The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Hey sam, do you know you if the sunbeam rheobus fan controller's still work if the LED's are removed? The specification says that they can be removed and then inserted "reversely" to reverse the color sequence so it seems like I should be able to remove them, would be nice to know before buying though.

 

Hey guys,

I'm no help on Red's issue on removing leds, although that is kind of interesting because I might be picking up a small 4 position fan controller pretty soon. And I sure am no help on Kevin's mobo problem in his HTPC.

But I have the latest scoop on that new game I hinted about from V.

It's something about Dota. This is the link.

Five players against five players, with super hero AI thrown in for good measure. If you know how to use the super heroes, you're in good shape.

If not, and you see one comin' YOU BETTA RUN!!!

Not being World War 2, it normally wouldn't appeal to me, but I already learned my lesson from ignoring Left 4 Dead for 6 months while Sam kept raving about it - so this time I probably won't be the last one in on this game.

Here's the character that Miles has been working on.



Has anybody played this mod?

 

Not true with LGA1156 or LGA1366 for Intel. Intel were so peed off at nforce chipsets they banned them, so now motherboard manufacturers pay nvidia a license to fee to legally be allowed to put SLI in the BIOS of the motherboard. Cheap boards don't get SLI, not because they lack any equipment but because they didn't pay the quite considerable license fee.

Omega: I'd take that Foxconn over any ASRock board any day. ASRock is the cheap low quality arm of Asus, so what does that tell you?

Maw: Yes they are removable.

Rich: Lmao have I played it. About the only multiplayer game I currently play at all is HoN, which is effectively the current incarnation of DoTA until DoTA2 comes out. I've played at least 300 hours of it I would think.

 

Well...I'm not convinced the mobo is dead yet. It still runs. It seems to only go sour after a substantial amount of time playing video. Some of my internet digging suggests that Nforce chipsets require better cooling. I'm currently looking into that possibility. I'm gonna run an experiment in the morning, and then loop video playback to run indefinitely, and see what I come up with. If it passes, I give the chipset even better cooling. And when the board ultimately bites the big one, I'll slap what ever cooling I put in it, on my primary board

 

I'm not sure what the heat output of low-end nforce chipsets is. What I do know is that the 680i and 780i chipsets use more power than a dual core CPU like the E6850 and E8500. That should give you some idea as to how much cooling they need. (I believe the 680i was 70W, the 780i was 75 or 80W, whereas both the CPUs I listed are 65W)

The 650i board I had used the largest northbridge I've seen albeit with very spaced fins. According to the sensor [which are programmed to read wrong so you don't realise the chipsets overheat, good one nvidia!] the chipset was 43ºC, when I ran a thermal probe on the heatsink [which probably wasn't as hot as the chipset itself] it was 76ºC.

 

If it's true when you say they lie about their sensors, I'm very disappointed. I've been monitoring a ~42C Mobo/NB temp on the HTPC. If that's a lie at idle, I can only imagine what it is under load. I would DEFINITELY imagine it needs better cooling then.

 

Sad but true, other people have reported the same.

 

ASrock has stepped up there quality an customer services since '02, they've even received best of rewards an pcmag choice awards.

ASUS is the shitty one, pretty sad when your low end arm, destroys the parent company.

 

ASrock stuff was known for being low quality even before Asus dropped the ball. Quite frankly I don't have any consequence in either.

 

i have had issue after issue with ASUS boards something never worked right or didn't work at all. i was hesitant to get an Asrock board for my HTPC i read reviews compiled what the interwebs had to say, and ruled out the Paid for posting drones that seem to bash anything with negative reviews.

bought one of the 939 boards, 6 years not one issue. its even an Nforce board which is a shocker, didn't expect more than 3-4 years out of it.

 

Sh****t!

One more game that Sam is going to rape me on!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

LOL

All right, Sam or anybody, help me out on this game, please.

First of all I have to confess that I have never even played Team Fortress 2, which is a complete sin since that was the game Miles specialized in when he lived up in Seattle and first went to work for Valve - he and Ariel and Moby were the TF2 team.

And I have the game downloaded in the My Games steam folder - but I haven't gotten to it yet. Someday. Someday. LOL (I just know there's going to be a long learning curve called "getting raped.")

So Dota2 sounds like TF2, and they even mention the TF2 gamer community.

So, help me out Sam with 300 hours of Dota under your belt. How does it compare to Left 4 Dead. Just a short paragraph. I never would have played Left 4 Dead except you talked about it a lot, and it appeared miraculously in my games folder one day during that free week that they had. Then I tried it and was amazed. I will be playing a lot of that game at the end of this month on my 3-day once-a-month gaming weekend.

So in one paragraph (or more if you feel like it) why are you playing Dota, to the tune of 300 hours so far - what is the game playing experience like, particularly compared to Left 4 Dead which I am familiar with.

Rich

 

Thanks sam I'll most likely pick one up and put in this weekend.

 

Dota is nothing like TF2, nor is it anything like Left 4 Dead.

First of all TF2 and L4D are first person shooters. You have a first person camera perspective, you use WASD to move your character around, moving the mouse to adjust your aim, and you click to fire or melee people, unless you're playing as infected, but similar idea.
TF2's controls are much the same, it's still an FPS, the difference being rather than the objective being to survive to the end, it's to win the multiplayer scenario.

There are a few standard multiplayer scenarios for FPS games, that many titles use. TF2 does not use many, largely owing to the fact that it's a class-based game, instead of a generic shooter.
i.e. Instead of as in an arcade shooter where everybody has the ability to pick up and use any weapon they find, in a class based shooter you're limited to using a particular set of weapons for your role - not unlike a tactical military shooter like bad company 2, as for example you can only really use snipers as recon, and you can only really heal people as medic.
However, how BFBC2 differs is, as would be realistic, there's nothing stopping you from killing an enemy, and taking whatever items they have, regardless of if they're your class or not. You can quite easily go medic, down an enemy sniper (which you can even do with the defibrillator, pretty hilarious) and take his sniper rifle and use it.
Team Fortress 2 locks you into the specific class you chose:
Scout - To my knowledge the only class that can double jump, moves the fastest, has a shotgun and a baseball bat [all classes have a melee weapon, and the other two are typically ranged]. Scouts are useful as they capture objectives with the speed of two people.
Soldier - main weapon is an RPG launcher. Also carries a shotgun secondary. Melee is spade
Heavy - main weapon is a large minigun. Also carries a shotgun secondary. Melee is fists
Pyro - main weapon is flamethrower. Also carries a shotgun secondary. Melee is axe
Engineer - carries a shotgun and a pistol. Melee is a wrench. Enginer can erect sentry guns and health/ammo dispensers, as well as teleporters. These can be upgraded in time to become more powerful (sentry) or faster to recharge (teleports)
Demoman - grenade launcher and sticky bomb (remote mine) launcher. Melee is beer bottle.
Sniper - Sniper rifle as primary, secondary submachine gun, melee is a kukri blade.
Medic - syringe gun as primary, Medigun as secondary - heals teammates and adds charged. When fully charged, activates ubercharge (temporary invincibility for both the medic and the healee). Melee is a bonesaw
Spy - Revolver as primary, electro-sapper as secondary (disables and damages enemy buildings), knife as melee - backstab is an instant kill. Can disguise himself as enemy players, or turn (almost) invisible.


To make things more complicated, TF2 employs an item drop and item craft system whereby you can get certain new weapons for your class from time to time, or for other classes. If you accumulate sufficiently many useless items [e.g. you already have them or you never play the class they're for] you can combine them to create more useful things.


The game modes TF2 employs are:
Capture the flag [called capture the intelligence here] - standard fare gamemode involes stealing an item, normally a flag, from deep inside the enemy base, making it across the battlefield and landing it at your base to score a point.
If a player carrying the flag is killed, the flag drops to the ground. Another team-mate can pick up the flag and continue assuming the enemy haven't recovered it. In some games, the enemy even touching their downed flag returns it to their base. In other games, they need to carry it back. In many titles, a team cannot score a capture of the enemy flag if their own has been taken. I don't think TF2 is one of these games.

Territory capture / Land Grab:

Not sure what the actual names for these are, those are titles from the xbox series Halo.
These two modes are very similar, a point is captured by a player standing on or around it for a certain period of time. In TF2, this process is sped up, the more players are standing on it. Typically, a point can't be captured if an enemy is also standing on the point.
The round is won when a team has captured every point.
How territories differs from land grab (I'm not sure which one is which, in TF2 the mode used is decided by which map it is. In Halo games, both modes are available for every compatible map) is that in one mode, both teams can capture points.
The TF2 way of doing this is to have 5 points. Base->Outside base->Centre->Outside base->Base from one team to the other. Say we call them 1,2,3,4,5 for simplicity here. If you're capturing 4 but the enemy are capturing 3, and the enemy capture 3 first, you can no longer capture 4, it is given back to the enemy - all the captured points are linked together.
I believe the Halo system is that whoever has the most points after all 5 have been captured wins the round.
The other method is simply a case of base defense, a team can only either attack, or defend, i.e. only one team is able to capture points. They have to capture as many within the time limit, or all as fast as possible, then when the teams are switched, the opposite team has to beat the record.

Payload run:

This I believe is largely unique to TF2. The map consists of a railway track that runs from your base to the enemy's. You start in your base with a bomb on a cart, which has to be pushed to the enemy base. When it gets to the centre, it detonates and you win the round.
The speed with which the cart is pushed depends on how many people are pushing it. (Again, scouts push double) The cart also regenerates health to the people near it. If the cart remains unattended for a certain time interval (around 30s) it begins to roll back slowly.
A checkpoint system is used in case a team don't make it to the end before time runs out. Checkpoints act as time-extends.

One particular map actually features a payload race where both teams get the cart and the first one to reach the other team's base wins.



So that's TF2 then, in a relatively sizeable nutshell.

How does DoTA differ? totally.


DoTA is an RTS style game, set from an overlord's perspective. There is only one objective, and in DoTA itself, only one map. HoN has three, but the others are very rarely played as they seem not to live up the exacting standards of extremely picky players.

You start with a prebuilt base which you cannot alter. It consists of a fountain, a shrine, a few random useless buildings, three sets of barracks (one for each lane) and 11 defense towers, 2 guarding the shrine, and 3 in each lane.
The objective of the game is to destroy the enemy shrine, which is only possible once most of the towers have been destroyed (all of the towers in a given lane, plus at least one of the towers defending the shrine), otherwise it is invulnerable to attack, to stop people teleporting in and grinding it down.

You play as a hero character, which are sort of designed into classes, but the boundaries are not so clear cut. There are a little over 60 heroes in HoN (the current modern adaptation of DoTA) and there were 100+ in the original DoTA, as will there be in DoTA 2.
Heroes are characters with a large amount of health (400-600 to start with, can be in excess of 4000 on occasions towards the end of a game), which you control RTS-style. While you can change class whenever you like in TF2, in DoTA you are locked to the same character for the course of the game, as your hero levels up.
With the exception of certain heroes' abilities, you only have one character to control.
The barracks spawn creeps every 30 seconds, weaker units which automatically charge at the enemy base. Until barracks are destroyed, creeps are evenly matched, so you won't find them pushing the enemy base by themselves. However, leave a lane ungarded and a hero can easily wipe out the enemy creeps and help the friendlies push the lane towards the base.

Every hero has 4 unique abilities. These have all kinds of functions. Some stun enemies, some slow them, some do damage or a combination of the prior, some heal, some activate other abilities, such as bonus damage to team mates.
One of the most fundamental parts of the game is in choosing a good team of 5 heroes for your team (the vast majority of games are 5v5, as it is the best mechanic for the map)
Heroes are divided into 3 primary attributes.
Strength
Agility
Intelligence

Every hero has these as a statistic, but every hero has one as a primary, which helps define their role.
Strength heroes are built like tanks. They have lots of health and are generally designed to try and soak up damage, allowing weaker heroes to survive.
Agility heroes are damage dealers. They attack hard and fast and most of the game's carries are agility (A carry is a hero that, when sufficiently levelled, can carry a weak team to victory, even if the game seems lost)
Intelligence heroes are spellcasters. These typically have the most exotic unique abilities, and are very useful to have in a teamfight.

Every hero has a few basic characteristics that define their usefulness
Health - pretty obvious, when it runs out, the enemy dies. Respawns are not instantaneous, the time they take scales with how long the game has been going, and how high a level they are. You can 'buy back' for a large sum of gold if you're desperate and/or you have the money, which provides an instant respawn from when you click.
Mana - Required to cast spells and use certain items.
Armor - the more you have, the less damage you take
Gold - the more you have, the more cool items you can buy. Items grant stats (+strength/agi/int) as well as some other raw stats (health, mana, damage) and in some cases, special abilities, for example, a heal. Everybody receives 1 gold per second, you get gold for killing creeps, towers and heroes, as well as for assisting with kills.
Damage - the more you have, the harder enemies get hit
Attack speed - the more you have, the faster you attack enemies.
Experience - experience means levels, you get it from being near creeps or enemies when they are killed. When you level up, apart from gaining more base stats, you are also able to level one of your unique abilities.

I'd go on, but I think it's probably best to continue from a question/answer perspective

 

Second textwall of the day, some hardware updates.

Coming in December, the Geforce GTX485.
Of course, it's not called the GTX485, it's called the GTX580. This is nvidia after all.

Price will be similar to that of the GTX480 launch, so around $600 or £440.
The HD6970's price is likely to be similar as well.
All the GTX580 is is a 512 shader GTX480, with 2GB of memory.

Meanwhile all of the GTX400 series are being replaced with rebrands on a 384-bit bus width, so there will be a GTX570, 560, and probably a 576-core GTX590/680 within the next 6-8 months.



Now, the full version of Arcania:Gothic 4 as a benchmark, both on CPUs and on GPUs. (HD6 series results are of course speculative). GT430 results are now more accurate, but still extrapolated.
Results for resolutions 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 are extrapolated.

Low Quality
1280x1024 M10: Radeon X1950XT/HD2900GT/3690/4670/5570, Geforce 8800GS/9600GSO/GT220/430
1280x1024 M20: Radeon HD3870/4830/5670, Geforce 8800GT/9800GT/GT240/GTS450
1280x1024 M30: Radeon HD3870X2/4770/5750, Geforce 9800GTX+/GTS250/450
1280x1024 M40: Radeon HD3870X2/4870/5770, Geforce 9800GX2/GTX280/460
1280x1024 M50: Radeon HD4890/5830/6850, Geforce GTX285/460
1280x1024 M60: Radeon HD4850X2/5850/6850, Geforce GTX295/470

1680x1050 M10: Radeon X1950XT-X/HD2900Pro/3850/4670/5570, Geforce 8800GS/9600GSO/GT240/430
1680x1050 M20: Radeon HD3870/4830/5670, Geforce 8800GTS 512/9800GT/GTS250/450
1680x1050 M30: Radeon HD3870X2/4770/5770, Geforce 9800GX2/GTX260/GTS450
1680x1050 M40: Radeon HD4890/5830/6850, Geforce GTX275/460
1680x1050 M50: Radeon HD4850X2/5830/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
1680x1050 M60: Radeon HD4870X2/5850/6850, Geforce GTX295/480

1920x1080 M10: Radeon HD2900Pro/3850/4670/5570, Geforce 8800GS/9600GSO/GT240/GTS450
1920x1080 M20: Radeon HD3870X2/4830/5750, Geforce 8800GTX/9800GTX/GTS250/450
1920x1080 M30: Radeon HD3870X2/4870/5830/6850, Geforce GTX280/460
1920x1080 M40: Radeon HD4850X2/5830/6850, Geforce GTX295/460 1GB (not 465)
1920x1080 M50: Radeon HD4870X2/5850/6870, Geforce GTX295/480
1920x1080 M60: Radeon HD6950/2x5830/4890, Geforce GTX480

1920x1200 M10: Radeon HD2900XT/3850/4670/5570, Geforce 8800GS/9600GSO/GT240/GTS450
1920x1200 M20: Radeon HD3870X2/4770/5750, Geforce 9800GTX+/GTS250/450
1920x1200 M30: Radeon HD4870/5830/6850, Geforce GTX280/460
1920x1200 M40: Radeon HD4850X2/5830/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
1920x1200 M50: Radeon HD4870X2/5870/6870, Geforce GTX295/480
1920x1200 M60: Radeon HD6950/2x5830/4890, Geforce GTX580/2x460

2560x1600 M10: Radeon HD3870/4830/5670, Geforce 8800GT/9800GT/GTS250/450
2560x1600 M20: Radeon HD4870/5830/6850, Geforce GTX280/460
2560x1600 M30: Radeon HD4850X2/5850/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
2560x1600 M40: Radeon HD6950/2x5830/4890, 2xGeforce GTX460. GTX580 possible
2560x1600 M50: Radeon HD5970/6970, 2xGeforce GTX470
2560x1600 M60: 2xRadeon HD5870/6870, 2xGeforce GTX480

Medium Quality

1280x1024 M10: Radeon HD2900Pro/3850/4670/5570, Geforce 8800GS/9600GSO/GT240/GTS450
1280x1024 M20: Radeon HD3870X2/4830/5750, Geforce 8800 Ultra/9800GTX/GTS250/450
1280x1024 M30: Radeon HD3870X2/4870/5830/6850, Geforce GTX280/460
1280x1024 M40: Radeon HD4850X2/5830/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
1280x1024 M50: Radeon HD4870X2/5850/6870, Geforce GTX295/480
1280x1024 M60: Radeon HD6950/2x5830/4890, Geforce GTX580/2x275

1680x1050 M10: Radeon HD2900XT/3850/4670/5570, Geforce 8800GT/9600GT/GT240/GTS450
1680x1050 M20: Radeon HD3870X2/4770/5750, Geforce 9800GX2/GTX260/GTS450
1680x1050 M30: Radeon HD4890/5830/6850, Geforce GTX285/460
1680x1050 M40: Radeon HD4850X2/5850/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
1680x1050 M50: Radeon HD4870X2/5870/6950, Geforce GTX480

1920x1080 M10: Radeon HD2900XT/3850/4670/5570, Geforce 8800GT/9800GT/GT240/GTS450
1920x1080 M20: Radeon HD3870X2/4860/5770, Geforce 9800GX2/GTX260-216/460
1920x1080 M30: Radeon HD4850X2/5830/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
1920x1080 M40: Radeon HD4870X2/5870/6870, Geforce GTX295/480
1920x1080 M50: Radeon HD6950/2x5830, 2xGeforce GTX465
1920x1080 M60: Radeon HD5970/6970, 2xGeforce GTX470

1920x1200 M10: Radeon HD2900XT/3870/4670/5570, Geforce 8800GT/9800GT/GT240/GTS450
1920x1200 M20: Radeon HD3870X2/4870/5830/6850, Geforce 9800GX2/GTX280/460
1920x1200 M30: Radeon HD4850X2/5850/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
1920x1200 M40: Radeon HD6950/2x5830/4890, Geforce GTX480
1920x1200 M50: Radeon HD6970/2x5830, 2xGeforce GTX470
1920x1200 M60: Radeon HD5970/2x6870, 2xGeforce GTX480

2560x1600 M10: Radeon HD3870X2/4770/5750, Geforce 9800GTX+/GTS250/450
2560x1600 M20: Radeon HD4850X2/5850/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
2560x1600 M30: Radeon HD6950/2x5830, 2x Geforce GTX460. GTX580 possible
2560x1600 M40: Radeon HD5970/2x6870, 2x Geforce GTX480
2560x1600 M50: 2x Radeon HD6950/3x5850, 2x Geforce GTX480
2560x1600 M60: 2x Radeon HD6970/3x5870, 3x Geforce GTX480

High Quality

1280x1024 M10: Radeon HD2900XT/3850/4670/5570, Geforce 8800GT/9800GT/GT240/GTS450
1280x1024 M20: Radeon HD3870X2/4770/5770, Geforce 9800GX2/GTX260/GTS450
1280x1024 M30: Radeon HD4850X2/5830/6850, Geforce GTX295/460
1280x1024 M40: Radeon HD4870X2/5870/6870, Geforce GTX295/480
1280x1024 M50: Radeon HD6950/2x5830/4890, Geforce GTX580/2xGTX285
1280x1024 M60: Radeon HD5970/6970, 2x Geforce GTX470

1680x1050 M10: Radeon HD2900XT/3870/4830/5670, Geforce 8800GT/9800GT/GTS250/450
1680x1050 M20: Radeon HD4870/5830/6850, Geforce GTX260-216/460
1680x1050 M30: Radeon HD4850X2/5850/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
1680x1050 M40: Radeon HD6950/2x5830/4890, Geforce GTX480
1680x1050 M50: Radeon HD6970/2x5830, 2x Geforce GTX460 1GB
1680x1050 M60: Radeon HD5970/2x6870, 2x Geforce GTX470

1920x1080 M10: Radeon HD3870X2/4830/5670, Geforce 8800GTS 512/9800GTX/GTS250/450
1920x1080 M20: Radeon HD4890/5830/6850, Geforce GTX275/460
1920x1080 M30: Radeon HD4870X2/5870/6870, Geforce GTX295/480
1920x1080 M40: Radeon HD6970/2x5830, 2x Geforce GTX465
1920x1080 M50: Radeon HD5970/2x6870, 2x Geforce GTX470
1920x1080 M60: 2x Radeon HD6950/3x5830, 2x Geforce GTX480

1920x1200 M10: Radeon HD3870X2/4830/5750, Geforce 8800GTS 512/9800GTX/GTS250/450
1920x1200 M20: Radeon HD4850X2/5830/6850, Geforce GTX295/460
1920x1200 M30: Radeon HD4870X2/5870/6950, Geforce GTX295/480
1920x1200 M40: Radeon HD6970/2x5830, 2x Geforce GTX460 1GB
1920x1200 M50: 2xRadeon HD6870/5870, 2x Geforce GTX480
1920x1200 M60: 2xRadeon HD6950/3x5850, 2x Geforce GTX480

2560x1600 M10: Radeon HD3870X2/4860/5770, Geforce 9800GX2/GTX260-216/GTS450
2560x1600 M20: Radeon HD4870X2/5870/6950, Geforce GTX295/480
2560x1600 M30: Radeon HD5970/2x6850, 2x Geforce GTX470
2560x1600 M40: 2x Radeon HD6850/3x5850, 2x Geforce GTX480
2560x1600 M50: 2x Radeon HD6970/3x5870, 3x Geforce GTX480
2560x1600 M60: 3x Radeon HD6950/4x5870, 4x Geforce GTX480

Very High Quality

1280x1024 M10: Radeon HD2900XT/HD3870/4830/5670, Geforce 8800GT/9800GT/GTS250/450
1280x1024 M20: Radeon HD4870/5830/6850, Geforce GTX280/460
1280x1024 M30: Radeon HD4850X2/5850/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
1280x1024 M40: Radeon HD6950/2x5830/4890, Geforce GTX480
1280x1024 M50: Radeon HD5970/6970, 2x Geforce GTX460 1GB
1280x1024 M60: 2xRadeon HD5870/6870, 2x Geforce GTX470

1680x1050 M10: Radeon HD3870X2/4830/5670, Geforce 8800GTS 512/9800GTX/GTS250/450
1680x1050 M20: Radeon HD4890/5830/6850, Geforce GTX285/460
1680x1050 M30: Radeon HD4870X2/5870/6870, Geforce GTX295/480
1680x1050 M40: Radeon HD6970/2x5830, 2x Geforce GTX460
1680x1050 M50: Radeon HD5970/2x6870, 2x Geforce GTX470
1680x1050 M60: 2x Radeon HD6950/3x5850, 2x Geforce GTX480

1920x1080 M10: Radeon HD3870X2/4770/5750, Geforce 8800GTX/9800GTX/GTS250/450
1920x1080 M20: Radeon HD4850X2/5830/6850, Geforce GTX295/465
1920x1080 M30: Radeon HD6950/2x5830/4890, Geforce GTX480
1920x1080 M40: Radeon HD5970/2x6850, 2x Geforce GTX470
1920x1080 M50: 2x Radeon HD6950/3x5830, 2x Geforce GTX480
1920x1080 M60: 2x Radeon HD6970/3x5850, 3x Geforce GTX470

1920x1200 M10: Radeon HD3870X2/4770/5750, Geforce 9800GTX+/GTS250/450
1920x1200 M20: Radeon HD4850X2/5850/6850, Geforce GTX295/470
1920x1200 M30: Radeon HD6950/2x5830, Geforce GTX580/2x GTX285/460
1920x1200 M40: Radeon HD5970/2x6870, 2x Geforce GTX470
1920x1200 M50: 2x Radeon HD6950/3x5850, 2x Geforce GTX480
1920x1200 M60: 2x Radeon HD6970/3x5870, 3x Geforce GTX480

2560x1600 M10: Radeon HD4890/5830/6850, Geforce GTX280/460
2560x1600 M20: Radeon HD6970/2x5830, 2x Geforce GTX285/460
2560x1600 M30: 2x Radeon HD5870/6950, 2x Geforce GTX480
2560x1600 M40: 2x Radeon HD6970/3x5870, 3x Geforce GTX480
2560x1600 M50: 3x Radeon HD6950/4x5870, 4x Geforce GTX470
2560x1600 M60: 3x Radeon HD6970, 4x Geforce GTX480


Low Quality CPU test
Single core
M10: Single core of QX9770/i7 920/i5 750
M20 and above: N/A
Dual core:
M10: Pentium E2160, Core 2 Duo E4300, Athlon64 X2 3800+, Pentium D 950 (3.2Ghz)
M20: Core 2 Duo E8400, E6850 OC@ 3.3Ghz, any Core i5 dual core, Phenom II X2 555 OC @ 3.3Ghz
M30: Core i5 dual core @ 3Ghz with HT enabled, 3.9Ghz without
Tri-core:
M10: Any 3-core processor
M20: 3 cores of any Intel quad core CPU, any Athlon II X3
M30: 3 cores of Q8400+, QX6850+, any Core i series Quad core
M40: 3 cores of Q9650 OC @ 3.45Ghz, any Core i series Quad core
M50: 3 cores of i7 950 without HT, any Core i7 with HT
M60: 3 cores of i7 950 with HT
Quad-core:
M10: Any quad core processor
M20: Phenom 9650 or above
M30: Phenom 9850 or above
M40: Core 2 Quad Q9450/Phenom II X4 940/QX6850
M50: Core 2 Quad Q9650 OC @ 3.3Ghz/any Core i series quad core CPU (HT off), Core i7 930 with HT on
M60: Core i7 960 @ 3.33Ghz with HT on, Core i7 920/i5 750 with HT off


Oh and by the way, I found the source of the parasitic glitch with ATI drivers. It's the steam installer. If you install an ATI driver using steam, should a driver install ever bug, you'll be stuck. Avoid the steam drivers!

 

man, GTX580, the whole 6 series naming waste, and possibiolity of a 5770 to 6770 rebrand. what a sad "generation"

 

Rebrands come from stagnation, and that's exactly what this is. Without a process drop, there's little else that can be done, save expanding die size to the maximum, something nvidia did right from the off with the GTX480, but something ATI can gleam a large amount of performance out of. Irony is it makes a mockery of their ad campaign quoting how efficient their cards are. The 6970's going to be a big 250W+ hog like the 480. Hopefully though, it'll be substantially faster, and quieter.

 

Sounds like you don't yet have the performance numbers. What kind of price do you think they'll come up with - it's a two-gpu board, right?

On another note, Miles mentioned that he has playtested Dota2 just once, last week, and find it way complicated. He mentioned that he is sure it is great, since the guys at Valve who are into it are totally addicted, but he found it Meh.

Hey Sam, how about a one-paragraph description of HoN - Dota - which you have logged 300 hours on. Why is it not Meh?

LOL

 

No the 6970 is a single GPU. It will be about 45% faster than a 5870.

 

Excellent!

 

Hey guys, what do you use to monitor temperatures while playing games, or perhaps watching movies. Is there a program that can display a northbridge Motherboard temperature while playing back a movie in fullscreen mode? The computer I'm working on crashes, and I'm uncertain what the temperature is when it crashes. It completely freezes when it does crash. So I'm confident that if the temperature is being displayed at the time of crash, I'll know then

Apparently The HTPC is suffering from inadequate airflow. The PSU's exhaust is not cutting it. I'm gonna fashion double fan's exhaust near the cpu, to pull that areas heat out of the case. If I leave the panel off the HTPC, under load it only reaches 44 - 45C. But if I put it on, it overheats. I believe the GPU is blocking the Northbridge from getting adequate air.

I removed the GPU (GF210). I set a 70mm fan on top of the NB sink. Drastically affected temps. How I'm gonna adapt VGA d-sub to HDMI is beyond me. VGA D-sub is different then HD-15 VGA. At least I think there's a difference. I was comparing adapters before I bought the GF210. Surely there's a way to adapt analog VGA straight to HDMI?????