it's not using all the current setups potential.

I do think that some of the lower end GPUs be dropped though.
EDIT: which W1z has done already on the newest muskin 285 (iirc) GPU review. I did notice that the review did not hold on to 4850 though, still move along with technology.

 

[Scrizz]

w8 no 4850?

 

[vega22]

I don't think there will be many 3 or 4 card benchmarks on a board that can only handle 2 cards.

your right there wont be but that doesn't mean that there shouldnt be, if its available and doable it should be and the p55 does not give the option of adding a third card.

also i ment it to say 2 or 3 card setups not 4.

And the price issue is only because the 870 is insanely overpriced. Use an 860 and the price for the P55 setup becomes cheaper. Drop it down to a 750 and it is cheaper even still. The difference is that the £400 is about the cheapest you can get for 1366, while £700 is about the most expensive you can get for 1156. You can get a lot cheaper with 1156 than you can with 1366, which is why more people will be going for it over 1366.

again your right, you can get a cheap 1156 setup for about £300 but thats not one of the option available in the poll. it would also be missing some of the features that makes the i7 range more powerfull and gives them the edge.

 

[95Viper]

64 bit windows 7 on the GIG x58 i7 platform.
Voted.

 

[radeon747]

Voted for the P55 setup with win7 64bit

 

[Omega]

User/reader rigs don't really matter here. You are reviewing graphic cards, not the system, therefore everything must be set up to use the full potential of graphic card.

You recently tested the PCI-E x16/x8/x4... performance impact on Radeon HD5870 but you didn't test the performance impact when running those cards in actual crossfire setup while using x8 lanes per PCI-E slot. I think most of the performance there is lost on actual splitting x16 lanes to two x8 lanes PCI-E slots. PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots with 8 lanes can in theory provide the sufficient bandwidth even for latest cards, but you should really first check if some of the performance is lost when using the crossfire/sli on Lynnfield processors. They do have PCI-E bus on board, so maybe splitting lanes is not an issue there.

Anyways, i don't really see Core i7 @ 3.8GHz limiting the GPU performance in the next 6 months - year... and x58 boards can give you a wide range of possibilities for testing different multi GPU setups, without any bandwidth restrictions

i say x58 + i7 and try to squeeze some extra clocks from it.

 

[Kreij]

While I understand that the P55 may be more common with average user, this site is TechPowerUp not TechAverage. Go with the X58.