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PC gaming hardware thread. https://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5402 |
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Author: | MaysLanding [ Sun May 03, 2015 21:58 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Yeah those are OK if you can get your head around the VRAM layout. Expensive though. I wish I could say AMD will be releasing cards like that but the stock cooler for the new 390x has hose holes so it's looking like another hot potato |
Author: | Hearthly [ Mon May 04, 2015 11:39 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
On paper the VRAM fuckery with the 970 could hurt it, and I know in synthetic tests it's been demonstrated to do so. However, out in the real world, thusfar at least, no one's been able to come up with any examples of the 3.5+0.5 VRAM architecture actually impacting performance. Eurogamer specifically referenced this in the GTAV article as that's the sort of condition (massive VRAM usage) where you might expect the 970 to hurt, but there was no evidence of this being the case. (They also found the same results with other games when they first looked into it.) (Not that I'm letting Nvidia off the hook for the way they marketed the card which was certainly a bit shady.) I wish AMD would get their act together in terms of both CPUs and GPUs, because as it stands at the moment Intel and Nvidia respectively can largely charge what they want for fairly uninspiring products, safe in the knowledge that all AMD can do is cut the prices of their existing lines because they've got nothing to counter with. Intel's CPUs in particular have been dreadfully incremental for ages now. (Which is why my ancient (albeit overclocked) i7-920 can still trade blows with their latest CPUs, as fundamentally Intel's current architecture is very similar to the first i7s which were released in 2008.) But yes, for me, if I do get a new graphics card it'll be a 970, and probably one of those mini-ITX variants. Having kicked GTAV around a fair bit now and tweaking it up, it's definitely my GPU that's maxed out as opposed to the CPU, so a new graphics card should give me a decent boost. (The GPU sits at a near-constant 100% utilisation whilst in game, whereas my four CPU cores are generally at 70-80%, hyper-threading is turned off because it does nothing for games and indeed generally hurts performance a little bit.) |
Author: | MaysLanding [ Mon May 04, 2015 13:54 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Well you're actually in luck dude. Depending on your motherboard you can now pick up a hex cored Xeon X5650 or better from Ebay for around £50-£70. Overclocked to 4ghz they put out around the same numbers as a 4790k. It's basically a 980x. Many on OCUK have been fitting them and have found that they're seriously quick. Definitely a worthwhile upgrade and no reason to buy anything newer. AMD have Zen coming next year and they brought back the guy who designed the original FX CPU you had. They're going to be 4-16 core and will sport some sort of threading too. Have a look at the Zotac 970 dude it's pretty small also. However if I were you I'd go 290x and replace your case, you'd be surprised what can be had for £50 these days. Not sure you still sub to Custom PC but they did a group test recently and the 290x was quicker at 1440p and 4k thanks to its far wider memory bus. |
Author: | MaysLanding [ Mon May 04, 2015 14:21 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
This is the same size as your 670. http://www.ebuyer.com/666813-palit-gtx- ... 14g2-2041f This is also nice and diddy. http://www.ebuyer.com/663452-zotac-gtx- ... -90101-10p |
Author: | Hearthly [ Mon May 04, 2015 14:30 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
The problem I have with the Zotac is it both draws its air in and dumps it back out inside the case, and it's already a bit cramped in mine (I have been looking at 970s over the last few months and that's one I've been eyeing up.) Ideally I'd go for a card with a radial fan that draws air in at the back of the card (which is fed with fresh air by the 120mm fan at the front of my case), and then dumps its hot air out of the back of the case. (Which is what my reference 670 does, in fact, that Palit 970 looks like it uses exactly the same cooler as a reference 670!) The ASUS mini-ITX 970 does technically dump a chunk of air back into the case but apparently it's got some clever mini vapour chamber trickery going on and runs very cool overall without moving a lot of air around. I really don't want a 290x TBH, I fell out with AMD a few years ago and the experiences of my mates who've dabbled with their cards since then hasn't impressed me much. (The 290X a friend bought, easily hitting its thermal limits and throttling with the stock cooler whilst sounding like a leaf-blower wasn't exactly a great inspirer of confidence....) |
Author: | MaysLanding [ Mon May 04, 2015 14:39 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
I initially bought a R9 290 stock for £135 about six months ago for my Hackintosh. Before I put it in there I tried it in Windows 8 and tbh dude I must say I was blown away. It was almost as fast as one of my Titans and they were £699 each. It was hot and loud though but then the stock cooler is awful. However, I ain't gonna knock ya for not wanting to dance with their drivers. They are utterly shit tbh and why I hold firm on buying Nvidias. Just recently they haven't been updating and their crew have been basically saying "We'll release it when it's ready !" which isn't really good enough IMO. The Palit card is the same as what you have now yes. Small PCB with a plastic extension on the back. Honestly going into miser mode I would say that throwing in a hex cored Xeon and a 970 will cover you for a couple of years at least. You're spot on about Intel. Their gains recently have been complete crap and I've seen some slides on Skylake and it's about 5% faster than Devil's Canyon. When I bought my 3970x (which I got on Ebay for £340) the 5820k was about to launch. All told with the Dominator Platinum (which is horrifically expensive) I spent about the same as a 5820k set up with crap DDR4 with no heat spreaders. However, my worries were ill founded it seems because I can get 4.9ghz out of it and the 5820k only clocks to around 4.2 which means I can easily beat it in any benchmark or game. That's the issue with these new Intels, whilst the die shrink brings a small bump in performance it also means that the core itself gets incredibly hot as soon as you start to crank on it which means earlier gen CPUs can easily make up for the bump with much higher clocks and lower temps. It's going to take a bit of a miracle with AMD and this Zen, but hey, this is the chap who brought us the original FX series and they were absolutely incredible. So I do hold at least a glimmer of hope. |
Author: | Sir Taxalot [ Tue May 05, 2015 1:55 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
I may not personally like some of the style choices, but I do think they are executed well and look to be well assembled. |
Author: | MaysLanding [ Tue May 05, 2015 15:34 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Yeah it's a bit loud. The tiny rig is quite refined once the side panel goes back on It's mainly just to make it easier to clean. All I have to do is get out a paint brush and clean out the fans, then once all the dust is out use a damp cloth (very lightly damp I add) and just wipe all the panels down. The big black and orange rig is a real nightmare to keep clean. It's just a dust magnet |
Author: | Hearthly [ Wed May 13, 2015 21:05 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
GTX970 arrived today so first thing I did when I got home was whack it in my PC. PCs being what they are today I didn't even bother to turn my PC on to uninstall the 670 through Device Manager or anything like that, just took the 670 out, put the 970 in, turned the PC on, it asked for a reboot after the first load into Windows, and thereafter, job done, 970 is good and ready to go. The only thing I'm really interested in (and indeed the only thing that'll push it) is GTAV, and the main news is that it will indeed shunt it around at 2560x1440@60FPS, with slightly better detail settings than the 670 could manage at 1920x1080, and that was with a more variable framerate (the 670 managed 40-60FPS). So it's VERY HIGH across the board, although I'm still steering clear of ULTRA and the Advanced Settings. Took a car out North where all the heavy grass effects kick in and saw a low of 50FPS, so a definite improvement there. CPU load has remained steady, I was slightly worried I'd hit some sort of horrible CPU bottleneck if I removed a constrained graphics card from the equation, but each of the CPU's four cores are still topping out at around 85% utilisation and it's staying well within its thermal limits. GPU wise the default fan profile massively prefers to throttle the GPU rather than ramp up the fan, to the extent that the fan tops out at around 45-50% with the GPU under 100% load, with the GPU temperature bobbing around 80C which is the point it throttles at - as such the card was dropping down to 1140MHz to maintain 80C. With a manual fan profile it boosted a lot more aggressively, settling down to a steady 1240MHz under the same solid 100% load conditions, albeit with the fan at a far noisier 80% speed, but that's no biggy as I tend to play GTAV with some decent volume anyway. VRAM usage has been between 2.5GB and 3.2GB, which shows how limiting the 2GB was on the GTX670. The 970 has completely eliminated the occasional 'lurch' that I got on the 670, which I can only assume was the result of the game desperately shuffling data in from the slower system RAM into the far faster VRAM where it's required. The cooler on this card is definitely down at the cheaper end of the market (I think it's exactly the same as the 670 reference cooler), so I'm not going to start buggering about with any overclocking shenanigans. Then again, it's a full-fat GTX970 GPU for £240, so an exotic cooler would be a bit much to ask at that price point. Outside of GTAV and using the default fan profile, it's very civilised and quiet, not much to be heard over the case fans at their lowest speeds. (I ran a couple of instances in WoW with Hearthly Jnr on that profile, and the PC remained very quiet.) Overall I'm very happy with the upgrade, it's done exactly what I wanted it to (GTAV at 2560x1440@VERYHIGH@60FPS), I've already got a buyer at work for the 670 for £60, so I've effectively upgraded for £180, to a GPU that is just one notch short of the current king of the GPU castle, the GTX980. And my really rather elderly i7-920 CPU + mobo and RAM (which I bought second hand on the cheap!) continue to amaze, being as they are now fully six and a half years old and will be celebrating their seventh birthday in November! |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Wed May 13, 2015 21:36 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Intel made a mistake with the I7 920 by thinking that the Phenom 2 would be far better than it was. They made that same mistake with Sandybridge too, again giving AMD a little too much respect, and thinking Bulldozer would be better than it was. Since then they've realised the error of their ways. An I5 now costs over £200. The motherboard in my monster rig has decided to die and so I need to gut my Hackintosh whilst I RMA the screwed board. Bit of a bummer but I've not used the mac in over two months. |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Wed May 27, 2015 12:30 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Yay so I've repaired my main PC. Got a Rampage IV Extreme for £120. Fitted it and performed what has to be the easiest overclock ever, straight in at 4.7ghz. Very happy. Just got to RMA the MSI board now but will be selling the replacement as I've vowed never to stray from Asus again. I should have bought the Rampage at the start. |
Author: | Findus Fop [ Fri May 29, 2015 14:33 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Not a gaming PC question. However, I am after PC wisdom. I'm potentially going to be moving out of London and therefore looking to work from home a few days a week. My current Macbook Pro is creaking and aged, which makes working over the VPN slow and frustrating. So I want a desktop PC that's got enough "grunt" (whatever that is) to make work as zippy as possible, and two monitors so I can ping between screens like I do at work. I don't code or design, I write. So, in the words of Destiny's Child, question(s)! 1) Are brands like HP, Lenovo and Acer fine? 2) Is PC World to be avoided at all costs? Anywhere better? John Lewis? 3) I'm willing to throw up to £1000 at this to cover the machine and two screens. I'm not bothered about gaming on it but will no doubt use it for the indies and and strategy games I can't get on PS4. Any great deals out there for that sort of cash? 4) Given I'm not especially bothered about gaming on it, is it worth getting an SSD? Finally, I don't want to build a PC. I'm shit at fingers. Any thoughts welcomed and gratefully received. |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Fri May 29, 2015 14:44 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
I would avoid all of said brands tbh. They're always under powered and in some cases can use non standard parts. It all really depends on your budget, but, for example have a look at this. http://www.cclonline.com/product/142043 ... L-EL-NGT2/ A solid, standard PC for not much money. Easily upgraded too, if that tickles your fancy Scan also do a decent range of cheaper computers.. It would help if you knew what sort of spec you wanted (IE gaming, office only, etc) and then I can find you a few to choose from. |
Author: | Findus Fop [ Fri May 29, 2015 15:10 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Awesome, thank you JC. To be honest the spec is primarily office, but being able to play the odd indie or strategy game would be nice. I'll leave my real gaming to the PS4. |
Author: | Satsuma [ Fri May 29, 2015 15:13 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Dear PC gamers. I played ARMA III and my PC defaulted to Very High settings. Is that cool or what? Can I play, I dunno, GTAV with better than PS4 graphics or what bearing that mind? Yours faithfully Ian |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Fri May 29, 2015 15:40 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Saturnalian wrote: Dear PC gamers. I played ARMA III and my PC defaulted to Very High settings. Is that cool or what? Can I play, I dunno, GTAV with better than PS4 graphics or what bearing that mind? Yours faithfully Ian It takes some serious muscles to throw around ARMA III on those settings. What is the spec of your machine? |
Author: | Bamba [ Fri May 29, 2015 15:42 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Saturnalian wrote: Dear PC gamers. I played ARMA III and my PC defaulted to Very High settings. Is that cool or what? Can I play, I dunno, GTAV with better than PS4 graphics or what bearing that mind? Yours faithfully Ian "Bearing in mind my PC can run a two year old game at an arbitrary level, will it run a brand new game at a level higher than a completely different hardware set?" |
Author: | Satsuma [ Fri May 29, 2015 15:53 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Bamba wrote: "Bearing in mind my PC can run a two year old game at an arbitrary level, will it run a brand new game at a level higher than a completely different hardware set?" Pfffffttt. JC gets it and he's a PC obsessive. |
Author: | Satsuma [ Fri May 29, 2015 15:53 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
JohnCoffey wrote: It takes some serious muscles to throw around ARMA III on those settings. What is the spec of your machine? No idea. I should find out...back in a sec. |
Author: | Satsuma [ Fri May 29, 2015 15:57 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Hearthly wrote: Back to the £500 PC conundrum..... I realise Saturn that it's very annoying when you state what you want and how much you've got to spend only for someone like me to say 'Ahhh yes but if you just spent a bit more....' - but that's exactly what I'm going to do however I do think it's worth noting, because if you can stretch to £600 then the performance jump from the £500 offerings really is stunning. In short you're getting an overlocked quad-core i5 processor (considerably more powerful than anything seen in any of the builds suggested thusfar), 8GB of RAM, a 2GB Radeon 260X (which is reckoned to kick about as hard as the PS4's GPU) that will see you right for high quality 1080@60 gaming, a 1TB hybrid drive (1TB of traditional hard drive storage married to 8GB of super-fast SSD cache) and Windows 8.1. (It's got your HDMI as well.) Apparently it runs nice and cool and quiet as well. For £600 this is a seriously impressive PC, although you will need to add a keyboard and mouse which will take you past £600 (albeit not by much), but this is genuinely a PC that will last you for years. Attachment: 600pc.JPG BOOM! It was this one. |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Fri May 29, 2015 16:03 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
It's hard to say really. I would stick to the PS4 if it were me though. It's 7 DVDs to install and takes around four hours so a piss load of hassle. |
Author: | Satsuma [ Fri May 29, 2015 16:07 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Dear JC, Is my PC better than yours and are you well jel? Thanks Ian |
Author: | Bamba [ Fri May 29, 2015 16:08 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Saturnalian wrote: Pfffffttt. JC gets it and he's a PC obsessive. JohnCoffey wrote: It's hard to say really.
|
Author: | Satsuma [ Fri May 29, 2015 16:38 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Yeah, he really let me down there... |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Fri May 29, 2015 16:53 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
My short answer works out about the same as the long one, which is basically at 1080p the 260x you have is about the same as the GPU in the PS4 and then of course comes the PC premium, so overall it would look about the same but possibly not run as well due to the PC overheads. I haven't looked at benchmarks or performance on GPUs like yours but I would say the above is about right. I don't run 1080p any more I have a 4k screen and thus only really bother with 4k benchmarks. If I'm being completely honest if I were running 1080p now days I would buy a PS4. |
Author: | asfish [ Sat May 30, 2015 11:54 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Still have my Alienware with I7 2600K and 16GB of Ram with a GTX Titan Been a good PC for the last 3 years, only issue I have is once in a blue moon the BIOS gets upset on reboot and the disk boot order is all messed up. Can't see me changing it for a while and when I do not sure what I'll get Don't suppose you build PC's for a price Mr Coffey? Even though I work in IT I hate building my own systems and gave it up. |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Sat May 30, 2015 12:38 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
I could do yeah. TBH though if I were buying a new PC now I'd actually plump for the new Area 51 I think it's stunning. Thing is for gaming at least there's absolutely no point in upgrading because you still have a very quick CPU. I would upgrade your Titan to the imminent 980ti as it's a slightly cut back Titan X and fit a PCIE SSD for booting from. Odd that you mention Alienware. On Thursday I had to swap out my Area 51 with my step son because the PSU has died. |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Sat Jun 06, 2015 14:21 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
So I cut the proprietary connector from the Alienware loom. I then soldered it into a 24 pin extension. And connected up a Corsair RM 750. Annndd.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv3qMT0S69I Bit squeaky but then it's been sat for nearly a year. I've ordered a new side panel from the USA as I cut into the original and don't like it. Now all I have to do is fit all of the drooly hardware (8 core Xeon, Titan Black etc) |
Author: | asfish [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 7:24 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Do you get any real gaming benefits from SLI? Last year we built some PC's from parts and filled them full of graphics cards for our CADD group to do some GPU based calculations. This proved to be successful so we then spent a fortune on a HP GPU system with 48 Tesla cards which I deployed last week As such the PC's are not needed now, one of them has 4 Titans in it! I was thinking of taking it home for a month or so to see how it played with games |
Author: | Bamba [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 9:00 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
asfish wrote: Do you get any real gaming benefits from SLI? Are you asking whether having multiple cards is better than a single one? Isn't that answer to that pretty obvious? |
Author: | GazChap [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 9:29 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Interestingly, it's currently a hindrance when using a Rift. Or at least, was when I sold mine, they might have sorted that in recent firmware updates. |
Author: | Hearthly [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 9:48 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Even Custom PC (home of 'rigs', 'mods', 'customisation' and LEDs) recommend going down the single big bastard GPU route rather than SLI/Crossfire these days, and have done for a while. When you've got single cards like the 980Ti that can handle 4K gaming, SLI/Crossfire makes no sense in any scenario. SLI/Crossfire are also dreadfully driver dependent, so if there isn't a profile for your current game of choice, only one GPU will be used. Then you have companies like Blizzard that don't support SLI/Crossfire in any capacity whatsoever so if you have a problem with one of their games the answer is always 'take one of the graphics cards out and try again'. Then you've got micro-stutter, which has never really been properly fixed. And then you've got the increased power requirements, and heat and noise generation that SLI/Crossfire bring to the table. Custom PC did a £4000 'Dream PC' build feature this month, and for the graphics card they used a single Titan-X. |
Author: | asfish [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 9:53 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Quote: Are you asking whether having multiple cards is better than a single one? Isn't that answer to that pretty obvious? When I played with in the past, it wasn't that great you need specific drivers for games and even then another card would be out that was better in single configuration |
Author: | Bamba [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:00 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Hearthly wrote: When you've got single cards like the 980Ti that can handle 4K gaming, SLI/Crossfire makes no sense in any scenario. That's not true; if I've got a single card that's getting on a bit and I can get a performance jump by sticking another one of them, for relatively cheap, in a spare slot then it's difficult to argue against that. Especially if your argument is "go out and but a new hilariously expensive card instead". Hearthly wrote: SLI/Crossfire are also dreadfully driver dependent, so if there isn't a profile for your current game of choice, only one GPU will be used. Then you have companies like Blizzard that don't support SLI/Crossfire in any capacity whatsoever so if you have a problem with one of their games the answer is always 'take one of the graphics cards out and try again'. Fair enough, these issues I wasn't aware of so apologies to asfish for attempting to over-simplify his question. |
Author: | Hearthly [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:28 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Bamba wrote: That's not true; if I've got a single card that's getting on a bit and I can get a performance jump by sticking another one of them, for relatively cheap, in a spare slot then it's difficult to argue against that. Especially if your argument is "go out and but a new hilariously expensive card instead". To a point, but even then there are several points to consider. 1) Can you even still buy a matching card for your existing card? Also, just because a card is old doesn't mean it'll be cheap even if you can source one. 2) Does your motherboard support SLI/Crossfire? 3) Power supply requirements, if you need a new power supply then all of a sudden it ain't so cheap. 4) Driver support, once a GPU gets to a certain age Nvidia/AMD stop optimising their drivers for it, so adding a second 'abandonware' GPU to an existing 'abandonware' GPU might not get you very far. 5) Noise and heat, if this doesn't bother you then fair enough. 6) Is there an SLI profile for your game of choice? The list isn't as long as you might expect..... http://www.geforce.com/games-applicatio ... =&sort_by= That said, yes if you can maybe grab a suitable card for £50 or less, and your motherboard/power supply supports it, and the game you're having trouble with has an SLI profile for it - there's not really much to lose by giving it a go. In the interests of fairness though, I should note that it appears that as of the latest expansion, SLI is now supported in WoW for the first time.... |
Author: | Bamba [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:43 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Hearthly wrote: Does your motherboard support SLI/Crossfire? I think it's safe to assume that in the context of a discussion about the benefits of SLI that we're starting from a point where it's even physically possible. Hearthly wrote: Power supply requirements, if you need a new power supply then all of a sudden it ain't so cheap. That's a fair point I hadn't considered. Hearthly wrote: Driver support, once a GPU gets to a certain age Nvidia/AMD stop optimising their drivers for it, so adding a second 'abandonware' GPU to an existing 'abandonware' GPU might not get you very far. I don't think this argument makes much sense. Even if there's a shortfall in potential performance because a given card isn't getting further optimisations you'll still get a decent performance boost by adding a second one (compared to having the single one), even if it's not as much as it could be in an ideal world. Unless you're arguing that adding a second card will somehow result in less power than having a single one, which I assume you're not as that would be bonkers? Also, I don't think I've updated the drivers for my ATI card in ages and it's still happily trucking along. While driver updates might make a big difference when targetted at certain high profile game (e.g. Witcher 3, GTAV, etc) I'm not convinced they make a wild difference in general. |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 11:54 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Short answer from phone. Nvidia cards have hardware onboard to help prevent runt/dropped frames which cause micro stutter. The only remaining issue is sudden frame drops on very intense scenes which is amplified if you have SLI or Crossfire X but this is what Freesync and Gsync are for. I've been using SLI and Crossfire since 2008 and it's not all plain sailing but from my experience SLI is by far the more polished. It's very rare that a game does not work with it but there are a few examples (like UBI's shit and the modern Wolfenstein games). Also this - Fuck Custom PC. Until recently they were recommending Crossfire for 4k. One 980ti is not enough for 4k, Custom PC are still using three year old games to bench with. Three way SLI adds about 8% over two cards and four way usually detracts performance. Since buying my Titan Blacks last August I've only seen Far Cry 4 hate SLI and I don't like Far Cry anyway and Wolfenstein the old blood is it? Other than that every game I've played has shown a significant boost from using SLI. Crossfire? Well AMD were caught with drivers that cheated (dropped and runt frames) and did eventually address the issue with Frame Pacing. Sadly of late their driver team seems to have gone on holiday so there are no Crossfire profiles for any of the latest games. So no GTAV etc. It's like WW3 on the OCUK Graphics forum. |
Author: | lasermink [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 12:31 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Bamba wrote: asfish wrote: Do you get any real gaming benefits from SLI? Are you asking whether having multiple cards is better than a single one? Isn't that answer to that pretty obvious? So if I get two sound cards, I'll have better sound? |
Author: | Bamba [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 12:33 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
lasermink wrote: Bamba wrote: asfish wrote: Do you get any real gaming benefits from SLI? Are you asking whether having multiple cards is better than a single one? Isn't that answer to that pretty obvious? So if I get two sound cards, I'll have better sound? Yes. |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 12:52 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
lasermink wrote: Bamba wrote: asfish wrote: Do you get any real gaming benefits from SLI? Are you asking whether having multiple cards is better than a single one? Isn't that answer to that pretty obvious? So if I get two sound cards, I'll have better sound? Two sound cards don't produce samples in tandem for better quality sound though, do they? SLI does render alternate frames for massive performance boosts though. As I mentioned before it's actually very rare now for a game not to work in SLI. And then of course there's the future, where DX12 will natively support multiple GPUs at a API level. |
Author: | lasermink [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 13:34 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Bamba wrote: lasermink wrote: Bamba wrote: asfish wrote: Do you get any real gaming benefits from SLI? Are you asking whether having multiple cards is better than a single one? Isn't that answer to that pretty obvious? So if I get two sound cards, I'll have better sound? Yes. I'm getting four, then. |
Author: | Bamba [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 13:56 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
lasermink wrote: Bamba wrote: lasermink wrote: Bamba wrote: asfish wrote: Do you get any real gaming benefits from SLI? Are you asking whether having multiple cards is better than a single one? Isn't that answer to that pretty obvious? So if I get two sound cards, I'll have better sound? Yes. I'm getting four, then. Four is really the minimum number of sounds card you need for modern PC gaming; really demanding stuff like Duke Nukem 3D won't even run unless you've got at least eight installed. |
Author: | Hearthly [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 19:34 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Bamba wrote: I don't think this argument makes much sense. Even if there's a shortfall in potential performance because a given card isn't getting further optimisations you'll still get a decent performance boost by adding a second one (compared to having the single one), even if it's not as much as it could be in an ideal world. Unless you're arguing that adding a second card will somehow result in less power than having a single one, which I assume you're not as that would be bonkers? Also, I don't think I've updated the drivers for my ATI card in ages and it's still happily trucking along. While driver updates might make a big difference when targetted at certain high profile game (e.g. Witcher 3, GTAV, etc) I'm not convinced they make a wild difference in general. Well as JC has already noted, Crossfire is by far the weaker of the two implementations, so on an AMD card (ATI don't exist anymore!) you'll be stuck with Crossfire and AMD's shonky driviers and even shonkier Crossfire. (Also note that AMD's drivers suffer badly in DX11 when paired with a weaker CPU, so an AMD card that on paper should better an Nvidia card, actually delivers less performance in reality - loads of stuff about this at Eurogamer.) Another thing to remember is that you're limited by the VRAM on a single card, so if you Crossfire two 1GB cards you still only have 1GB of VRAM as far as games are concerned. So in my case for example, yes I could have tried SLI-ing another 670 with my existing 670, and that may well have given me enough grunt to run GTA5 at 2560x1440, but it would have done nothing to help with the fact that my chosen settings needed 2.5GB of VRAM and the 670s are 2GB cards, and as far as GTA5 (or any other game) would be concerned - 2GB of VRAM is still what I'd have, it doesn't pool it between the two cards. Finally, it's important to note that you can get an awful lot of GPU grunt for a reasonable amount of money. The GTX960 for example will basically top out any game you chuck at it at 1080p/60FPS, and it costs £150 - and being as it's a new card it has the latest cool-running architecture, modest power requirements, low noise, up-to-date driver support etc. (I continue to be very impressed with the 960 in Mrs Hearthly's PC.) Dropping down to a £100 card you can still get some excellent performance, which isn't going to be a whole lot more than you'd have to drop on a second card to try Crossfiring with whatever you have now. (Unless it's a real cheap thing in which case Crossfiring it probably won't help much.) I'm not saying it's a total non-starter and yes it may be a decent budget option to eke some extra life out of an elderly single-card PC in certain circumstances, but personally speaking I think it makes more sense to move onto a new single GPU solution. |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 20:53 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
SLI and Crossfire, ironically, are only worth it on high end cards. Few reasons really but AMD and Nvidia deliberately derp their low rent cards now. For example they only come with a max of 2gb VRAM. The last cheap way on Nvidia to get flagship performance was the GTX 460, where two would beat a GTX 480 for half the price and came with 2/3rd the amount of VRAM. Then of course there's the dreaded scenario of no profiles or game support. In which case you have to fall back on one card and if that card is low rent you'll be reducing settings to 'not even as good as a console' levels. I learned that the hard way when I had two Radeon 5770s. It really was nothing but pain. So yeah, multi GPU set ups are only for complete overkill from my experience. I'm playing the waiting game now. I want two of these new gen cards but I'm being tight fisted and won't bother until I can get a pair for around £600. One isn't worth it because what I have is faster and I'm not paying release tax again. |
Author: | Hearthly [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 21:18 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
BAD NEWS - My £120 keyboard has two dead LEDs already. The LED under the 'K' key has gone and a couple of nights ago the LED under the 'G10' key went as well. viewtopic.php?p=848043#p848043 Attachment: arseled.JPG A quick Google for 'K95 dead LEDs' is rather illuminating. Or rather, not illuminating, LOL. (I'm here all week.) Basically there's a design flaw in the K95s and other mechanical keyboards by Corsair of that era whereby the LEDs aren't shielded against ESD (electro static discharge) properly and they almost inevitably start to fail after a few months of ownership. Once the first couple go, you can generally rely on one or two going every few weeks after that. Not acceptable on a £120 keyboard. That said, part of me was just like, 'Who cares, it's just a fucking keyboard and it's not like I really need the backlighting, it's just pretty', but then again I was like ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY POUNDS FOR A FUCKING KEYBOARD IT'D BETTER LAST MORE THAN FIVE MONTHS BEFORE DEVELOPING FAULTS. So then, I've been going through Corsair's RMA process and have said to them that: 1) I don't want it to be replaced with another K95, the design is inherently faulty. 2) I'm very disappointed as I've bought all sorts of Corsair products over the years and wasn't expecting this sort of experience on a £120 keyboard. 3) I'd like them to replace it with a keyboard that has a newer design on the LEDs which aren't prone to failure. GOOD NEWS: They've agreed to collect the K95 at their expense, (normally you have to pay for the return to them and they pay for the return to you), and send me one of these The K95 RGB which has the new LED mounting design on it, and is also a £150 (!) keyboard. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprod ... =KB-043-CS Attachment: k95rgb.JPG It's basically the same keyboard but the RGB model (16.7 million colours per key), with the updated LED design so they don't tend to start failing after six months or less.... Sexy. (2m40s for the real prettiness.) |
Author: | JohnCoffey [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 21:35 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
TBH I've owned a good chunk of Corsair products and every single one of them,barring their ram, has left me underwhelmed. I bought two of their Raptor mice for £18 each. Mine broke after three weeks (scroll wheel packed up) and Mrs JC's failed at the plug end with two wires working their way loose and snapping. I bought a 250D ITX case only to find it was all very thin steel and plastic, with a 1mm alu slither on the front. When empty the entire thing flexes it's so thin. Then for my big rig I originally bought all Corsair AF led fans only to find them starting to make fart noises six months in. I'm not sold at all tbh. I think people over rate their products just because they look nice. I had a bit of a result on my keyboard. Black widow ultimate BF4 edition, french layout, £32. All blues. I switched the Q key and a couple of others but I touch type any way so the french writing doesn't put me off. |
Author: | Hearthly [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 21:40 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
Well Corsair were originally just RAM I think? I've had loads of their RAM over the years which has never let me down, but also power supplies which have been excellent too. I guess they've let things slip a bit with their move into peripherals, and I was absolutely insistent that I didn't want another K95 as the LEDs on it WILL start to fail prematurely by all accounts. Mind you, as a physical keyboard this K95 is absolutely gorgeous, the nicest keyboard I've ever used or owned (and the software is fine too), they just fucked up on the LEDs. Can't really argue with them replacing it with a K95 RGB, with both collection and delivery at their expense. |
Author: | TheVision [ Wed Jun 10, 2015 22:23 ] |
Post subject: | Re: PC gaming hardware thread. |
I'm sorry... for a second there, I thought you said that you paid £120 for a keyboard. |
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