Help me choose a graphics card.

[Mike_Yates]

I have all the hardware except for the GPU. I also need the OS (Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit) and the AV software (NAV 2010).

My hardware includes the following.

*Intel Core i7 930 CPU
*6GB DDR3 1333 MHz RAM
*ASUS P6T X58 motherboard
*Corsair TX850 850W power supply
*Hitachi 2TB 7200RPM hard drive
*ZALMAN CNPS9900 CPU cooler
*CoolerMaster HAF 932 full tower case.
*DVD-RW Drive

I can't decide between getting the ATI Radeon HD 5870 or the GeForce GTX 480. The GTX 480 or "Fermi" as it's called, is infamous for overheating to almost 100 *C and has a very loud cooling fan sound. Also, the GTX 480 is only about 5-10% faster than the ATI card, and costs $100 more.

The hardware store does not carry the ATI Radeon card AT ALL! The only place you can get it is online. I don't trust personal information on the internet. I've been looking at the Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X with 2GB of RAM and a factory-overclock on newegg. Also, there is the MSI HD 5870 Lightning.

http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx36/bermantelevision/GeForceandRadeon.jpg

 

[philosophygirl]

I thought you were broke?

 

[tan43215]

go with nvidia latest - then if you want to switch to linux so your computer works properly you can

 

[Liar]

http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx36/bermantelevision/GeForceandRadeon.jpg

That second card looks awfully flat.

And I'm still facinated you don't get a ssd sys drive, considering the amount of money you must pump into that machine already.

 

[Luk]

I have all the hardware except for the GPU. I also need the OS (Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit) and the AV software (NAV 2010).

You're an idiot for using NAV. Well, you're an idiot for other reasons too.

I thought you were broke?

He's having trouble keeping act together as of late.

 

[mercury14]

go with nvidia latest - then if you want to switch to linux so your computer works properly you can

I have a computer running Linux that uses a NVidia 8600 card. The drivers for it are horribly buggy.

ATI used to ignore Linux but that's no longer the case any of their cards in the 2000-5000 series will work great.

 

[cebalrai]

I have all the hardware except for the GPU. I also need the OS (Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit) and the AV software (NAV 2010).

My hardware includes the following.

*Intel Core i7 930 CPU
*6GB DDR3 1333 MHz RAM
*ASUS P6T X58 motherboard
*Corsair TX850 850W power supply
*Hitachi 2TB 7200RPM hard drive
*ZALMAN CNPS9900 CPU cooler
*CoolerMaster HAF 932 full tower case.
*DVD-RW Drive

I can't decide between getting the ATI Radeon HD 5870 or the GeForce GTX 480. The GTX 480 or "Fermi" as it's called, is infamous for overheating to almost 100 *C and has a very loud cooling fan sound. Also, the GTX 480 is only about 5-10% faster than the ATI card, and costs $100 more.

The hardware store does not carry the ATI Radeon card AT ALL! The only place you can get it is online. I don't trust personal information on the internet. I've been looking at the Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X with 2GB of RAM and a factory-overclock on newegg. Also, there is the MSI HD 5870 Lightning.

http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx36/bermantelevision/GeForceandRadeon.jpg

If this is your system, your HDD is your slowest link. Add a small SSD for Windows and keep your Hitachi for data storage.

I'd go with one of the HD 5870s. ATI has been really impressive lately.

 

[mercury14]

You're an idiot for using NAV. Well, you're an idiot for other reasons too.

I agree that he's an idiot for other reasons, but I don't see what's wrong with NAV for him.

 

[mercury14]

Why not get a 5970?

 

[philosophygirl]

He's having trouble keeping act together as of late.

I've noticed.

 

[tan43215]

I have a computer running Linux that uses a NVidia 8600 card. The drivers for it are horribly buggy.

ATI used to ignore Linux but that's no longer the case any of their cards in the 2000-5000 series will work great.

i have 5 linux boxes all with nvidia cards -- all kick ass playing back hd movies -- all the ati cards i had suck over the yrs.

we can fix your issues -
what nvidia card and base computer hardware
what distro?
what driver?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Wrong Forum....





HOW TO choose a graphics card.

 

[Shagly]

I have all the hardware except for the GPU. I also need the OS (Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit) and the AV software (NAV 2010).

My hardware includes the following.

*Intel Core i7 930 CPU
*6GB DDR3 1333 MHz RAM
*ASUS P6T X58 motherboard
*Corsair TX850 850W power supply
*Hitachi 2TB 7200RPM hard drive
*ZALMAN CNPS9900 CPU cooler
*CoolerMaster HAF 932 full tower case.
*DVD-RW Drive

I can't decide between getting the ATI Radeon HD 5870 or the GeForce GTX 480. The GTX 480 or "Fermi" as it's called, is infamous for overheating to almost 100 *C and has a very loud cooling fan sound. Also, the GTX 480 is only about 5-10% faster than the ATI card, and costs $100 more.

The hardware store does not carry the ATI Radeon card AT ALL! The only place you can get it is online. I don't trust personal information on the internet. I've been looking at the Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X with 2GB of RAM and a factory-overclock on newegg. Also, there is the MSI HD 5870 Lightning.

http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx36/bermantelevision/GeForceandRadeon.jpg

Go with a pair of nVidia PCI-e cards and run them in SLI mode if your into video games, a pair of lower priced video cards will work and not put off as much heat in the computer case.

 

[Mike_Yates]

It is not recommended that you install your OS on an SSD. Solid state drives gradually decrease in performance. They rarely last longer than 1 1/2 years on average, before they begin to fail. If you put your OS on an SSD, the SSD is constantly being read, and will further decrease the lifespan of the device.

Personally, I don't need 2TB of storage, but that Hitachi HDD was on sale for less than the 1TB model, so I figured, why the hell not?

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 "Fermi" is only about 5-10% faster than the Radeon HD 5870. It can reach temperatures exceeding 100 *C in cases with poor airflow, and has an ear-piercing fan noise.

A factory-overclocked HD 5870 like the powercolor HD 5870 PCS+ with a 950 MHz core clock, will par or rival the performance of the GTX 480 and run at almost half the temperature. The GTX 480 handles tesselation slightly better than the ATI cards, there aren't many games which utilize tesselation though...

With sufficient aftermarket cooling, the HD 5870 can be overclocked to 1GHz. Although I don't know jack shit about how to overclock. I do know that it instantly voids warranties and can really screw up and/or damage your computer if you don't know what you're doing.

Besides, early next year, ATI is releasing the Radeon HD 6xxx "Northern and Southern Island" family of graphics cards. Which will be an entirely new micro-architecture on a 32nm, and then 22nm die. I'd like to see what Nvidia has to counter that.

The GTX 485 is expected before the end of this year. Nvidia also has a GTX 5xx GPU based on the Fermi architecture.

The Radeon HD 5970 will be bottlenecked by a stock clock Core i7 930 @2.8 GHz. It also runs very hot, and consumes more than 300W of power at 100% load. I'm not sure if my Corsair 850W PSU is enough for a single one of those cards.

Most of today's high-end and flagship graphics cards can handle any game right now at it's maximum spec. It's extremely high resolutions and anti-aliasing which brings graphics cards to their knees.

Playing Crysis and Crysis Warhead (currently the most hardware demanding PC game titles on the market) on "very high" and "enthusiast" graphical spec at a resolution of 1024x768 with 0x AA, using and HD 5970 will give you a very smooth 75-90 FPS. If you upped the resolution to 1920x1080, with 8x AA, your frame rate could drop below 10 FPS.

 

[Mike_Yates]

You're an idiot for using NAV. Well, you're an idiot for other reasons too.



He's having trouble keeping act together as of late.

McAfee AV uses up too much system resources.

 

[tan43215]

McAfee AV uses up too much system resources.

with a linux system you do not need antivirus(at this point and time)
as far as using a ssd for your os drive -- i have never had a stick of ram go bad - my current ssd is 2 yrs heavy use - i regular hd is a bottle neck

 

[Luk]

McAfee AV uses up too much system resources.

That's why I use free AVG.