The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

No need to apologize Jeff. You made my morning LOL! That's some funny stuff!

 

Mr_Movies,

I would think that he would be better off with two of my GTX550ti OC cards in SLI, than with a GTX295, as it's so much slower at everything. The GPU at 576MHz vs the 970MHz of the 550. The GDDR5 of the 550 at 4200MHz, is more than twice as fast as the 2016Mhz of the 295. The cost for 2 would be well under $250. I paid $89 on sale for my single card.

GIGABYTE GV-N550WF2-1GI GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125409

It just blows away the old HD-4670, even though it has 320 pipes to the GTX550's 192. GDDR5 vs GDDR3 is just so much faster. 3DMark 06 gives 16,119 3D Marks with 4 sample AA and the AA quality set to 4. with just the default settings, 3D Marks are almost 20,000. The 550 never exceeds 62.5C under load, and 38C Idle, and it's fairly quiet, compared to the HD-4670, which screams at higher temps! I think a $500 + video card would be out of the question for him.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Avoid low-end SLI. Always.

If you want more power than a 550 can give you, buy a 570. One GTX570 would be as fast as two GTX550s in SLI, if not moreso.

 

Sam,

While I agree, the point is strictly price. At around $300 for the GTX570, and $250 max for two GTX550s, I would chose the 550s for their faster GPU (+200MHz), shader (+300MHz), and memory clocks (+400MHz). The numbers are approximate, but you get the idea. I may just do that with mine, when I catch another sale, because a single GTX550 is awesome! Buying two, you lose 96 Processing cores, compared to a GTX570 but the additional speed pair of GTX550s, will make it pretty close.

Much cooler too! The Coolers for the GPU are excellent! Max temp, 62.5 C. The "Better 'Aftermarket' Coolers list" just got a whole lot smaller! I was skeptical when I first saw the design, and I couldn't figure out how they could possibly do it with only two pipes, and 2 quiet fans? Well, they showed me. They could market these as aftermarket coolers, and be in the top 3!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

You haven't used SLI Russ. There's a lot more to it than raw performance. Game compatibilities, the effects of microstutter, non-perfect scaling mean that in the rule world, it is always worse to buy two smaller cards than one single card of equivalent performance, even if you end up paying more for the single.

 

Money is always the deciding factor. $50 doesn't seem like much difference, but it does depend on ones finances. I wouldn't mind SLI'ing for testing purposes. But I wouldn't do it with lower end cards. At least I have a very agreeable single. In games that support SLI'ing, two cards would be wonderful. Provided stability

 

Ghosting and shading effects too. The GTX580 Fermi would be a great addition, high clock rate, lots of memory, and 512 processor pipes, plus the 3 fan PWM system, cool and quiet.

 

Those Geek Squad guys sound dreadful!, I've lived in Australia for aprox. 7 years now and touch wood have never had a problem with the PC outlets here, I do miss PC World from the UK though, however Australia's equivalent would be "PC Case Gear" which I buy from quite abit.

http://www.pccasegear.com/

Ive decided to go with these upgrade parts for my Main Desktop PC

Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 UNLOCKED
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4
G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM (2x4GB) DDR3

Parts I already Have are: gtx295, v8 heatsink, PSU(you know which one)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, from the parts Im taking out of my old machine I'm building a HTPC and here is the final build:

Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 MotherBoard (Rev.3.3)/ Bios: Award Software International, Inc. Version:F13
Core 2 Duo E6700 - 2.66GHz / OC'd to 3.33GHz
x2 G.SKILL DDRII800 2GIG Ram Running at 5-5-5-15@400Mhz
NVIDIA GT430 1GB ASUS PCIe
Crucial M4 SSD 64GB
Seasonic S12-II 80+ 520 Power Supply
Silverstone LC16B-MR Black
Hauppauge HVR2200 MCE PCIe Dual Hybrid
Creative SoundBlaster X-FI XtremeMusic 7.1 Card

Any thoughts most welcome!

 

I had Geeksquad repair an old computer once upon a time. As well as a local repair shop. Places like that inspired me to repair/build my own

Much like Jeff, I couldn't work for a place that rapes/takes advantage of a persons knowledge regarding computers. The local repair shop charged a buddy $45 for a cheapo Dvd burner. What's funny is, I offered him mine for free. He didn't wanna put me out...

One time it was a stupid faulty sound card. The other was simply a bad boot sector. Both can be done with a blindfold now...
I laugh about stuff like that now LOL!

 

Geek Squad is a joke now that Worst Buy bought them out but before that they were good. At the place I work they want to push Geek Squad now but it won't happen by me, I won't push that scat on anyone.

As to raping employees for their knowledge most businesses do just that these days so who are you going to work for? Self employment is the only way around that issue.

 

Sam,

While I've never installed SLI, I have used computers with it on them before. I generally get the idea that a pair of HD-4670s in SLI, might not be worth it, the GTX550 is many times more powerful, with more potential, and two would run me under $200. besides, it would give me something to do! LOL!! Cards like the GTX 570 and 580, at least the good ones, are out of my price range ATM! I look at it this way, I've slowly put this computer together, and things have worked out pretty much the way I thought they would to begin with. So far, I'm more than pleased with the results!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I do realize that profiteering is everywhere. But I won't do it with computers. I love working with them. So when I get to work on someones computer, I enjoy it. A LITTLE money is of course appreciated. More than anything, I do it for the experience

 

Just a quick check with you guys, I need to do a new reinsall of windows 7 because I'm changing the MB yeah?, does this mean I can't restore from my image backup?, sorry for the newbie question, its been ages since I had to do this!lol

 

If you do a new clean install for new MB driver set then you'll have to make a new backup and can use that to re-install in the future. If you're MB's are both Intel in the same class you can possibly use the original backup image as the driver set will be the same or very close and you may only have to upgrade a couple of things, so it depends on your situation. I've changed MB's and just updated all of the drivers even when they have mostly changes, more important chipset drivers but that really isn't a good idea and can cause you problems so it is always better to do a clean install with exception above.

 

Mr_Movies,

I don't know about Win7, but with XP I was able to do a backup of my OS and programs with True Image 9. All I had to do was install the OS, run the backup and everything worked, as long as the chipset and other motherboard drivers are installed on the new OS. I used the same OS for about 5 years, that way.

More than likely, I will stick with Win7 64 Bit. I'm going to tear it all down, and re-install Win7, so my AHCI will work, and I can finally get my SSD setup properly, running at full speed. I got the same set that GigaByte uses for testing, so I won't have any problems.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I use True Image too but what is your point on this, it works for me as well no matter what OS I've backed up??? Different motherboard chipsets can be a problem though and a clean install is always your best bet when going to a different MB unless they are very similar in driver sets.

Well good to hear that your going to stick with Seven hopefully everything will work proper with the new install. I'll cross my fingers for you. LOL

Again glad to hear,
Stevo

 

Pretty sure I'm not using AHCI on my current system because like you I neglected to enable it before installing Windows. If I'm honest, I highly doubt I'll be able to tell the difference.

 

sam,

It wasn't that I didn't enable it, but rather that Win7 would not allow it to be installed because the drivers were not digitally signed. I'm now going to use what GigaByte uses for testing. The difference should be noticeable as it's about 20% faster with AHCI enabled. Overall I'm well pleased with how smoothly everything works together.

BTW, I owe you a Thank You! You were the one who put me on to the GTX550, in the first place. You made an excellent call there!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Ah fair enough, that hadn't occurred to me.
Luckily enough AHCI can be changed per-controller on my board, so I could enable it for the eSATA ports without jeopardising the Windows installation to the internal ports.

No probs on the GTX550, glad you're getting on well enough with it that you want another
As for the negativity on SLI, I'm just trying to save some disappointment, even with the recent improvements, SLI still isn't anywhere near as straightforward as using a single card.

 

Sam,

After all, I have to give into my Masochistic side, once in a while! Besides, I've still got plenty of hair left I can pull out! LOL!! They are supposed to be a fairly ideal set up for the custom software I use for my AutoCad program. I'll have a pretty good idea how much better the software runs, early next week when I start another Turbine project. Now, I should be able to determine the shape of any fracture in the hub, with this video card. This will make the problem, either through design or Metallurgy, much easier to eliminate.

Best Regards,
Russ