New PC

[Harrison]

Any updates on the PC build Teho? Did you get a new GPU, or are you still waiting?

[Teho]

I only just got back from that job a couple of days ago. All done with that, so not going away again for the foreseeable future. But yes, I have been looking and have placed an order for an ATI 5870 card for just under £300. It'll be a little over three weeks until I have it though, as it comes out on the 23rd.

So even though I planned to buy everything at once and get a new PC within a week, the build will still have ended up taking nearly three months by the time I have it..

Saw the test at Tom's Hardware, and noted that it isn't actually much more powerful than a 285 which I can get immediately, and only a little cheaper. But there's DirectX11 to consider. I'm not jumping on the Windows 7 bandwagon immediately, but having skipped Vista entirely I'll probably upgrade to 7 once it's been out a little while. So the 5870 was the way to go. Plus I can always get another one and a bigger PSU at a later point.

[Bloodwych]

The 5870 is actually a single core card, while the 285 is a monster 2 core card with huge power requirements. So the 5870 is the most powerful single core card.

When the 5870 x2 comes out, it will blow the 285 away. Then nVidia will be working like crazy to get their next part out!

The 5870 is a great card with, as you said, DX11 hardware, so I think you made a good choice for Windows 7.

[Harrison]

The 5870 is definitely going to be a great card. nVidia for once are going to be playing catch up as they won't be able to get their next generation cards ready until next year. And even when released I bet they will be badly overpriced just like their current high end cards.

[Teho]

Not sure what just happened with the space/time-continuum, but look what I got in the post today:



Well, how about that. Have installed it and everything seems to be working fine, but haven't tested it yet. So all I have right now is pictures. The first two is of the card itself, unpacked. The second with the driver cd next to it for size comparison. It's well bigger than my old 7800 GTX, proving that things have indeed been developing while I wasn't looking. You can see in the first pic that the thing has exhaust vents going into the system as well as one on the back panel. Good thing I have plenty of ventilation going on inside the box.





And a couple of it installed. Why is it that no matter how much you try to be neat with all the cables your system always end up looking like someone barfed spaghetti into it?





Now for the testing. Won't happen tonight though, I've a friend who has a bad habit of dragging me along to get drunk every other saturday. Ok, so I don't fight him much.

Any ideas for software and ways to test the system though? I guess 3DMark is a given. And I do have Crysis lying around here somewhere..

[Harrison]

Call of Juarez has a Direct X 10 test benchmark which is good.

3DMark is good, but doesn't really push the DX10 much.

[J T]

Yeah it's true that - I guess it's people who just can't part with their aging motherboards, afraid of updating too many components or having to reinstall the OS, so the 939 x2's go for silly prices.

Yeah, I had a look a while ago for a better CPU, thinking there'd be loads of people getting rid of theirs cheaply so i could get a little boost. I was pretty shocked to see how expensive even second hand 939 X2s are.

I can't really be bothered upgrading my mobo, CPU and then maybe RAM too. And my GFX card isn't that hot.

But

I don't really play games on it at all, so am only after a bit more grunt for general ****ing about really.

[Harrison]

If you were not interested in gaming and you already have a PCI-E graphics card then it wouldn't cost that much to upgrade. You could for example upgrade to a dual core E5200, 2GB DDR2 ram and a motherboard for about £100. Or for a better dual or quad core setup getting the motherboard, CPU and Ram for under £200. At the moment Intel chips are a better option than AMD though.