The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

IF they kept the same naming scheme, a 6770 at near 5870 speeds would be nice, and fall inline with 5770 and 4870. im dissapointed in the naming scheme, and if they pull an nvidia and rebrand.

BUT if the price is there, then all should be good. hopefully a 6870 wont go over £220 inc vat.

PS i am returning MOH. i have it here unopened, and realised with black ops coming out, and with BC2, i really have no need for it at all. esp as i still am playing cod4 online haha. and i am sure gun game will keep me occupied like no other.

returning it to play.com, have my RMA number, and getting PES2011, or FIFA11, still deciding.

 

LOL you'd think I'd be excited for more video cards but 2 5850's is still overkill. Lemme check again... yep, still overkill. I miss using my 4870s and those were almost overkill too. I might be using these 5850s for a very very long time.

 

It's not a complete rebrand, as the HD6870 is completely different to the HD5870, but the HD5770/6770 are likely to be very similar, which I agree is disappointing.

Lol @ returning an EA game for buying one from Activision. You should be ashamed

Two 5850s are perhaps overkill, at 1920x1200. At 2560x1600 two 6870s will compare similarly to your 5850s, slightly behind.

 

no, im returning an EA game for either an EA or a konami. activition will get my money no question haha.

wish i had 2 4870s right now. would help alot. though hopefully 5870s will drop in price, to £230ish second hand soon? might pick one up.

 

Yeah! Do we have any hope of ever helping them put a country together out of all those tribes?

LOL - don't expect Sam to soft-peddle the hard cold reality!!!

Well, Kevin doesn't stay down for long,

Hmmm. well, in that case, I probably won't be picking it up either, until the price drops in half on ebay, and then I'll enjoy the single player game. Did you guys see the snoop video about the game - EA went over to snoop's house - pretty cool video.

Rich

 

Show's what I know, I always thought the 5850 was midrange to start with.

 

Pirates aren't the death of the games industry. People like you are. And no, I'm not joking.

They'll just go EOL so you'll just be looking at ebay prices. The HD6870 should be roughly that sort of price and use a bit less power, so you may as well just do that.

Maw: Not really, the HD5850 is mid high-end.
As it stands right now:

G210: Integrated section
HD5450: HTPC cards [bottom-end]
GT220: Low-end [Low]
HD5550: Low-end [Mid]
HD5570: Low-end [Mid]
HD5670: Low-end [High]
GT240: Midrange [Low]
HD5750: Midrange [Mid]
HD5770: Midrange [High]
GTS450: Midrange [Top]
HD5830: High-end [Low] or Midrange [Top]
GTX460: High-end [Low] or Midrange [Top]
GTX460 1GB: High-end [Low]
HD5850: High-end [Mid]
GTX470: High-end [Mid]
HD5870: High-end [Top]
GTX480: High-end [Top]
HD5970: Top-end
4GB HD5970: Top-end [Absolute]

The HD6 cards will fit in roughly like this:

HD6350: HTPC cards [bottom-end]
HD6750: Midrange [Low]
HD6770: Midrange [Mid]
HD6850: Midrange [Top]
HD6870: High-end [Low]
HD6950: High-end [Top]
HD6970: Top-end [Mid]
HD6990: Top-end [Absolute]

 

[sarcasm]sure....Christians and Pagans get along real well, when some ones pointing the blade at them. [/sarcasm]

No, we leave they go back to there old ways.

you can't teach an old goat new tricks, now the young ones they can be retaught...

 

Well, I stressed the hell out of both CPU and GPU tonight. On the MSI Barebone HTPC that is LOL! The GPU reached 71C and seemed to level off there. I don't think the GPU is defective. The CPU made it through 6+ minutes of Prime 95(Lots of Ram tested). I doubt there's a Ram problem, but I plan to run memtest tomorrow. I fear the Mobo may be dying. It's either that or the Seasonic power supply fan is dead, causing the PSU to heat up, and fowl up. If that were to happen while windows runs, it would lock up the system. I've had that happen before. I honestly hope that it's the fan on the PSU. To replace the motherboard with the exact same model would cost me 50 - 75$ minimum. That's completely ridiculous for an outdated am2 board! If it's the board, I'm not sure what I'd do. Probably recommend he go with a PS3 for a replacement It is after all just a media center I loaned him. The machine totally paid for itself

Guess I'll be reading about the PS3 pros and cons, vs HTPC. Since PS3 can stream netflix though, I think he could be happy with that.

Play videos though...and about 20 - 40 minutes in, it locks up completely. I'm at a loss...

I did check the event log by the way. Nothing there of use. No application crashes. My guess is, because it's hardware related, windows can't make heads or tails of it...

 

I wouldn't read too much into the PSU fan failing story. It isn't a particularly common reason for PCs to be unstable. If a decent PSU overheats it should shut down.

Have you checked the windows event log to see if any software issues are to blame?

 

LOL! I edited. I DID check the event log...

 

Definitely worth a memtest, and if the video locks up after 20-40 minutes, run the CPU stress test for at least that long.
The faulty 5970s I had crashed after 20 odd minutes in games, and sometimes took up to 20 minutes to crash in furmark.

Obviously you should try a reformat/reinstall if you haven't done so already. Other than that, maybe try a spare graphics card (ideally another nvidia so you don't have driver switching to deal with) to actually prove that's not the issue. Assuming the CPU isn't overclocked and it passes stress tests, and the graphics card isn't to blame, then you can try a new PSU as a test but if all else fails it's likely a board fault. Motherboards are I believe statistically the least reliable PC components (retarded considering they're the least complex)

 

I've been strongly considering a reformat. I'll run Memtest tomorrow, and Furmark considerably longer, and then make a decision. It has an Nforce chip. And given how some of the enthusiasts rate those boards...I think its likely to be the board/chipset.
May luck be with me

Its not isolated to one program either. Netflix streaming(Silverlight), Arcsoft total media theater, and MPCHC exhibited the same lockup/crash. My brother seems to think that its fine idling, but playing video seems to bring on the havoc. Perhaps it is video related. And the Ram? Unlikely as it is, I have to check the Ram. I've seen the video programs gobble up Ram playing back HD files Definitely worth a memtest.

 

Ah, didn't realise it was an nforce. If it were me I wouldn't even bother testing the PSU or the graphics card, I'd just replace the motherboard without thinking about it.

 

Oh sure, 50+ dollars. No problem LOL!

I guess I've known this has been coming. He's had little hiccups in the past. To which I've recalled your dislike in the Nforce chipsets. It has to be the damn board...

It was sooooo smooth while it lasted...

 

There were plenty of problems with both my nforce boards right from the off. They weren't explicable at the time, but none of them ever recurred on intel chipset boards, or even the ATI chipset Asus board I had. I hate to sound like a broken record but there isn't really a good word I can say about nforce boards at all. That said, both the nforces I owned being Asus boards, that's a match made in hell.

 

Your experience was certainly worse then mine :S But perhaps my negative experience was simply delayed. Win some, lose some. What's even more unfortunate, is that the HTPC case ONLY supports Micro Atx. I don't have any spares.

Unless I wanna go with this lovely Foxconn board LOL!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186155

 

Nforce chipsets get too hot.

you might try some Microfans and some thermal paste for the chipset. its a shame and a sham you have to have an nforce chip to have SLI.

 

you kidding right...about the foxconn board.

get an ASrock board, Ive been running a micro 939 board from them in a HTPC for NAS and streaming nonstop. its been turned of twice in 6 years.

its a dollar cheaper to boot...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157202



id pay the extra ten bucks and get the one with the new nforce chipset

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157187

 

LOL! Yes, I was joking about the Foxconn. That Asrock does look good.

Probably right about the hot chipset. The HTPC resides underneath a stereo receiver, with only an ~inch of air space above it. I sure hate to modify an HTPC case, that's in plain view, with my poor skills. Never have been too good working with metal or wood. Did ok with my circular hole in my secondary though. I was highly careful

I wonder if simply removing the heatsink, and reapplying thermal paste, and adding a fan would help. Or perhaps i'd be pissing in the wind...