1329 replies to this topic

[Odins Fist]

All I can say is, my first rig was a Commodore 64, and I have owned my own Computer business since 2007-08, and I don't have any problems.
I still have 2-8600gt, 2-8800gt, 2-9800gtx+, and 2-GTX 260-216 core cards that are are "ALL" still functioning to this day.. All of them were on AMD mobos, all of those Asus Mobos (which are all still working). The one bit of advice I would give to anyone building an AMD (gaming) rig is this.. AVOID the FX-Series Bulldozer, they are decent in price, but if you already have a Phenom II 1100 thuban, don't upgrade.
This will probably start some flaming, but i'm ready for that... My 2 main current rigs both run Asus 990FX mobos with Phenom II cpu, and I have tons of numbers to back up the Phenom II vs FX-series Crapdozer... "smiles"

[Vulpesveritas]

Odins Fist, on 09 June 2012 - 06:05 PM, said:

All I can say is, my first rig was a Commodore 64, and I have owned my own Computer business since 2007-08, and I don't have any problems.
I still have 2-8600gt, 2-8800gt, 2-9800gtx+, and 2-GTX 260-216 core cards that are are "ALL" still functioning to this day.. All of them were on AMD mobos, all of those Asus Mobos (which are all still working). The one bit of advice I would give to anyone building an AMD (gaming) rig is this.. AVOID the FX-Series Bulldozer, they are decent in price, but if you already have a Phenom II 1100 thuban, don't upgrade.
This will probably start some flaming, but i'm ready for that... My 2 main current rigs both run Asus 990FX mobos with Phenom II cpu, and I have tons of numbers to back up the Phenom II vs FX-series Crapdozer... "smiles"

But if you don't already have you you don't really have any choice on the AMD end but bulldozer, and even still if you don't overclock bulldozer is a better option given it's higher clocks outweigh it's low IPC, being clocked on average 20% higher than previous generation chips while having 10% lower IPC. Bulldozer isn't truly horrible it's just... rather exceptionally overhyped. Looking forward to Vishera though, with Trinity having already proven to increase power efficiency by quite a bit, and having 5% higher IPC on it's processors versus K10/10.5 core for core. And that's without L3 cache or the likely tweaking that will get done before we see the 2nd gen FX chips.

In any case, I went thubian for myself while they were still in stock... now if only I can save up enough for the rest of my rig.

[Odins Fist]

Phenom II chips can still be bought, just not the Phenom II x6 1100 thuban for cheap....
The Phenom II 965 to 980 can still be bought, the 980 being what I would choose over others.. The FX-series is not the worst in the world, at least they are cheaply priced.

[Vulpesveritas]

Odins Fist, on 09 June 2012 - 08:57 PM, said:

Phenom II chips can still be bought, just not the Phenom II x6 1100 thuban for cheap....
The Phenom II 965 to 980 can still be bought, the 980 being what I would choose over others.. The FX-series is not the worst in the world, at least they are cheaply priced.

The 964 through 980 are Deneb chips, not Thubian cores. Not much of a difference to the end user unless they're overclocking or wanting to unlock cores. The FX chips however are better at their price points, however. The FX-4170 at 4.2/4.3ghz is still somewhat faster than a 980 at 3.8. And it does OC higher, albeit using quite a bit more power when doing so.

[Odins Fist]

Really..?? I know the 965 - 980 are not Thubans,

Odins Fist, on 09 June 2012 - 08:57 PM, said:

Phenom II chips can still be bought, just not the Phenom II x6 1100 thuban for cheap....
The Phenom II 965 to 980 can still be bought, the 980 being what I would choose over others.. The FX-series is not the worst in the world, at least they are cheaply priced.

I never said they were... But I did say "Phenom II chips can still be bought".
Splitting hairs..?? LOL

[Vulpesveritas]

Odins Fist, on 09 June 2012 - 10:12 PM, said:

Really..?? I know the 965 - 980 are not Thubans,


I never said they were... But I did say "Phenom II chips can still be bought".
Splitting hairs..?? LOL

Nah just misread. Sorry lol.
Though given your single point referencing to Thubian chips in particular before hand I just ran my train of thought with that I would guess.

[Odins Fist]

No problem man it's 2:30 am here, it has to be late there, and if your like me tonight your about 8 beers in...LOL

[Vulpesveritas]

eh 1:30 here. On one gallon of water personally.

[Odins Fist]

Water..??? Fish F - - - in it..!! Quote W.C. Fields

[Vulpesveritas]

Odins Fist, on 09 June 2012 - 10:39 PM, said:

Water..??? Fish F - - - in it..!! Quote W.C. Fields

lol. well I'm underage and the human body is 70% wateror so. so

[Catamount]

I'm certainly not underage, but when it's late at night... COFFEE

Sleep is a poor substitute for caffeine

[cipher]

Catamount, on 10 June 2012 - 07:31 AM, said:

I'm certainly not underage, but when it's late at night... COFFEE

Sleep is a poor substitute for caffeine

So true!

And Vulpesveritas is underage, that explains everything, lol. That means I was building PCs before he was born.

Edited by cipher, 10 June 2012 - 10:05 AM.

[Catamount]

Well I'm hardly ancient myself; I've got maybe 8 years of building experience and 15 or so of tinkering. In fairness, though, it's my experience that most computing knowledge has a shelf life of about half a dozen years before something changes fundamentally. Even simple things like power draw and heat dissipation, while ever-unchanged in the thermodynamics sense, are vastly different considerations than they were when I started building, back when you were the cool kid because you had a 400W PSU



and two 80mm fans were considered ventilation for our single core CPUs and single-slot GPU coolers


It really is astounding to think about how different considerations are today than they were even in the middle of last decade

Edited by Catamount, 10 June 2012 - 11:01 AM.

[cipher]

We were rolling the beige and steel full tower cases with the 350W PSUs, Pentium PRO on dual CPU server boards with 64MB maxed memory. Yeah, bad-azzes of the 90s, lol. I still remember my custom 386 build in a cardboad box because I couldn't afford a case. Playing Doom and Master of Orion.... dang, those "golden" years sux compared to what we have now, lol.

[Remorce]

I like how you started this talking about GPGPU, and then went on and only used gaming benchmarks.

As far as price/performance, you can easily pick up used GTX 580s now for 200-220 dollars. They go for that price every day over at EVGA's market section. That is substantially cheaper than the HD 7870, and provides better results. However, you decided to skip over the 580 in that benchmark:
And instead decided to choose the HAWK edition card which is actually $380 and has higher clocks than the base 7870.
If you are going to go out and claim you are unbiased, please actually do so. Don't go and pick a custom, new generation, card beating out an old generation stock card by .8 FPS. I'm just saying.

Another qualm I have with this, is that you are just using a single game benchmark on the cards. Yes, i'm sure it would have been more work to get a second game engine used, but there is still the fact that many cards perform differently on different games. This is a major factor.

There are many other guides out there that are much more elaborate and have multiple benchmarks, with in depth reviews. However, I do appreciate the effort you made here, its a great starting point. The fact is, though, that people need to get there information from many different sources, and see all kinds of tests before making a decision. Certainly not one that lists AMD cards as top dog with all but one bench.

I also find it worth noting, that you tend to only give praise to AMD, throughout your multiple posts and topics. Not putting you down or anything, just a notation.

Edited by Remorce, 10 June 2012 - 05:33 PM.

[Aegis Kleais]

I got dual GTX 570's (OC'd to 580 speeds) No problems here running MWO in all the engine's glorious goodness.

I think your prices are off though. You can't get GTX 580's for $200-$220. I just got these cards (Gigabyte GV-N570OC-13I rev 2) and they were $265 ea.

Not familiar with EVGA's "Market" (is this an area for purchasing refurbished items or do you have to trade in a graphics card first?) Can't see them selling for those kind of prices just to anyone.

[Skrapheap]

cipher, on 10 June 2012 - 04:55 PM, said:

We were rolling the beige and steel full tower cases with the 350W PSUs, Pentium PRO on dual CPU server boards with 64MB maxed memory. Yeah, bad-azzes of the 90s, lol. I still remember my custom 386 build in a cardboad box because I couldn't afford a case. Playing Doom and Master of Orion.... dang, those "golden" years sux compared to what we have now, lol.

You talking back in the day when a hot mod was using a Dremel to cut a hole in the top/side of your case to mount an extra 80 mm fan. Before you ask yes I still keep a cordless Dremel on hand to remove the burrs that sometime develop on old cases, or are present by default on cheaper cases. But then again I also keep a small first aid kit in my PC first aid kit, along with various cable, boot discs, and a few tools.

P.S. Late night when I am sure I don't have to work the next day a strong cup of coffee with a splash of Jameson's. Also if you have not got one yet get a Kuerig for your office. The things are awesome.

[Vulpesveritas]

Remorce, on 10 June 2012 - 05:23 PM, said:

I like how you started this talking about GPGPU, and then went on and only used gaming benchmarks.

As far as price/performance, you can easily pick up used GTX 580s now for 200-220 dollars. They go for that price every day over at EVGA's market section. That is substantially cheaper than the HD 7870, and provides better results. However, you decided to skip over the 580 in that benchmark:
And instead decided to choose the HAWK edition card which is actually $380 and has higher clocks than the base 7870.
If you are going to go out and claim you are unbiased, please actually do so. Don't go and pick a custom, new generation, card beating out an old generation stock card by .8 FPS. I'm just saying.

Another qualm I have with this, is that you are just using a single game benchmark on the cards. Yes, i'm sure it would have been more work to get a second game engine used, but there is still the fact that many cards perform differently on different games. This is a major factor.

There are many other guides out there that are much more elaborate and have multiple benchmarks, with in depth reviews. However, I do appreciate the effort you made here, its a great starting point. The fact is, though, that people need to get there information from many different sources, and see all kinds of tests before making a decision. Certainly not one that lists AMD cards as top dog with all but one bench.

I also find it worth noting, that you tend to only give praise to AMD, throughout your multiple posts and topics. Not putting you down or anything, just a notation.

Five things;
1. I didn't pick a custom card, I wanted to use that for the standard 7870 benchmark listed there, as the old 7870 review had results which don't match up with the newer test results, and don't use current drivers.
2. The Nvidia Geforce GTX 580 is not able to be found through traditional retail listings at anything below $380 according to google and my search of all common retail sites. It also consumes twice the power of a 7870, and the 7870 overclocks quite a bit better.
3. I listed the entire review under each of those benchmarks. Ever wonder why? I just had a quick graph there so that someone who wanted to have a quick glance comparison could, with a general performance chart below.
4. I mentioned GPGPU as it is growing in usage, but as this is a gaming forum the focus of the guide is gaming.
5. I point out AMD cards for the most part here because of the simple fact that they are generally better for gaming at most price points. Yes there are people who complain about driver issues, and guess what, Nvidia cards have them too. Not as often, but they get some *cough* 'killer' *cough* issues that can be worse than what you see on the red team. In general, people who tout drivers are looking for an excuse to buy a lesser value card. As Nvidia has no current generation mid end cards, and AMD has had advantages on the low end for quite some time now. The Nvidia Gefoce GTX 570 is good, but it consumes quite a bit more power and given the overclockability of Pitcairn 78xx series cards, the 7850 is a good competitor for it. The Nvidia Geforce GTX 670 is an amazing value at it's price point, however at the highest end while the 680 is good, it can't compete with the Radeon Hd 7970 in non-gaming tasks, the 7970 overclocks higher, and is cheaper (now.)

Yes Nvidia has PhysX but it is more of a gimmick than 3D as it is not supported by even as many games incorporate 3D, and physics can be used by more universal, non-proprietary engines like Havok, or now with DX11 integrated in DX functions.

So the simple fact of the situation is, at the moment except for a 570 or 670, Nvidia is an inferior value to consumers who purchase their products through retail.

[Remorce]

The EVGA marketplace is a sort of swap meet if you will. Its where members of the community sell/trade their hardware, or advertise what they want to buy. Just yesterday a 580 sold for 220 bucks.

To op, Its pretty clear that I think you are crazy and wrong, and you think the same of me so I don't think it would get us anywhere by arguing more points back and forth cause each side has its own merits.

There is also a pair of 480's going for 125 bucks a piece right now. Can find some great deals. If anybody is interested, i'll give you the link. However, you do have to have 50 posts to access that area to prevent spam/scamming.

Edited by Remorce, 10 June 2012 - 06:31 PM.

[Garemie]

Amazing write up, thanks for the great info!