GPU Advice for Gaming-heavy Rig

[Mouzafphaerre]

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I've got a really capable (too capable ) "hardware consultant" handy, who is always updated on new toys and, with his well rooted knowledge on basic electronics, their relative compatibility. He's been building up my and bro's new computer. However, he's got one major flaw: He ain't no gamer and has absolutely no idea on it!

Therefore, I'm asking the most valuable advice of fellow gurugahs on the best affordable gaming GPU that could keep me afloat for a couple years at least. Below are the two draft configurations we've been considering. TIA

• Intel option
  
  • Intel Q8200 Core 2 Quad 2.3 GHz.
  • ASUS P5QC mobo
  • 4G 1333 DDR3 RAM
• AMD option
  
  • AMD Phenom II 810 X4 AM3 938 pin Quad Core 2.6 GHz.
  • Gigabyte MA790 FXT-UD5P DDR3 938 pin mobo
  • 4G 1333 DDR3 RAM

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[Husar]

Well, no, 2GB RAM is not enough, I'd go for at least 4, I also note you don't want to spend a whole lot on that machine but you may want to consider either a Dual Core with more MHz or a Quad Core with more (for the intel option anyway, no idea how good the current AMDs are) since so far not all that many games support 4 cores so having more MHz per core can be a good thing, if in doubt just keep the quad cores, might be more future proof even with less MHz.

On graphics cards, I would say a GTX 260 from NVidia or an ATI 4870 should complement the system well and they're both not very expensive, for further thoughts I have on the subject you should check this post of mine in LENs topic as I don't feel like repeating it all here.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Thanks Husar and Lemur. Unless there are other recommendations or ideas we'll be going the Core 2 Quad way with 4 G RAM and the GTX 260.
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[pevergreen]

I'm not expert, but in the reading I've done over the last few weeks to figure out whats going on with the new stuff, isn't it cheaper to get an i7 quad core than a core 2 quad?

Also, from that reading I did, I support the intel/nvidea options, apparently they are just in front in graphics cards, but behind in cost ratio or something, whereas intel cores are miles ahead.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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The i7 is comparable to the Hyper-threaded P4, as I was explained to by my said consultant. Unfortunately, I'm not even 1% of a geek to re-explain it. But my mind and heart ain't warming to the i7 thing, which I sense to be the usual Intelish semi-step before their new leap (Celeron, P2, Celeron again, HT...).

Thanks for the Intel + nVidia vote.
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[Husar]

Well, the Core i7 usually costs considerably more than a comparable Core 2 at the moment, partly because of the motherboard and RAM required.
Hyperthreading is nice I guess but not for gaming and if you want your Adobe to be faster, I think they support CUDA now which should be considerably faster than even a Core i7 with HT.

Here are some CUDA benchmarks showing that at least the Core 2 quads can't really come up to an NVidia graphicscard using CUDA as long as it's not a low-end graphicscard. Ok, not every program supports CUDA but there are coming more and more so I don't really see the point in spending a lot more on a better CPU when it's useless for games(graphicscard being the bottleneck unless you get like four of them) and when a decent graphicscard can do video conversion and similar tasks faster anyway.

[Caius]

I'm a old gamer, but I read this (need the approval of the gurugahs) and wonder what they can say:

Some early articles suggested that i7's design is not ideal for gaming performance. In a test performed on leaked hardware, a Core i7 940 compared to a QX9770 showed the Core i7 to be slower than Yorkfield clock-for-clock in two trials, while being faster in two others. The difference in all cases was small, and was due to the significantly smaller sized L2 cache on the processor cores, with each core able to access its own 256 kB of L2 cache. In contrast, the most recent Yorkfields have up to 12 MB of L2 cache. To help compensate, the Core i7 also has a new L3 cache of 8 MB, shared among all four cores, similar to AMD's "Barcelona" processors. This is due to the trend of games making use of more threads, and with hyper-threading (HT) the Core i7 can scale more than 4x faster, such as in cinebench tests. However, more recent testing done on all clock rates of official hardware with final drivers and BIOS revisions show that Core i7 at the very least beats Yorkfield clock-for-clock, and in most cases exceeds it by an average of about 17%. But when it comes to high-end multi-GPU environments (Nvidia 3-way SLI and ATI Crossfire X), the i7 is revealed to be much faster than Yorkfield (QX9770) in clock-for-clock)

[Lemur]

Hay, Caius. It's not unusual for a new architecture's first generation to show little to no gains over the previous one. A lot of the changes are there to support higher clock speeds and optimizations down the line.

So the first generation of I7s score the same or slightly lower at gaming than the CoreWhatevers? Not surprised. But watch out in a year or so, I7s (and their derivative platforms) are going to start spanking the old architecture, no doubt. Just not today.

For somebody buying today, it boils down to a simple question: Spend less now and face a closed upgrade path, or spend more and hope that the hot procs of 2010 and 2011 are compatible with your mobo?

[Caius]

o the first generation of I7s score the same or slightly lower at gaming than the CoreWhatevers? Not surprised. But watch out in a year or so, I7s (and their derivative platforms) are going to start spanking the old architecture, no doubt. Just not today.

Must be that because programs are not prepared for them? Or because those new procesors are new? How much does one cost?

Might as well keep my simple core processor as a relic.

[Lemur]

Must be that because programs are not prepared for them?

Based on what I've read, the I7s are optimized for x86 code, and do not require any major re-writing of apps. This was intentional, as Intel got severely spanked when they tried to push devs into a new framework (Itanium, anyone?).

Or because those new procesors are new? How much does one cost?

Remember, the proc is only a third of the cost, since the new architecture requires a new mobo and DDR3 RAM. That said, a 3 ghz Yorkfield Core 2 Quad retails for $324, whereas a 2.93 ghz I7 retails for $545. And you'll probably see better performance from the cheaper model.

So no, it's not an issue of newness; rather, you're paying extra to get onboard the platform with more of a future. We probably aren't going to see big jumps in the CoreWhatever in the future. Maybe a few cranks of the clock speed, but nothing more. The I7, on the other hand, will be advancing will all the inexorable fury of Moore's Law.

That said, sometimes the changes down the line require a new motherboard, so "future-proofing" is always a gamble. You may be able to just drop in a new proc into your I7 board in two years, but you may not. Anybody's guess.

[Husar]

And then you will want a new graphicscard because it will be the bottleneck for the next few years most likely and you will need a new motherboard anyway to support that new graphicscard.
Like uhm, a new PCIe standard that your new energy-munching 12000shader units graphicscard needs to get enough energy.

So yes, like the Lemur says, future-proofing is a bit of a gamble, by the time you feel it's necessary to upgrade, an entirely new and better architecture may be out already, hard to say, I'm personally thinking about a Q9550, especially after I felt my E6600 was still more than enough for most current games before I sold it earlier this year.

[Lemur]

Yeah, the Q9550 is probably sitting at the perfect spot on the price/performance curve today. Can't really do much better without jumping up a very steep money hill.

[Xiahou]

Remember, the proc is only a third of the cost, since the new architecture requires a new mobo and DDR3 RAM. That said, a 3 ghz Yorkfield Core 2 Quad retails for $324, whereas a 2.93 ghz I7 retails for $545. And you'll probably see better performance from the cheaper model.

Actually, I think even the i7 920 would outperform the 9650 while being significantly cheaper. For the more comparably priced 9550, the gap widens even more.

I know everyone hates Tom's Hardware now, but they're easiest to generate comparisons with (plus whatever bias they have shouldn't be a concern since we're comparing 3 Intel chips anyhow).

I'd say that if you're going Intel, go with the i7. It has the best performance. If you want to be budget conscious, instead of stepping down to Core 2 quads, just save even more money and get a PhenomII. Depending on what you're upgrading from, even a PhenomII will give you huge performance gains at a lesser price and and it's a full $100 cheaper than the 9550. But, if you want performance and your budget can handle it, there's no reason not to go i7 IMO.

For video cards, I'm still leaning towards ATI, but Nvidia has closed the performance gap pretty well. If you're going the budget (AMD?) route, I think you'd be very pleased with a 4850- it offers good performance at a great price, but if you're going all out go for the 4870 or even the 4890. Someone could probably make a convincing argument for Nvidia as well, but I don't find CUDA or Physx to be important factors when making a choice in the near future (looking at you Husar); as it's not clear when, if ever, they'll be widely supported.

[Lemur]

Them's some interesting numbers, thanks for sharing, Xiahou. It's true, THG gets a universal bad rap these days, for reasons that passeth understanding.

I retract my price/performance post from above, clearly the situation isn't as I believed. Need to spend some quality time at Anandtech before I speak on this again.

[Husar]

After chatting with Xiahou for a bit and checking myself, I came to the conclusion that the AMD Phenom 940 is in fact way better in terms of price/performance than the Q9550. As we said the graphicscard will bottleneck anyway, so why spend around 100EUR more on a 5% faster Intel?
The i7 is nice and all but would cost me an estimated 300 EUR more than the phenom for, at the moment and maybe the next 1-2 years, the almost exact same gaming performance.
Of course this might also be interesting for our friend Mousse who wants to save some money as well.
The graphicscard of my choice will be a GTx 260, perhaps the one with 216 shader units(yes, there are two variants, one with 196 shader pipelines and one with 216 that's quite a bit faster).

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Thanks for the shader units tip. Housse, will go the 216 way.
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[Husar]

I ordered my new PC yesterday, they had all the components there but it won't be ready until Friday or so, the guy at the shop said he will test it thoroughly so I won't come back the next day and I said I appreciated that.

Final specs for me are:

AMD Phenom II 940
4GB DDR2 800
GTX 260+ with 216 shaders(in fact they said they only have 216 shader versions left, oh and the other one had 192, I got the numbers wrong last time)
750GB Samsung HDD

for 739EUR total which is not bad at all IMO.

[Lemur]

So which OS are you gonna slap on that bad boy? XP? Windows 7?

[Mouzafphaerre]

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I suppose that one's for Husar but let me reply for myself: I'm considering to dual boot with XP Pro (until Win 7 is gold and stable) for gaming and XP64 for applications. Is XP64 alone good for both? Do games run under it without hassle?
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[Husar]

I suppose so Mousse, if you can get all the drivers and it runs stable, why not?

Personally, I won't put any sort of XP onto it, either my Vista Business x64 from MSDNAA which always ran better than my Vista Home Premium x32 on the laptop anyway, or the Win 7 RC but I'm not sure yet, would have to reinstall once I get the final Win 7 from MSDNAA anyway I guess.

So far I have my Vista lying around in preparation.

Sorry if it looks like I'm hijacking your thread mousse, I just thought since we're both going for a rather cheap system, you might have some use for my info.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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NP at all Housse. The information flow is for the public domain.
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[LeftEyeNine]

Husar, how frequently do you spend on PC components ?

Off-topic: Viva el Barça !

[Husar]

Husar, how frequently do you spend on PC components ?

If you mean Pc compßonents in general, then probably rather frequently, last time i bought a new Pc was 2.5 years ago if you don't count the notebook, that was just one year ago, followed by the 24" monitor that I also needed for the PS3 that followed it.

The difference this time is I spent only about half my money on the new machine, not sure yet what to do with the rest, maybe I can find a girl who wants to help me spend it or something, maybe just save it until it becomes worthless in the upcoming inflation.

[Che Roriniho]

I would change the whole thing (sorry). DDR3 RAM makes basically no visible difference that DDR2, and you could easily get DDR2 RAM of similar speed for a lot less. I'd also reccomend the Q6600, as it's a lot cheaper and just as fast.

I would also recomend getting the MSI P45 NEO-F DDR2 board, and 4-8 Gigs of RAM with it. Then just whack in a Q6600, OC the bejesus out of it (Can go up to 3 GHz with few problems, if you pay a little (£15) extra for an aftermarket cooler.

If you DO decide to go the DDR3 route, then in order to achieve best results, you need your RAM in sets of 3s, so I'd go for 6-12 Gigs there, but remember, DD3 is quite pricey.


For OS, I would seriously reccomend Vista Premium 64bit. it allows you to use DX10, which will soon be the standard, so if you want future-proofing, then get Vista. Also, networking's a breeze. Alternatively, use Win7, but I haven't heard much about that.

[Furunculus]

I ordered my new PC yesterday, they had all the components there but it won't be ready until Friday or so, the guy at the shop said he will test it thoroughly so I won't come back the next day and I said I appreciated that.

Final specs for me are:

AMD Phenom II 940
4GB DDR2 800
GTX 260+ with 216 shaders(in fact they said they only have 216 shader versions left, oh and the other one had 192, I got the numbers wrong last time)
750GB Samsung HDD

for 739EUR total which is not bad at all IMO.

i specc'ed almost the same thing for a friend about three months back, you'll like the result.

[Husar]

I would change the whole thing (sorry). DDR3 RAM makes basically no visible difference that DDR2, and you could easily get DDR2 RAM of similar speed for a lot less. I'd also reccomend the Q6600, as it's a lot cheaper and just as fast.

I would also recomend getting the MSI P45 NEO-F DDR2 board, and 4-8 Gigs of RAM with it. Then just whack in a Q6600, OC the bejesus out of it (Can go up to 3 GHz with few problems, if you pay a little (£15) extra for an aftermarket cooler.

If you DO decide to go the DDR3 route, then in order to achieve best results, you need your RAM in sets of 3s, so I'd go for 6-12 Gigs there, but remember, DD3 is quite pricey.


For OS, I would seriously reccomend Vista Premium 64bit. it allows you to use DX10, which will soon be the standard, so if you want future-proofing, then get Vista. Also, networking's a breeze. Alternatively, use Win7, but I haven't heard much about that.

If I'm not mistaken the Q6600 was discontinued a while ago, don't know about Mousse but personally I wouldn't bother with overclocking until the warranty is gone, especially not if the thing is fast enough anyway.

And on DDR3, if I'm not mistaken only the i7s have triple channel controllers, so if you go for a non-i7 system with a dual channel memory controller you'd still go for 4 or 8GB instead of 6 or 12.

And I wouldn't advise anyone to buy Vista Ultimate now, I'd use whatever is available now and then get a copy of Windows 7 64bit or maybe even use the Win7 RC until it comes out but investing in Vista (and especially ultimate with all the superfluous expensive features) right now seems like a bad idea to me considering that Win 7 seems to be better and out soon.

[Che Roriniho]

Yeh, avoid Ultimate like the plague. It sucks. Premium is just right really. Quite quick too, especially x64.

(Let's not be über-wit with our language - LEN)

[Husar]

Oh sorry, you wrote Premium and I read it as Ultimate, heh.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Sorry to disappoint both of you guys but any kind of V!st@ won't pollute my comps.

As for the RAM channels, I'm pretty sure dual would do, as Housse says.
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[Husar]

I didn't want ou to buy vista if you don't have it already, I said use whatever you already have, then get Windows 7 when it's out.