[nikoliath]

Greetings VG community,

I recently purchased VG after some considerable thought. I currently use a laptop, XPS gen2 with 2.13Ghz centrino, 6800 Go Ultra 256mb card and 1gig of ram.

I did plenty of homework to see if VG would run, and in the end I felt the best way was to just buy it and see for myself as I was toying with the idea of replacing my computer.

It runs OK. Balanced settings tweaked a little and I have yielded a little by turning down the res from my native 1920x1200 to 1440x900. With these settings I get an average outside of 29-33 FPS, but it often gets choppy.

I have decided that it really is time for an upgrade and go back to the desktops. Any opinions of the following system would be helpful, both in regards to general performance and indeed to VG performance.

intel Core 2 Duo E6600 4mb cache
Radeon X1950 XT 256Mb
Radeon X1950 XT-X 512Mb
2Gb Corsair DDR2 XMs2 6400c4
Asus P5w DH Delux Socket 775
250BG SATA 300 (7,200rpm)

running XP.

With a monitor I can get the above system for £1787

Price is an issue, I don't have £3000 to spend on a rig, and because I am returning to desktops I need a monitor.

And I am aware that the GFX are not DX10, but the 8800 series is a bit out of reach considering I want to SLI/Crossfire.

Thanks in advance, P.S so far enjoying VG.

[shermhead]

Originally Posted by nikoliath

Greetings VG community,

I recently purchased VG after some considerable thought. I currently use a laptop, XPS gen2 with 2.13Ghz centrino, 6800 Go Ultra 256mb card and 1gig of ram.

I did plenty of homework to see if VG would run, and in the end I felt the best way was to just buy it and see for myself as I was toying with the idea of replacing my computer.

It runs OK. Balanced settings tweaked a little and I have yielded a little by turning down the res from my native 1920x1200 to 1440x900. With these settings I get an average outside of 29-33 FPS, but it often gets choppy.

I have decided that it really is time for an upgrade and go back to the desktops. Any opinions of the following system would be helpful, both in regards to general performance and indeed to VG performance.

intel Core 2 Duo E6600 4mb cache
Radeon X1950 XT 256Mb
Radeon X1950 XT-X 512Mb
2Gb Corsair DDR2 XMs2 6400c4
Asus P5w DH Delux Socket 775
250BG SATA 300 (7,200rpm)

running XP.

With a monitor I can get the above system for £1787

Price is an issue, I don't have £3000 to spend on a rig, and because I am returning to desktops I need a monitor.

And I am aware that the GFX are not DX10, but the 8800 series is a bit out of reach considering I want to SLI/Crossfire.

Thanks in advance, P.S so far enjoying VG.

Id rather just have 1x 8800 then the ATI's but whatever.

Common VG bottleneck is HD access etc because the caching in the game sucks.

Add another 250gb HD so you can RAID-0 them (will make a 500gb drive using both drive simutaneously increased speed) and the rpms dont mean much read up on access speeds and sustained data speed xfer burst etc.

Everything else is fine.. and I like ASUS although DFI has some pretty optimized stuff.

[rabb1t]

Originally Posted by nikoliath

And I am aware that the GFX are not DX10, but the 8800 series is a bit out of reach considering I want to SLI/Crossfire.

Why? A single 8800 GTS at ~$400 (U.S.) would beat the crap outa dual cards.

The only reason to go dual card instead of going with a single card of a higher generation is bragging rights to say you have a dual card system. However, as above, if people know that a single card is more powerful you won't have a lot to brag about.

If you want to say "hey, look at me I have 2 GPUs" go ahead and get them. If you want to say "hey, look at me, I've got the best and newest features and one of the most powerful cards on the market" then get a series 8.

Also note for many people dual card does not work in VG. (Dual card systems have questionable results under any game). So you may very well be running with only one of those cards, in which case your dual card system is totally wasted with VG.

Tom's GPU chart - one 8800 GTS w/640 meg vs. dual x1950 XTX crossfired

Half-Life 2 Ep 1 - 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF
8800 GTS - 101.9 FPS
2x x1950 XTX - 72.8 FPS

Oblivion - 1600x1200 8xAF
8800 GTS - 100.5 FPS
2x x1950 XTX - 74.1 FPS

Prey - 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF (likely a driver problem)
8800 GTS - 67 FPS
2x x1950 XTX - 108.9 FPS

Titan Quest - 1600x1200 AA 8xAF
8800 GTS - 55.8 FPS
2x x1950 XTX - 38.5 FPS

Note that here in the US you can get that single 8800 GTS for ~$400 and the dual x1950 XTX will cost $350 each, or ~$700 for lower performance generating more heat and more noise and they will lack DX10 compliance.

It is your choice, but it would be like saying you are going to choose 2 mini-cholate chip cookies instead of the one gigantic size one because you want to be able to say you had two cookies. It just doesn't make sense from a cost, features, or performance standpoint.

Don't mean to be mean about this, but if you have the option to buy a single more powerful card it is always the better deal. It was true with the series 6, the series 7 and now the series 8, same on ATi's transitions - a single card of the new generation has always beaten 2 cards of the previous generation with solid gains and included new features. It has always been the better choice.

Additionally, the reviews on the 8800 GTS w/320 meg are showing it is just as capable as the one with 640 meg until you start getting into 1920x1200 res range. The 8800 GTS w/320 meg are on sale here for just under $300 post rebates. Right now the 8800 GTS w/320 meg is the best choice (unless you are running at 1920x1200 res, in which case you may want a 640 meg card or a GTX). By the time you need a more powerful card in games you will likely want to move to a single series 9.

[nikoliath]

Originally Posted by rabb1t

Why? A single 8800 GTS at ~$400 (U.S.) would beat the crap outa dual cards.

Note that here in the US you can get that single 8800 GTS for ~$400 and the dual x1950 XTX will cost $350 each, or ~$700 for lower performance generating more heat and more noise and they will lack DX10 compliance.

Don't mean to be mean about this, but if you have the option to buy a single more powerful card it is always the better deal. It was true with the series 6, the series 7 and now the series 8, same on ATi's transitions - a single card of the new generation has always beaten 2 cards of the previous generation with solid gains and included new features. It has always been the better choice.

Thanks for the replies. That is why I posted this before splashing cash, revised system;

intel Core 2 Duo E6600 4mb cache
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640Mb
2Gb Corsair DDR2 XMs2 6400c4
Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus (only option of Mboard for this build)
Xerox XM3-22WB 22" Widescreen (1680 x 1050 WUXGA) 5ms 1000:1
150GB Raptor SATA 150;
Rotational Speed 10,000 RPM (nominal)
Buffer Size 16 MB
Average Latency 2.99 ms (nominal)
Contact Start/Stop Cycles 20,000 minimum
Seek Times
Read Seek Time 4.6 ms
Write Seek Time 5.2 ms (average)
Track-To-Track Seek Time 0.4 ms (average)
Full Stroke Seek 10.2 ms (average)
Transfer Rates
Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 1.5 Gb/s (Max)
Buffer To Disk 84 MB/s (Sustained)

All this comes in £107 less than the first build.

[rabb1t]

Should be a r0x0r system. Note that if you need to shave off some cost dump the Raptor. The Raptor will only boost you when loading things, and as such, it really has little to no noticeable impact on gaming.

Also note that while the system will be r0x0r VG is a complete resource hog and you will still see periods where you dip way down in performance.

[nikoliath]

Excellent, thanks for the advice/info Rabbit. And yes VG is a hog! May well drop the raptor.

[rabb1t]

Yup. Not sure the prices over across the pond, but round here the 150 gig Raptor is $200 for the OEM version vs. something like the Caviar SE16 which is $75 OEM for 250 gig for nearly the same performance.