Zio wrote:
The motherboard I've got has to divide PCI-E up into two 8x lanes if you're using two graphics cards, it's a limitation of the P55 chipset. So I read that same article before making my purchase. I gather the only real problem is it limits you to dual Crossfire or SLI as shoving in a third card will actually decrease performace so much that you'd be better with just the one card in there.
Indeed. Thankfully I shall never get that temptation as the Xfire board I am getting (today by the looks of it too) only has two PCIE slots
SLI is far more dependant on full x16 lanes. It's also actually quite shocking just how many motherboards on the market that share the lanes out. Crazy really. The entire X3x series all do it !
I'm totally thrilled at what I paid for the board. I'm not too happy it's an Assrock but to be fair to them it has bios updates a few days old and even though they canned it a long time ago they're still fully supporting it and answering all tech questions about it via email so fair play for that.
It's only real bad downside and one I only discovered last night (and am utterly fucked off about) is that it only has 4 SATA ports. Which sucks bells because I'm now going to have to remove two hard drives
Having said that with crossfire running something has to give (PSU wise) and I have plenty of space to be able to remove them. Oh well
Zio wrote:
To be honest, I'm playing Mass Effect 2 at the moment (when I get time - I started on Sunday and still haven't left Omega Station) and it runs silky smooth at 1080p, with everything set to their highest values and 4xAA. No idea what the frame rate is, but I'd imagine it was around 60FPS merely going on how smooth it runs.
Never played the first one.. *embarassed*. I must read about that game.
Zio wrote:
Street Fighter IV I know for a fact runs at a very steady 60FPS with everything on maximum at 1080p (4xAA) and Dirt 2 at about 70FPS with everything at maximum. And this is running my processor at 3.2GHz, when I have it on good authority that my board and CPU combination can easily hit 4.2GHz with the proper cooling applied. So I'm pretty damn chuffed all in all.
Which means finally, at long chuffing last, I can stop pissing about with the hardware and start actually playing the games on it. Wonderful! In fact, I'm increasingly feeling like I may keep this PC after all and cancel the Alienware order, especially as Dell are properly trying my patience now.
SFIV ran well for me when I played it briefly. I'll no doubt be reinstalling it very soon. As for Dellienware? I told you. I ordered a keyboard.. A fucking keyboard from them and had to go through that awful phasing system. It took nearly a month to arrive, I got a phonecall at 6:30 am from a robot telling me it was being delivered and then never got the invoice.
Shoddy experience in truth mate.