Attention whore/bragging thread

[Martinus]

My new computer arrives on Thursday:

Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 (Intel 965)
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo 2.40 GHz
RAM: DDR2 2x1024 MB (PC-800 Dual PDP Patriot Extreme Performance)
HD: Seagate 320 MB Barracuda
Video: GeForce 7900GS 512 MB

NWN 2 on max settings, here I come. :D

[Neg]

You bought a 7900GS within a month of the G80 shipping? For shame.

[Jim Fazater]

He got a 4MB Conroe, and some memory that likely has some pretty good timings (then again I don't think timings matter much on Core 2 Duo systems). In any case, the system is pretty nice.

Isn't the G80 going to use up insane amounts of power, and, therefore, more than likely will heat up a room like an Empowered Fireball?

[Tyndareus]

As a dual core gpu running on a smaller fabrication size the G80 cards should run as hot or cooler than the current stuff (similar to how the Core 2 Duos use less power and run cooler than Intel's previous stuff).

However...

"2. The other thing we heard is that the G80 is going to be mostly G70/G71 with DirectX 10.0 stapled on. Meaning, that since the architecture is basically G70, it has not been built from the ground up, keeping DX10 in mind."

G80 seems to me a to be a stop gap 'revision' card and not a true DX10 part.
Best wait for nVidia's next offering if you're an nVidia boy and skip G80.

[Castian]

I have ordered a new machine too!!

Very excited as this will be the first really good computer I have had.

Pentium Duo 6800 extreme edition
2 gig (1066mhz) RAM
Twin ATi1950XTX crossfire.

Also have a 24" monitor ordered!!

The toolset makes use of dual core apparently.

http://www.atari.com/nwn2/UK/features_faq_technical.php

[o_O]

>Twin ATi1950XTX crossfire.

Waste of money, one G80 will be between 450-650euro and is twice as fast as an ATi1950XTX.

[Castian]

>Twin ATi1950XTX crossfire.

Waste of money, one G80 will be between 450-650euro and is twice as fast as an ATi1950XTX.

ATI cards are the only ones that will run HDR lighting and Anti aliasing at the same time and I have a high resolution to acheive with that monitor.

All the research I did before buying showed ATi to be superior cards at the moment.

The G80 might not even be available until April next year. I will look at DX10 cards a year or so down the line. I wanted a system that will easily seem me through until then.

[o_O]

ATI cards are the only ones that will run HDR lighting and Anti aliasing at the same time and I have a high resolution to acheive with that monitor. <- the G80 can do the same, and the release date is 8th november.

[Martinus]

Personally, I went with GeForce because I had very bad experiences with ATI Cards in the past.

[Castian]

Yes I should have said currently. Currently ATi cards are the only ones.

There are a number of things to consider.

Reports suggest chip allocation for the G80 are tight and that you will be lucky to get one this year.

There is talk of NVidia increasing price considerably in order to take advantage of the rush.

No games currently use shader model 4.0 or will for some time so little adavantage to be gained there.

No games use DX10 yet or will for some time, they still have not fully utilised DX 9.

I am personally happy with the choice I have made and did quite a bit of reading before buying. You have to consider software and driver issues not just hardware.

[Tyndareus]

I have ordered a new machine too!!
Pentium Duo 6800 extreme edition
Twin ATi1950XTX crossfire.
Also have a 24" monitor ordered!!


Someone's got a lot of money.

The X6800 is a waste of money, tbh. Unless you're a hardcore overclocker, the only real difference in performance between it and the 6700 is maybe 12 frames at ultra high res and a second or two at high quality mpeg encoding, etc. All they did was unlock the multipliers and bump up the mHz to 2.93.

At half the price you can get just as good a chip in the 6700, and if you overclock, the even cheaper E6600 (which Martinus got I think) is bumpable to 3.3gHz out of the box (with appropriate cooling solutions).

For my money, the 6600 is the best cost/power buy right now.

[Castian]

Someone's got a lot of money.

The X6800 is a waste of money, tbh. Unless you're a hardcore overclocker, the only real difference in performance between it and the 6700 is maybe 12 frames at ultra high res and a second or two at high quality mpeg encoding, etc. All they did was unlock the multipliers and bump up the mHz to 2.93.

At half the price you can get just as good a chip in the 6700, and if you overclock, the even cheaper E6600 (which Martinus got I think) is bumpable to 3.3gHz out of the box (with appropriate cooling solutions).

For my money, the 6600 is the best cost/power buy right now.


Yes I specifically don't want to overclock. Which is why I went for a faster chip, I expect it to last me a good while. The 6600 is probably the best bang for your buck I agree. As I said already I already had a good luck at all the options before deciding, no one has told me anything new.

[Tyndareus]

Yes I specifically don't want to overclock. Which is why I went for a faster chip, I expect it to last me a good while.

Well, see, that's just it. If you don't want to over clock, then the 6800 is silly. The whole point of that chip is to overclock it instead of buying a new chip later on. That's what you're paying for.

I'm sure you'll be happy with the performance. It's the top notch processor right now. BUT! In order to get what you paid for out of that chip, when other people move on to the next non xtreme quad cores etc, you'll need to OC that chip.

Though, if you're buying a high res wide screen 24" monitor, and two X1950XTX's then I imagine you can afford to eat that extra cost when the time comes :P

[Castian]

Well tweaking an old computer is not the same as tweaking a brand new one. :)

The time between now and needing to overclock is extended by buying a faster chip. Also in the future graphics cards will take more and more weight off the chipset. It is less likely you will get a bottleneck there for some time.

I got some cash in an unexpected windfall and spent it on something I wanted.

[Tyndareus]

Well tweaking an old computer is not the same as tweaking a brand new one. :)

The time between now and needing to overclock is extended by buying a faster chip. Also in the future graphics cards will take more and more weight off the chipset. It is less likely you will get a bottleneck there for some time.

Could be right. I'm just jealous I have to rationalize cheaper components :P

[Jim Fazater]

The Core 2 Duo processors make killer overclockers, too. I read you can raise the clock like 25% or something without even raising the voltage, and it'll run perfectly stable. Now, imagine if you put a big copper heatsink with aluminum fins on it and cranked the voltage up.

As for heat and power consumption...

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4442

The marketing material included with the card claims NVIDIA requires at least a 450W power supply for a single GeForce 8800GTX, and 400W for the 8800GTS. Top tier vendors in Taiwan have already confirmed with DailyTech that GeForce 8800 cards in SLI mode will likely carry a power supply "recommendation" of 800W. NVIDIA's GeForce 7950GX2, currently the company's top performing video card, carries a recommendation of 400W to run the card in single-card mode.

Even though it's produced on a smaller manufacturing scale, the card uses up tons of power. I can't see it not generating more heat than previous cards.

Also, keep in mind that insolation technology is lacking for really small scale electronics. Sometimes, moving to a smaller scale doesn't leave enough room for suffecient insolation, and transistors leak power before reaching their voltage threshold. Power leaks are a big problem now. That's why clock speeds for CPUs haven't been increasing, and we've been moving towards multicore technology.

[Neg]

Personally I wouldn't have bought a new system nowish. The G80 kills everything else out there for speed, no question. It does gobble up the power, but so would you if you were running dozens of unified shaders.

CPUs at the moment are a tough called. Core 2 Duo are nice, and by the normal run of things I'd recommend one to anybody, but in the labs at work I've been monkeying with a Kentsfield chip, the Intel Quad Core, which is scheduled for the start of the new year. That's just one sick puppy.

[Jim Fazater]

Would it be any faster for games, though? Multiple cores don't really help in games at all, as games are single-threaded, for the most part. Even in multithreaded games, there've seemed to be barely any performance gain. If it's just a Conroe with two more cores, I don't see the point.

[Castian]

The other things is, there is always something new on the horizon in terms of hardware. You could put off buying forever. You sort of have to aim to get something that does the job you want it for and choose that way. The current games have not even fully explored the existing hardware yet.

Take NWN2 for example, it is designed as a forward thinking game, something with high specs that they hope will last a while as NWN did. It is using shader model 3.0 and DX9 so when buying a system to play that and any games comming out in the next few months that is what you need. NWN2 wont be windows 64bit compatable, and many games coming out now are not going to be all that Vista friendly either.

What tends to make the decision is current software not hardware as that is what you use your machine for. I am assuming anyone waiting for G80 and Quad core, already has a machine that can run the games or apps you want so you can afford to wait, my current computer is outdated badly and it is not even an option to upgrade, I had to get a new system. Sooner or later you have to update and the better the machine you get the longer you have to wait until the next time.

These things you are talking about are not huge leaps ahead in terms of technology, some all ending must have device, they are just another advancement in the constant series of advancements that are always being made.

[Jim Fazater]

These things you are talking about are not huge leaps ahead in terms of technology, some all ending must have device, they are just another advancement in the constant series of advancements that are always being made.

You kidding? The Intel Core 2 Duo is the biggest leap in CPU technology since the Athlon 64 series. And the G80, from how it sounds, will give a huge leap in terms of performance.

There hasn't been much advancement in the CPU market ever since they hit that physical limit and couldn't find a way around the power leaks. Dual core technology is close to worthless for games. It wasn't until Conroe that I've seen a huge performance leap in the CPU market for the past couple years.

[Neg]

Would it be any faster for games, though? Multiple cores don't really help in games at all, as games are single-threaded, for the most part. Even in multithreaded games, there've seemed to be barely any performance gain. If it's just a Conroe with two more cores, I don't see the point.

Games design is changing. With the Xbox 360 having three cores and the PS3 using a cell core the emphasis now is not so much to make use of one core, or two cores, but for games to use as many cores as are available. For now one core to run your game and one core to run any background cack is the standard, because games have really only just started using extra cores, but games entering development now, and some that will be out next year, will be using all the cores they can find.

This, needless to say, is the win. :D

[Jim Fazater]

Coding a game to run on multiple threads increases development time/costs, though. I really wish we found a way to move to a smaller process and just boost clockspeeds like we used to. Cheaper CPUs for consumers, and easier development for developers.

[Castian]

Sadly pc gaming is not strong. Who knows where things will be in another 5-10 years time but the money put into console games compared to pc is huge. It seems likely less and less games will be developed for pcs in future, as disposable income increases more complete console like systems may well be the norm. Computers will continue to advance of course, but it will more likely be to support industry.

As for the other stuff Neg I know you will argue for the sake of argument but I still don't agree with you, there is always a next big thing in terms of development, I guess now I have my computer I will just have to wait for the next, next big thing.

Wow is this thread a long way off topic.

[Neg]

There's always something bigger and better, but if you're smart you can future proof your system pretty well for a few years. Console gaming is bigger than PC gaming but there's still enough money in PC games and it is still the home of the cash cow that is the MMORPG market.

[chiXu]

PC gaming was supposed to Die at the end of the 90's Cast, before really starting one could say. Obviously, that didn't happen and i wouldn't count out the old PC just yet, even 5-10 years for that matter.

[Viconius]

Companise like Namco who did only console games are actually now developing PC games. Windows Vista been especially designed with features to make gaming easier on PC and Microsoft has repeatedly spoken of their commitment. I been hearing PC gaming is dead for last 10 years, especially at launch of new consoles. I do not quite buy it.

I think PC gaming is doing better than it was few years back.

[ikkis]

Maybe the companies are waiting for the next big thing in copy, or should I say revenue, protection :)