why was I so hubris

[OsamaBinAthlon+]

Well I haven't been here in a while as I haven't been tinkering with my PC because I have been busy with other things but...

 

I thought I was all set for Crysis with the PC in my signature and guess what, it plays like absolute butt

 

so basically

 

I want to keep the q6600 I have no problem upgrading anything else, tell me what I need to make Crysis kick butt.

 

As I haven't been paying attention to the hot products in the last few months, I will take any info.

 

I just want more than 20 FPS in Crysis on high that's all.

 

thanks, oba+

[dr_bowtie]

you should be able to get that with what you have i would think....you got the latest drivers right?

[OsamaBinAthlon+]

Yeah I have the latest Crysis reccomended drivers.

I was playing just before on high settings no AA or AF and 1680x1050 and getting 15-20 FPS on a fairly intense battle.

How come COD4 can play smooth and look good but crysis leaves me in the dirt.

ugh

[Angry_Games]

well, after some experience with Crysis on a few different rigs (my X2 3800+ / X1900XT 512MB / 2GB RAM rig plays just fine on medium but is crippled on everything else lol, my E6600 + 8800GTS 320MB + 2GB can play on high at 1024x768 but it starts to draaaaaaag, a couple others that wouldn't even run the demo on low @ 1024x768), and seeing what has just came about from Nv and ATI, here's what I can recommend:

 

 

 

keep your quad no matter what, and your 2GB RAM of course, as well as your P35 motherboard since it SHOULD have multiple PCI-E 2.0 slots (16x 16x). If not, get one that does if you want to go Crossfire. If you want to go SLI, get an eVGA i680 (or equivalent).

 

gpu's are the hard part.

 

The new 8800GT 512MB's are freaking awesome, and they look like they will overclock very nicely being 65nm. A couple of them in SLI (as long as you are using XP I guess LOL) on an i680 with a Q6600 and true PCI-E 2.0 slots = should be pretty dang decent.

 

Then there's the new ATI 3870's. Of course you can go cheaper and get 3850's, but for $40 more ($219 listed at the egg) you can get a faster card.

 

here's link from another thread of 2x 3850's in Crossfire (and with the right board apparently you can do 4x 38xx cards in CrossfireX):

 

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/591/1/

 

This one actually describes the differences on the card (memory count, can't seem to find it at Legit):

 

http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/601644/ati-...benchmarks.html

Let’s start by covering the differences between the 3850 and the 3870, which is firstly the memory; the 3870 has 512MB of GDDR4 memory clocked at 2.4GHz, compared with just 256MB of 829MHZ (1.66GHz effective) GDDR3 memory on the 3850. However, both the 3870 and 3850 use a 256-bit memory interface, with a 512-bit Ring Bus interface for memory reads and writes. The 3870’s core is also clocked a little higher, at 775MHz, and it accordingly comes with a larger dual-slot cooler.

 

And there's Anandtech and PCPER and everyone else doing reviews (most have 2x 3850's for Xfire but only a single 3870). Most of them say the same thing: some games the ATI is better, some games the Nvidia is better, but in the end the NV solution is slightly better, but slightly more expensive. When you break down the cost (Anandtech's review did a great job of this), the ATI card is the better card in performance per dollar spent.

 

The 8800GT 512MB's were supposed to be $249 but they all seem to be $269-$319 and not even in stock. The 3870's are listed at $219 at Newegg.

 

So which is the better deal? That's the part that you have to chew fingernails off for a month while waiting to see if anything else is coming down the line that might be a better deal. At the same time, you start taking into consideration the fact you can have FOUR 38xx cards in CrossfireX...4x 512MB 3870's...yum yum.

 

But then you also begin to worry about ATI's drivers because they really didn't do all that great with Crossfire (Nvidia fared a little better but SLI still ain't perfect and remember Nvidia couldn't ever get 4 gpu's working together).

 

Argh. it's a toss-up. A quandry. Requires much pondering. I'm already MUCH PONDERING and I'm about 3-6 months away from being able to buy even a single new hard drive, let alone a video card (or 4).

 

But since you already seem to have 90% of the ATI route's parts, I'd say maybe try out a couple of 3870's (btw, they are 55nm gpu dies and they seem to overclock VERY nicely, Legit got a pretty kick butt overclock just using ATI's CCC and then backing down a little) if that board of yours is definitely PCI-E 2.0. If you are feeling a little freewheeling on the cash and your board only has 2x 2.0 slots, maybe look for a P35/X38 or whatever that has 3x or 4x 2.0's just in case you dig Crossfire and as more adventurous users try their had at 3x and 4x 38xx gpu's and it works kick butt (you know DAMN WELL they'll be trying to punish Crysis the same way Crysis punished their rigs at first go-round) then you'll be ready to drop in another or two 38xx cards as $'s permit.

 

Ya know, it makes me almost sick to my stomach when new stuff like this comes out and both companies (whether AMD/Intel or ATI/NV) make a killer product but never equal....there's always some give and take (like a little performance for a little less money) and no middle ground (like SLI and Xfire working on ANY chipset as long as requirements for slots are met)...

 

*sigh*

 

good luck. Hope this helps a little but I fear it just makes it worse (as it has for me just writing it haha)