I am going to test 3x OCed 275's vs 3x OCed 280's on my new i7 build, but...

[cmndr_andi]

I see where you are coming from now, you want to make a PC for as little money as possible and play crysis warhead at the best possible framerate. Essentially a dedicated Crysis Warhead console.

With this in mind I would suggest against AMD in this particular situation as you will be forced to use a much older board and DDR2 and generally take a step back. As for perfomance, the bit tech review I posted does show that the i7 heavily outperforms the Phenom II (even when overclocked) and considering you will be using a slower platform I imagine this gap will increase. Therefore, your £70 investment from AMD to i7 is a good one.

The performance increase going from 3GB will be tiny (maybe non-existent) when playing cysis warhead. If that is all that matters to you - then get 3GB RAM and pocket the £50. However, if you do see yourself doing anything vaguely non-gaming on the machine - then the extra RAM will be put to good use.

As for OS, If you feel compelled to stick with 32 bit then I implore you to buy the retail version of Windows 7. This is a £10 more and includes both 32 and 64 bit versions - so you can install 64 bit later if you do decide to increase your RAM capacity.

 

[Mpyra]

Okay, i'm going to say that for gaming in a multi gpu system;

more ram= no benefit

greater bandwidth ram = no benefit

low latency ram = no benefit

and all in all it's all hype.

Just need the cheapest ram possible.

This allow me to focus on the more pressing cost to performance issue of the i7 vs phenom.

Of course this is still tied in with the issue of gtx vs 5000 series, which has more to do with my personal preference in games i.e Crysis than the actually modernity of the card (i.e i don't need DX11 or 30000fps on games when my screen is 60 hz), if the gtx's smoke the 5000 at crysis yet will still pull 60 fps on all other games for the next year at a considerably cheaper price, they win.

 

[Strawberry]

With 3 280's in your system I doubt you'll have any problem whatsoever running modern games.

The performance difference in eg. Crysis between 3x280 and 3x5* is pointless since both setups output well over 60fps minimum, so go with whatever you prefer / is cheaper.

 

[Mpyra]

I see where you are coming from now, you want to make a PC for as little money as possible and play crysis warhead at the best possible framerate.
Therefore, your £70 investment from AMD to i7 is a good one.

It's actually a 150 pound investment, as i said above i could sell the rampage for about a 50 pound profit, would be saving 50 by going for the phenom instead of i7, and a further 50 would be saved by going from the 120 pound mobo to the 70 pound mobo i would need for the phenom.

I've seen benchmarks that actually put the 955 ahead of the i7 in crysis warhead.

There are a great many unknown factors such as the fact i am using trislied gpu's and the fact that i am going to be overclocking.

The board i am considering is the ASUS M3N-HT retails for around 100 i can get for around 70.

Also, i should think this system would be able to handle any game released within the next year and play at past 60 fps.

Getting Crysis at past 60 fps at 1980x1080 at max settings possibly with max AA etc.. on a somewhat budgeted build has been the tricky part, i think these graphics cards will outperform the 5000 series in that regard on a price/performance basis.

 

[cmndr_andi]

Have you considered selling all 6 of your cards and buying one or two Nvidia Fermi cards (released March 26th)? Considering Crysis performance heavily favours Nvidia cards, I imagine this will continue with their next generation. It would be best to wait for reviews of the GTX 470 and 480 cards, but it is something to consider.

 

[Mpyra]

With 3 280's in your system I doubt you'll have any problem whatsoever running modern games.

The performance difference in eg. Crysis between 3x280 and 3x5* is pointless since both setups output well over 60fps minimum, so go with whatever you prefer / is cheaper.

Well you see i think the gtx's smoke the 5000's in Crysis even if the driver thing is true and my bench markings are out of date, but it depends on which benchmarks you go by and how well they translated to real world gaming performance.

As i said if the 5870's get 3000fps instead of 2000 fps in whatever game but the 280's beat it in Crysis and still put put 60 fps in whatever game for the next year to come, they have won afaiac.

I tend use benchmarks that show similar results in regards to percentage performance differences between different cards in order to determine a cards true standing relative to others.

Meh, there's only so much you can ascertain from benchmark scores, ultimately you have to put it to the test.

Personally i am confident in my assessments.

 

[Mpyra]

Have you considered selling all 6 of your cards and buying one or two Nvidia Fermi cards (released March 26th)? Considering Crysis performance heavily favours Nvidia cards, I imagine this will continue with their next generation. It would be best to wait for reviews of the GTX 470 and 480 cards, but it is something to consider.

That would be overspending, i only bought all the cards to compare them, not to keep.

I am in fact somewhat relying on fermi's failure to prolong the longevity of my cards value as well as their relevance to game developers who would not likely abandon support for last generation hardware, i essentially think fermi's failure will prolong this generation of graphics in all measures of progress.

Or something like that, hell if i know, i just find speculating and gambling/hedging somewhat enjoyable.

 

[Mpyra]

Hey check this out, phenom wins in Crysis on high at my resolution and by a lot on very high against the i7:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-versus-i7,2360-5.html

Guess i got to at least try the 955.

 

[cmndr_andi]

I'm not sure it would be overspending, it all depends on how Fermi performs in crysis warhead. If we assume that you can sell each card for £130 (compared to keeping 3 in tri-SLI) then you have £390. Depending on launch pricing, that may get you a GTX 480 and change or perhaps GTX 470 if you sink a bit more money in.

I suppose this will all be settled on launch day, I know I for one will be raking over the benchmarks.

 

[RavenXXX2]

WTF, they are using 4890's with the phenom and 4870's with the i7, of course the phenom and 4890's are going to be faster..

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hey check this out, phenom wins in Crysis on high at my resolution and by a lot on very high against the i7:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-versus-i7,2360-5.html

Guess i got to at least try the 955.

That test is a 3.7GHz Phenom II against a 3.44GHz i7. Considering an i7 overclocks to 4Ghz with little trouble and the phenom 955 tops out at 3.8 - 4GHz, then this isn't the most representative test.

Amazingly, the graphics cards are different - the Phenom II uses 4890s while the i7 uses 4870s - no wonder the Phenom wins!!

 

[Mpyra]

I'm not sure it would be overspending, it all depends on how Fermi performs in crysis warhead. If we assume that you can sell each card for £130 (compared to keeping 3 in tri-SLI) then you have £390. Depending on launch pricing, that may get you a GTX 480 and change or perhaps GTX 470 if you sink a bit more money in.

I suppose this will all be settled on launch day, I know I for one will be raking over the benchmarks.

Lol, fan of Nvidia by chance?

Is Fermi even yielding past single digits yet?

Seriously even if it performs better lack of availability will keep prices inflated long enough for me to shift my cards and think the chances are pretty slim that Fermi is going to out do the last gen on a price/performance basis.

 

[Mpyra]

That test is a 3.7GHz Phenom II against a 3.44GHz i7. Considering an i7 overclocks to 4Ghz with little trouble and the phenom 955 tops out at 3.8 - 4GHz, then this isn't the most representative test.

Amazingly, the graphics cards are different - the Phenom II uses 4890s while the i7 uses 4870s - no wonder the Phenom wins!!

Well spotted, I'll keep looking for benchmarks, but i honestly think it's worth it to try both.

Would my CPU's lose any value by testing them?

 

[cmndr_andi]

If you test it then you won't be able to return it via DSR so you will have to sell it 2nd hand.

Since you can't offer direct RMA when selling second hand then you will take a decent hit when reselling. I would suggest looking on popular auction sites to see what the selling prices are, also bear in mind fees you have to pay for these services.

 

[Mpyra]

If you test it then you won't be able to return it via DSR so you will have to sell it 2nd hand.

Since you can't offer direct RMA when selling second hand then you will take a decent hit when reselling. I would suggest looking on popular auction sites to see what the selling prices are, also bear in mind fees you have to pay for these services.

Yea, i'm gonna monitor ebay watch some used 920's and 955's.

I'm going to focus on the 920 build for now and getting my card's oced.

This ram should do i think, 3 x 1gb 1600mhz cas latency 8:


I have no idea about timings thought, what are they and how do they rffect things?

 

[cmndr_andi]

Sorry man, you can't link to competitor sites here, I suggest you remove the link ASAP.

I agree that the X58 platform is the superior one for what you are wanting to do, especially since you have an excellent motherboard already.

What PSU are you planning to use?

 

[Mpyra]

Sorry man, you can't link to competitor sites here, I suggest you remove the link ASAP.

I agree that the X58 platform is the superior one for what you are wanting to do, especially since you have an excellent motherboard already.

What PSU are you planning to use?

Done.

Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000w Modular PSU, which i got for 50 but is a bit used, but still a very high quality PSU.

This explained latencies to me pretty well:

"From my understanding a cas 4 ddr2-800 would take the same time to perform the same amount of job a cas 8 ddr3-1600 can, because the latency advantage is completely outweighted by the bandwidth (half latency of 4, half bandwidth of 800mhz, is really the same as double latency and double bandwidth of 1600mhz)

thus comparing cas 4 ddr2-800 and cas 7 ddr3-1600 is essentially the same as compariong a cas 8 ddr3-1600 with cas 7 ddr3-1600 and ddr2 is slower by (8/7-1)*100%, which is the same figure as (.000005/.000004375 - 1)*100%."

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=306424

Says nothing about timings though.

How do they work?

 

[kylew]

Mpyra, you have to have one of the most backward ways of evaluation PC hardware performance.

Firstly, why do you seem to be refusing to use 64 bit windows?

What program compatibilities are you talking about exactly? All the software I have works on both 64 and 32bit.

It's rare to find something that doesn't work on 64 bit, very rare actually.

As for RAM, I'm not sure how you can call it a scam.

I know it's dependant on what you do with your PC, but I find anything under 8GB horrible to use.

All these extra bits of performance you're trying to squeeze out for the money are so small that I don't think you'll see a benefit equal to the amount of time effort and thought you're putting in to it.

 

[rhys216]

This is the biggest fail I'v seen in a thread since I registered here, I'm just glad the Op in confident in his "assessments".

Op what resolution are you gaming at?

 

[Rroff]

I know it's dependant on what you do with your PC, but I find anything under 8GB horrible to use.

All these extra bits of performance you're trying to squeeze out for the money are so small that I don't think you'll see a benefit equal to the amount of time effort and thought you're putting in to it.

IIRC tho you do quite a lot of fairly high end 3D, etc. stuff tho, if your rendering and have a few related programs on the go thats automatically 2+gig that other people aren't likely to be using.

IMO for normal desktop use and some gaming 4gig is fine, 3gig maybe a little tight but useable.