Help Me Build My PC Catch-All

The RV530 is a radeon X1800, roughtly equivalent to a geforce 7800, a generation before the 8800.

So it was reccomended to me to get this card earlier in the thread. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004Z5GRVW/ref=aw_ls_4_4?colid=BIFQY1VBNJUG&coliid=I15KQEP9H80TF6

How does it compare to the 8800 I used to have?

obirano wrote:

So it was reccomended to me to get this card earlier in the thread. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004Z5GRVW/ref=aw_ls_4_4?colid=BIFQY1VBNJUG&coliid=I15KQEP9H80TF6

How does it compare to the 8800 I used to have?

Anand bench doesn't have that exact card in their database, but this is the closest I could find: 6670 (blue) vs 8800GT (black).
The one you picked should be a bit better, as it's up a bit in the product line. Should be a reasonable medium powered card.

In other news Ars updated their bargain box system builder guide

Bargain Box builders would be strongly advised to keep the Bargain Box's original goal in mind: being able to do basic tasks with minimum fuss.
Scratched wrote:
obirano wrote:

So it was reccomended to me to get this card earlier in the thread. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004Z5GRVW/ref=aw_ls_4_4?colid=BIFQY1VBNJUG&coliid=I15KQEP9H80TF6

How does it compare to the 8800 I used to have?

Anand bench doesn't have that exact card in their database, but this is the closest I could find: 6670 (blue) vs 8800GT (black).
The one you picked should be a bit better, as it's up a bit in the product line. Should be a reasonable medium powered card.

In other news Ars updated their bargain box system builder guide

Bargain Box builders would be strongly advised to keep the Bargain Box's original goal in mind: being able to do basic tasks with minimum fuss.

Was not aware of that site to compare items. Thank you for that. Should make things easier.

obirano wrote:

So it was reccomended to me to get this card earlier in the thread. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004Z5GRVW/ref=aw_ls_4_4?colid=BIFQY1VBNJUG&coliid=I15KQEP9H80TF6

How does it compare to the 8800 I used to have?

A 6770 is the same as a 5770, just an updated BIOS and a new sticker on the cooler, so this comparison is valid.

I'd lean more to something like this. The 7750 is slightly cheaper, has similar performance and uses less power.

Or this, same price as the 6770, more powerful and uses less power.

One more question. Any real reason to go nvidia over Radeon or vice versa? From what I'm seeing, it seems to be a lot of brand loyalty.

obirano wrote:

One more question. Any real reason to go nvidia over Radeon or vice versa? From what I'm seeing, it seems to be a lot of brand loyalty.

From what I can tell, that's it really. From looking around there's always a lot of "X makes crap drivers/is really unstable/crashes/etc" anecdotes. I tried to find anything concrete but could never do it.

Beyond any known incompatibilities, just get the best performing card at any price point.

I often use this chart for a quick at-a-glance comparison. Can be hard to find the latest version sometimes though. Seeing how far my 9800 GT has fallen on that list makes me sad... I would really be sad if I played anything other than Minecraft or Starcraft 2 on my desktop since the 9800 can run both of those at Ultra settings at 1080p.

obirano wrote:

One more question. Any real reason to go nvidia over Radeon or vice versa? From what I'm seeing, it seems to be a lot of brand loyalty.

For desktops it is mostly loyalty, for laptops I'm going with Nvidia because they are better at extended support. I made the mistake of upgrading my laptop to Windows 8 and found out the hard way.

Yeah. I saw that the 560 ti was 50 bucks off from best buy at the moment and seemed cheaper than mos other places. It's tempting.

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=3243146&pid=1218388673602

obirano wrote:

One more question. Any real reason to go nvidia over Radeon or vice versa? From what I'm seeing, it seems to be a lot of brand loyalty.

It's mostly brand loyalty, though NVidia seems to have the edge in terms of compatibility while Radeon cards tend to offer slightly more bang for the buck.

Actually, after looking around today I'm considering picking this up off of new egg.

http://m.newegg.com/Product?itemNumber=N82E16814162074

Is there really anything to worry about as far as compatibility with my machine?

Hey guys, my nephew is looking at buying some upgrades for his rig. Can I get some of your far-more-educated-than-mine perspectives please?

Maybe I'm just blind to it on that list but what gpu is he running?
edit: also storage type? psu(it is relevant for picking a gpu)?

krev82 wrote:

Maybe I'm just blind to it on that list but what gpu is he running?
edit: also storage type? psu(it is relevant for picking a gpu)?

Not too sure, I'll ask.

So, after some consideration, went with this deal.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...

Comes with a coupon for the new BioShock and Tomb Raider, which is fantastic considering I was planning on buying them anyway.

I'm extremely excited to get this in and installed.

Yeah AMD has some great game bundles right now...the 7850 is a nice card for sub 1080P gaming and figure you basically are paying aroind $80 for it if you were planning to buy those games anyway

TheGameguru wrote:

the 7850 is a nice card for sub 1080P gaming

Did I miss a memo? What the hell do you need for 1080P gaming now if a 7850 won't cut it?

Scratched wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

the 7850 is a nice card for sub 1080P gaming

Did I miss a memo? What the hell do you need for 1080P gaming now if a 7850 won't cut it?

You can certainly run most games at decent details at 1080P with a 1GB 7850..but once you start upping the details you need a beefier card...as well if you are looking at 60 FPS you need much beefier hardware.

krev82 wrote:

Maybe I'm just blind to it on that list but what gpu is he running?
edit: also storage type? psu(it is relevant for picking a gpu)?

Hey, it's a Gigabyte nvidea Geforce GT630.
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/Fgra Theres the setup including my proposed upgrades.

SOLstriker wrote:
krev82 wrote:

Maybe I'm just blind to it on that list but what gpu is he running?
edit: also storage type? psu(it is relevant for picking a gpu)?

Hey, it's a Gigabyte nvidea Geforce GT630.
Theres the setup including my proposed upgrades.

I have a 6870 OCed. Am I better off getting another one, buying a newer series, or waiting for the next batch of cards?

I'm running 2x 1080p monitors.

oilypenguin wrote:

I'm running 2x 1080p monitors.

But when you're running a game, it's probably just on one of your two screens? You're probably currently compromising between medium settings at 60 or max settings at 40. If that's the case, then your only reason to add more horsepower now is to try to guarantee 60FPS locked at max settings.

The next batch of cards won't come for a long time. I was listening to the PCPer podcast and they were talking about it. AMD is really pushing their current batch of cards. Hence the game deals. The 6870 is getting a little long in the tooth if you want to really push settings. IIRC, the 5870 outperformed that by a little bit in most cases. I ran two of those for awhile and they're pretty good for most stuff at 1080p. Crossfire would be decent, but with the current game deals on the 7000 series, I'd go with a 7950 for $300 with a free copy of Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite.

That's just my opinion. If you could get a used 6870 for dirt cheap (maybe 50-100 bucks), that would be a fun route to go as long as your power supply can handle it.

I'd say if you're looking at an upgrade, look at the options available now, because as everyone says, the next lot are quite a way over the horizon.

The second reason I'd give is that I'd say there'll be a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding the consoles when they hit, and new hardware takes a while to prove itself. While most new generations are nice, every so often there's a stinker.

So quick question: Anandtech's card comparison charts are great, but is there anything like that, wherein you can choose specific cards for comparison, but with Crossfire/SLI setups? I love my pair of 6950s (except for the jet engines at anything faster than 30% fan speed), but I sometimes wonder if I'd be better off selling these guys and getting a single high-end GPU. However, I can never find benchmark comparisons that include dual cards, so I currently only have a vague notion of how powerful the pair is relative to the current crop of high-end cards (ie, they seem mostly comparable, but cold hard numbers are sometimes nice to look at ).

I'm basically debating whether it'd be worth the cash and time/struggle to replace the GPU fan/heatsinks with Arctic Cooling deals, or just sell these off and get a single 7970 or GTX 670.

Thanks, guys.

I don't suppose anyone has a 6870 you wouldn't mind being rid of for cheap?

=)

By the way, Oily, I didn't check any numbers when making the above suggestions. I will do some research later. Might find some more info regarding wipeout's question.

Dakuna wrote:
SOLstriker wrote:
krev82 wrote:

Maybe I'm just blind to it on that list but what gpu is he running?
edit: also storage type? psu(it is relevant for picking a gpu)?

Hey, it's a Gigabyte nvidea Geforce GT630.
Theres the setup including my proposed upgrades.

Can anyone take a look at this please and offer some advice?

Dakuna:

So, all that is getting upgraded is the CPU, Motherboard, Memory, and case? It would be better to go with 2 4-GB sticks rather than 1 8-GB stick. The motherboard will want dual channel memory. The 1 stick will work, but it's not ideal, and you won't be taking advantage of the available bandwidth. DDR3-1600 MHz is good.

I wouldn't expect a big boost in gaming performance without doing a GPU upgrade as well. I imagine that the GT630 is pretty underpowered. I'm assuming that this is a preliminary upgrade until the GPU gets upgraded.

I'm going to check those crossfire comparisons for Oily and Wipeout now.