bernardv

Akmirdock, you have 500$ to spend. Buy another 6870 for 200$ and spend the rest on watercooling. Then let's see if you can beat Elcapitan at his game

Okay, I missed your 1 GB of memory. Amount of video memory can make a big difference in CF/SLI. Regarding OC; your build looks OC'd above safe limits, maybe just enough to post the score. The guys at Guru3D got 800 MHz on their OC, you've got 960! I'don't think the different amount of memory helps overclocking either way.

No it won't. 460 SLI scores around 21000 on 3d mark vantage, 6870 CF scores around 27000. This is almost 30% higher, not really in the same class. http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-460-sli-review/13 http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-crossfirex-review/14 PS Yes, you can find some game which is opimized for this side or the other, but 30% is 30%. Overclocking may bumb you up 10% or even a bit more, but you can overclock 6870 as well.

I checke http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-geforce-gt-240-review-test/13 . 240 is a discrete graphics card with some power. I f you look at 3D mark vantage GPU score it gets 4500. Radeon 5750 gets 7000. If you inted to do any gaming at all I'd go with 5750. Otherwise even GT 220 will do just nicely.

Go with this: http://www.cableuniverse.co.uk/xfx-hd-575x-zmf3-graphics-card-radeon-hd-5750-1024mb-pci-e-dvi.html It costs a 100 quid, but it's a real graphics card, not just a 'video adapter'.

...and almost double the budget in the end. I have a pair of 4850 (512 MB each) in CF and I can play all current titles at very high to maximum settings. My monitor is 1680x1050, but I've tried a few titles on the Full HD TV as well and there was not much difference. It's hard to imagine any upcoming game would need more than two 6850 in the next few years.

If you're going with such a high end motherboard it only makes sense to go for dual GPU, like 2x 6850. Crossfire really runs like hell with all latest titles. If you on the other hand decide to go with a stronger single GPU, combine it with a cheaper mobo. If you wan't to overclock the CPU in that case, buy a BE (unlocked multi).

I'd recommend 2x 5850 (if you are willing to spend that much money on v. cards). 5830 consumes more power than 5850 and that should be a factor in CF configs.

5830 has less shaers but it has a HIGHER clock than 5850. So much for downclocking. Stick it in, bench it and let us know.

Go with dual (crossfire) 5770. This combo, on a decent board, will handle anything you throw at it, tesselation included. Should cost even less than a single 5870. But first and foremost: what is your screen resolution? This is the key factor.

It was the #%!&%$! disk. I started benchmarking them when problems reapeard and one of them drew some pretty strange performance graphs. Then I bought a Seagate 7200.12 with the same 500 GB capacity, copied the contents over (including Windows 7 installation) and it booted no problem. Solved my PC at last and it cost me only 50€ and not much work! :thumbsup2:

My BIOS was updated when I bought the board, I don't wna't to do it myself since I've had some bad luck with that before. Drivers can't be the cause, because when the computer is in a bad state even BIOS can't find the disks. I'm not sure what would I do with a SATA/IDE converter. As for upgrading; I have no need for a faster CPU whatsoever. I might buy a similar board, something with a SB750 if some magic solution doesn't appear in the near future. I'm worried though it might be the PSU. Changing the board is a masive undertaking if you count reinstalling the OS and all. If it turns out something else is the cause ... :angry2: PS I flashed the board. What the hell, I should at leats try this before I buy a new one. It went OK. I'll see in a few weeks if there is any difference.

I have a pretty strange problem; over time my onboard SATA controller seems to be getting slower and slower until it clogs up completly and disks become unoperational. Then I get a bluescreens or a no boot etc.. This gradual deterioration takes about a month. The only way to get back to normal is to: - shut down the computer - unplug SATA cables - power on without the disks - power off and re-plug the cables After that everything is back to normal and I'm good for another month! I used to have a single disk, now I have two and it makes no differene. I also went from XP to Vista and now to Win 7 - no difference. Another thing, I have a high bandwith internet connection and if I open a torrent, there can be a lot of traffic in both directions. This seems to speed up the process of clogging the controller. If I don't use a lot of P2P I can can go without a SATA unplug-re-plug for a longer time. My specs: MSI K9A2 Platinum (790FX/SB600 - yes SB600 is crappy but still it shouldn' do this) PhII [email protected] (downclocking has no effect on this problem) 4 GB DDR2 RAM@1GHz Radeon 4850 2 different SATA disks

Yes, there will be a difference if you're into benchmarking. If you're into gaming and your resolution is 1920 or less both cards have sufficinet muscle to produce playable framrates in today's titles. Everything that is steadily above 40 fps is playble, everything above 60 fps is completly meaningles, except to benchmark fanatics. Plus Nvidia, can give you some more eye candy with physix. BTW, I'm not a special Nvidia fanboy, I own a Radeon 4850.

No.