Graphicscard advice needed

shortchanged_2

timberflake wrote: »

Well the budget for the entire PC is £2,000 and I already have a 32" lcd moniter so I've got about £1,900 to spend on the rig.

Im a massive PS3 gamer and play all kinds of games, shooters, sports, racers, advneture, you name it. So I want the best card, or cards, I can as I want the best graphics I can achieve on my budget.

With a monitor that size you are going to need a top end card if you want to play any of the modern games.

timberflake

JasX wrote: »

also the major drawback you run into with multiple graphics cards is they throw out alot more heat that can cause you other problems.... plus you may have a beefier PSU but you'll also have a higher electricity bill.

Last I heard AMD were lagging behind Intel on performance of high end chips.... aren't those AMDs benchmarking slower than my 1 year old i7 950 running at stock speeds?

even for gaming a SSD is substantial overkill, yes it'll give you near instant boot times but its a high price to pay. Even with that i'd drop in one of these -this specific drive has some damn impressive benchmarks and I'd say about the fastest you'll get before going for an SSD

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804

also you might want to look at this site for hardware ideas (but buy elsewhere)

http://www.pcper.com/hwlb.php


I'd also suggest getting a more powerful processor you can comfortable run at stock speeds, ditch liquid cooling and make sure you have a shiny aluminum 'heat efficient' case but thats more a personal preference

The i7 950 is only slightly better than the AMD 1090T:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

So when you take into account the fact that its overclocked to 3.80GHz and cheaper than the i7 its a no brainer.

I have the budget for an SSD Hard Drive so why would I pick a bog standard 7200rpm hdd over an SSD??

gonzo127

GPU's are always a bit of give and take as each card manufactorer will perform better in certain games as it depends on what they have been optimised for as it currently stands the 5970 is the dogs todger

i also agree i would personally be looking at a smaller SSD for my OS drive and a larger normal hdd for data the samsung f3 drives are currently some of hte fastest about and are in all reality not that much slower than a ssd

also some good advice about the i7 cpu's being quicker than the amd ones, however the hex core intel are shocking in price, but taking into account very few games actaully use multi cores at the moment you might be better going for a quad i7

have you also budgetted getting some extra controlers for the PC into your budget? the mouse-keyboard combination is the best set up for most games however the controller/steering wheel etc is usually better for racing games or sports games

ddoris

You are asking on the wrong site - simple as.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/07/05/how-many-cpu-cores-do-games-need/2

You can't future proof -you merely spend more than necessary and this is a money saving site

Jeff_Bridges_hair

JasX wrote: »

I have an Nvidia 295... performs well but thinking I might look towards ATI for my next one, the 'more bang for buck' seems to be holding out for a while now and from experience Nvidia's tend to run hotter/throw out more heat.

....they are however a little ahead of the game on the 3D gaming front.....

This one is far better on the heat front.. I only just got rid of a Pailit Sonic Platinum gtx260 to upgraded to this and its much better

gonzo127

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/04/27/amd-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-black-edition/10

here is a x6 review - you have to be careful with the cpubenchmark site as they generally only use synthetic benchmarks which do not always give a great picture

JasX

timberflake wrote: »

So when you take into account the fact that its overclocked to 3.80GHz and cheaper than the i7 its a no brainer.

Actually google has them pretty much the same price (if anything about as 'slightly' higher as it is 'slightly' better)... except mine outperforms without needing to be overclocked so I don't need to spend money on liquid cooling and I can expect mine to last alot longer as I'm not thrashing it at an out of spec clock speed

timberflake wrote: »

I have the budget for an SSD Hard Drive so why would I pick a bog standard 7200rpm hdd over an SSD??

You might want to store more than 250GB of stuff.

yes questions about lastability and performance drop off on SSDs over time have started to go away now but take the F3 and the partition trick you may have found on my previous link (to make sure you use the fastest outer sectors for your OS) you can spend alot more money for a small capacity drive without a proportionate performance boost.

not spending over the odds on the core system leaves you more to spend on a high spec monitor / case / keyboard / mouse etc etc.

plus as pointed out earlier at the higher end you tend not to be able 'future proof' really.... you just pay a premium for the 'top top' end that doubles the price of your kit and maybe gives you +15/20% performance boost and perhaps last an exta 3-6 months max before needing replacement/upgrade.



....oh and there really is no 'right' answer to which kit is best, just making sure you've thought about things a bit

timberflake

ddoris wrote: »

You are asking on the wrong site - simple as.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/07/05/how-many-cpu-cores-do-games-need/2

You can't future proof -you merely spend more than necessary and this is a money saving site

Sorry, I thought this was a Techie forum............Oh wait, it is!

And as for money saving, Im saving money by seeking advice and spending my money in the right places.

Money saving doesn't just mean going for the cheapest, its about getting value for money.

paulstevo

timberflake wrote: »

I'm having a Corsair 750w PSU put in so no problem there.

The rest of the PC wont be too shabby either:
AMD Phenom II X6 3.20GHz overclocked to 3.80GHz (with advanced liquid cooling)
8GB Kingston DDR3 RAM
240GB solid state HDD

Im either going to go for x3 Radeon 5670 cards or a single Radeon 5970.

I guess the benefit of going for a single card is that I can add a further 2 at a later date when they come down in price. That will also keep me on the cutting edge of gaming for years to come!

You are going into overkill with what you are trying to do..
There are NO games out there that are likely to even stretch a single 5970 at the moment..you would be just as well off with a 5870..DX11 gaming is in its infancy and the new better spec cards all run this.(even a 5770 runs DX11 based games eg BFBC2 and the new MOH game due soon so a 5870 will max out )
My advice to you would be to go down the i7 Intel cpu route
and get as good a motherboard and memory as you can with the money you will save on getting a 5870 instead of a 5970 or multiple G cards...
Graphics cards have approx a 3/6 month shelf life before they are superceeded so dont get caught up in the hype..
Im running a 5770 and will up to a 5870 when they hit the sub £200 mark this will be more than enough in the current gaming market.
Which ever way you go you will have a nice system ...enjoy.:T

ddoris

"....thought this was a Techie forum............Oh wait, it is!" - yes, on a moneysaving website. You could have asked in a more relevant place eg. - http://www.avforums.com/forums/pc-gaming/
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/
http://www.overclock.net/
"... Im saving money by seeking advice and spending my money in the right places. " ???? -a few people here disagree but maybe they are all completely wrong and you are right.
"Money saving doesn't just mean going for the cheapest, its about getting value for money." Yes! There's hope at least.