Feeling Particularly Stimulated

[Sand]

Okay, I got my wonderful "We're Not In a Recession" Recession check and going to get a couple of upgrades. The primary upgrade is a Core 2 Duo 6850 CPU. Newegg has it at $185 new sop I think that is a good buy and I trust Newegg. However things get a little murky when it comes to my video card upgrade. I like to buy local as much as possible. Hell, if there was a store locally that I could buy the CPU at I would but there isn't. Now, we have a local best Buy store selling BGF 9600 GT for $200, A BFG 8800GT for $250, and a Visiontek Radeon HD3870 for $250.

 

Of those three video cards which do you guys think would be best? I do have a SLI compatible motherboard so I am leaning towards the Nvidia chipset, but I have also been a long time ATI user.

[LostStraw]

8800GT would be the best choice in terms of performance (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforc...mance/page3.asp). Since you have an SLI capable motherboard I don't see any incentive to favor the ATi card over the Nvidia ones.

 

I currently use a 9600GT and haven't had any problems with it, drivers or otherwise. I'm running Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition. If I had more cash to spend I would have sprung for an 8800GT. My last video card was an ATi Radeon 9800 Pro which served me well for a long time .. but having no brand loyalty I didn't have a reason to stick with ATi this time around.

Edited May 28, 2008 by LostStraw

[taks]

man, why would you waste so much money on best buy? add in tax and you're probably out $75 over newegg on the graphics stuff.

 

taks

[Deraldin]

man, why would you waste so much money on best buy? add in tax and you're probably out $75 over newegg on the graphics stuff.

 

taks

 

I'd have to agree, especially if he's using Newegg for the CPU anyway.

[mkreku]

The only reason to choose ATI over Nvidia as it stands today is that the 3870 exist in a silent version (without fans). Which is pretty cool.

[Sand]

man, why would you waste so much money on best buy? add in tax and you're probably out $75 over newegg on the graphics stuff.

 

taks

 

I always buy locally first. If there is a product available at small shops and at the larger stores, I go spend my money at the mom and pop stores first, even if the product is more expensive. If there is no mom and pop stores that have the product I am looking for then I go for the larger but still local stores. I only go online to shop if there is absolutely no place local to buy what I need. Its my way of helping out the local economy. Besides, if the product is defective it is far easier to go back to the shop and get a replacement or my money back than having to RMA it.

 

In any case I went for the BFG 8800GT.

Edited May 28, 2008 by Sand

[samm]

The only reason to choose ATI over Nvidia as it stands today is that the 3870 exist in a silent version (without fans). Which is pretty cool.

If the price for a 3870 is the same for a 8800GT, this is true. Here the ATis are lower priced and thus worth considering...

[Spider]

The only reason to choose ATI over Nvidia as it stands today is that the 3870 exist in a silent version (without fans). Which is pretty cool.

 

Actually, Sparkle has a 8800GT with passive cooling (and it's the same price as a regular one). So ATI doesn't even have that advantage. You can get an OC version from MSI or BFG for the same price though.

[Sand]

I got the OC version from BFG but I am having some technical issues dealing with static sound. I reinstalled my Sound Blaster drivers and placed the card in another PCI slot which helped but still I am getting a little bit bled through. Any ideas?

[mkreku]

Actually, Sparkle has a 8800GT with passive cooling (and it's the same price as a regular one). So ATI doesn't even have that advantage. You can get an OC version from MSI or BFG for the same price though.

Yeah, I read about that.. I don't really count it because it actually reaches temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius under load! That must seriously shorten the life span of the board and the chip. I feel it's a broken construction, but hey, it works out of the box.

 

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3165&p=4

[samm]

I got the OC version from BFG but I am having some technical issues dealing with static sound. I reinstalled my Sound Blaster drivers and placed the card in another PCI slot which helped but still I am getting a little bit bled through. Any ideas?

Try and isolate the soundcard, possibly an (itself isolated!) steel mesh would be enough. Aluminium foil is possibly too thin, and you'd have to make sure it doesn't come near any device, which seems difficult...

No modder around here with tested ideas?

[taks]

not much you can do inside the box. perhaps putting a filler board in between the sound and video cards, something you don't intend to use or something that does not run at high speed. a LAN card maybe... i would NOT recommend putting anything metallic in your box on or around your components. the risk of shorting something out is just too great if you are not trained to do it correctly (and safely). more than likely a large portion of the noise is conducted anyway, which is a mobo issue that you will not be able to resolve easily.

 

taks

[Sand]

Well, it seems that the static only happens when I play mp3s. It doens't make the static sound when I got a game going, but then I have only tested ME and Crysis so far. Oh, my CPU is ordered. I am wondering how much of a performance boost I will be getting from going froma 3ghz 800 FSB Cedar Mill single core to 3ghz 1333 FSB Core 2 Duo dual core.

[mkreku]

You will probably not notice any difference except when running artificial tests. Also, your RAM needs to be really fast to take advantage of the new front bus speed. I am betting your current RAM isn't even maxing out the 800 MHz bus.

[angshuman]

Well, it seems that the static only happens when I play mp3s. It doens't make the static sound when I got a game going, but then I have only tested ME and Crysis so far. Oh, my CPU is ordered. I am wondering how much of a performance boost I will be getting from going froma 3ghz 800 FSB Cedar Mill single core to 3ghz 1333 FSB Core 2 Duo dual core.

Yeah, the 800 -> 1333 upgrade is not going to make a big difference.

 

However, the Cedar Mill (Pentium4D) to Conroe (C2D) upgrade is freaking HUGE. A 1.8GHz C2D with 2MB cache can run circles around a 3.6GHz P4D. You're getting a 3.0GHz C2D with 4MB cache. Hypothetically, if the P4s existed to this date, then we're talking about the equivalent performance of a ~6-7GHz Cedar Mill. The difference *is* really that huge. Despite this, as mkreku said, you probably won't perceive this in a lot of real-world scenarios, where you'll likely be bottlenecked by memory latency, HDD and GPU speed.

Edited May 30, 2008 by angshuman

[Sand]

So, with the E6850 Core 2 Duo and a 8800GT, what type of memory would be best with that combination? I do plan on getting a second 8800GT for SLI but would it be more worthwhile geting better or more RAM?

 

According to PC Wizard the type of RAM I have is "DDR2-SDRAM PC2-6400 (399 MHz) - [DDR2-800]."

[samm]

It won't be able to rum at "1333", but it doesn't matter as Intel's FSB doesn't allow for any performance gains by the faster RAM (see here, but it's in german...)

[Gorth]

It won't be able to rum at "1333", but it doesn't matter as Intel's FSB doesn't allow for any performance gains by the faster RAM (see here, but it's in german...)

If I read it correctly, even the slowest DDR3 is "too fast" for current CPU's, the latter really only supporting speeds up to 10Gb/s (FSB1333)? And you need something like a hypothetical FSB running at 2666 to get genuine performance improvements?

 

I wonder how it works with Intels next generation of cpu's though, they apparantly don't have an (external) "FSB".

[angshuman]

Very few contemporary applications are memory-bandwidth limited. Get any memory sticks that your mobo can support, you'll be fine. Of course, the amount of RAM does have a huge impact. Since it's a new PC, I'd say get at least 4GB unless you plan on upgrading soon.

[taks]

If I read it correctly, even the slowest DDR3 is "too fast" for current CPU's, the latter really only supporting speeds up to 10Gb/s (FSB1333)? And you need something like a hypothetical FSB running at 2666 to get genuine performance improvements?

 

I wonder how it works with Intels next generation of cpu's though, they apparantly don't have an (external) "FSB".

keep in mind, it is much easier for a processor IO bus design (e.g. the FSB) to catch up with memory speeds than vice versa. the iteration time between updates is simply slower with the former. the processor itself sometimes spends more time waiting for data than doing actual work (app. dependent, of course, particularly with non-contiguous data locations in memory). i don't know what it would really take to get a genuine performance improvement since cached operations all typically function at half CPU speed (well, the MIPS does/can). doing operations on large blocks of contiguous memory result in 99% of your work being conducted directly out of cache, so as long as the work you're doing takes longer than the time it takes to pre-fetch all the data you need (into cache), memory speed won't make a bit of difference.

 

taks

[Sand]

My new CPU is out on delivery! YAY!