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General discussion (archive)Computer Build... Question, and examples...(39 posts)(39 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 30, 2012
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OldFatGuy: SLI mode
... is pretty overrated. You're not getting two GPUs worth of power or anything like it. Power consumption maybe, but that's it.
Posted April 30, 2012
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wodmarach: See that bit above the price where it says "OUT OF STOCK."

yeah very "available"
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OldFatGuy: Oh, I see what you mean about the 680 being basically unavailable.

I wasn't thinking of them yet anyway. Aren't they like over $600 each??

I was thinking more along the lines of say 2 560Ti's in SLI mode, then upgrading to the 680 or 6.whatever later when they came down in price. I learned in my last build what a HUGE performance bump you get when running in SLI, so I'm kinda sold on that now (or I guess AMD has what's called Crossfire I think). I mean the jump in performance is STAGGERING. I had two 470's that were waaaay outperforming a single 590 (top at the line at the time IIRC) according to my and their 3Mark11 scores. That's pretty signficant IMO.

So, two 680's were kind of out of price range anyway.

Or are you saying 680's are kind of a minimum right now because the new games coming out are already pushing that???
Speed increase is 10-30% (crossfire is 20-80 yeah it's really that variable) on average. the 560's aren't worth it with the 660's due out in june and expected to be the same price as 560's.
Your 470's were likely OC'd to hell (which could explain your problems btw) a single GPU is always the better option though unless your saving over $150. 2 normal 470's were a little faster than a 580 and 2 570's are a little faster than a 680 but SLI like any multi GPU system is very game dependent.
Posted April 30, 2012
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OldFatGuy: SLI mode
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Navagon: ... is pretty overrated. You're not getting two GPUs worth of power or anything like it. Power consumption maybe, but that's it.
3DMark says otherwise. I would disable SLI mode, and run a benchmark with a single 470. Then enable SLI, and run the exact same benchmark with the exact same settings and it almost exactly doubled frame rates on every test except for the physics based one. And that makes sense, because with 2 Nvidia cards, you get the benefit of the second one running physics calculations even when it's not in SLI mode. So, the difference between those wasn't much (although there was a slight improvement in SLI mode).

But all of the other tests in 3DMark11 resulted in almost an exact doubling of frame rates.
Posted April 30, 2012
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OldFatGuy: Or are you saying 680's are kind of a minimum right now because the new games coming out are already pushing that???
No game is pushing that or anything like it. We're still in the era where the 360 dominates all, don't forget. Talk about lowest common denominator. But there you go.
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OldFatGuy: But all of the other tests in 3DMark11 resulted in almost an exact doubling of frame rates.
Interesting. I've heard it can vary greatly. But most often you can expect around the 30%-improvement mark.
Post edited April 30, 2012 by Navagon
Posted April 30, 2012
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wodmarach: wait your holding the ATI RAGE against them? DUDE come on that was 15 years ago thats like holding Jurassic park against Spielberg cause it scared your kid... Hell we don't even use glide anymore!
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OldFatGuy: Oops, my bad. I edit the post. It wasn't an AMD card but the AMD CPU that the search on the internets back then indicated was the problem. Sorry for the confusion.
Things in the CPU world are very volatile, from around 2000 till the core series was released buying Intel was definately the wrong way to go they were hot and slow didn't add x64 for 2 years (because it was an AMD initiative and intel wanted us to move to itanic... sorry itanium). Currently AMD is on a low spot Bulldozer has underperformed and had a few bugs which should be fixed in trinity so yes nobody can really recommend thier CPU's right now.
But GPU wise apart from a few very iffy titles (crysis2 for example look up "crysis2 tessalation" and "crysis2 invisible water" for why it's iffy) NV and ATI are pretty much identical except in price and NV lagging about 3-6 months behind on GPU releases.
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OldFatGuy: Or are you saying 680's are kind of a minimum right now because the new games coming out are already pushing that???
missed this bit. What I've been getting at is that right now NV chips are in flux it's not worth buying them now because in the next few months as the new generation are released at current gens price points you'll be able to get the old gen for less (saving cash) or get a more powerful version for the same cost.
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Navagon: Interesting. I've heard it can vary greatly. But most often you can expect around the 30%-improvement mark.
3dmark is an artificial benchmark i.e. it lies :P
Post edited April 30, 2012 by wodmarach
Posted April 30, 2012
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wodmarach: 3dmark is an artificial benchmark i.e. it lies :P
So it finds two cards and saves itself some hassle by doubling the single card's results?
Posted April 30, 2012
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wodmarach: 3dmark is an artificial benchmark i.e. it lies :P
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Navagon: So it finds two cards and saves itself some hassle by doubling the single card's results?
Nah it just isn't representative of the real world it uses a lot of shortcuts in the code and will show vastly inflated numbers
Posted April 30, 2012
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wodmarach: wait your holding the ATI RAGE against them? DUDE come on that was 15 years ago thats like holding Jurassic park against Spielberg cause it scared your kid... Hell we don't even use glide anymore!
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OldFatGuy: Oops, my bad. I edit the post. It wasn't an AMD card but the AMD CPU that the search on the internets back then indicated was the problem. Sorry for the confusion.
I don't know the price range 470's but compare a 3D mark test with 2x of in Crossfire :) Or easily by this one it is better than all Nvidia's on the market... [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121560]ASUS HD7970-DC2-3GD5 Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Post edited April 30, 2012 by spinefarm
Posted May 01, 2012
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OldFatGuy: NM.

Disregard.

Didn't realize it was going to start another damn Nvidia vs ATI (AMD) or Intel vs AMD war.
It didn't but right this instant buying NV is a fools game. Their only competing product is constantly out of stock and is overpriced. I'm sorry but we can't wave a wand and magically make NV a good option.
Likewise AMD is currently not a CPU option due to similar problems to NV has in the gpu market.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Computer Build... Question, and examples...(39 posts)(39 posts)
(39 posts)