Expert guidance required

simon_xazza · 27 Feb 2006 at 17:39

Hi,

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts that you guys might have on my chosen upgrade path. I want to keep it nice and quiet - my existing machine (XP 3200, Asus 6800Ultra and Abit AN7 S) sounds like an F16 taking off and cooks with the side panel on. I want a fast games machine with a little overclocking potential but stability is important. I can't imagine ever being able afford another 7800GTX so SLi is not required. Will the Seasonic PSU be up to the job and what CPU cooling would be appropriate? Thanks in advance for any advice.

BFG RNF4U nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-000-BG)

OcUK GeForce 7800GTX SILENT Extreme 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) (GX-033-DE

Arctic Cooling T2 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-001-AR)

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-145-AM)

iraiguana · 27 Feb 2006 at 18:04

the psu should be upto the job as you are not looking into big overclocking or sli, both of which eat the power.

the cpu cooler you will be looking for is either artic freezer 64pro or the zalman 9500 pro both of which are very good.

wait a week or two for the new zalman gpu cooler coming out and you should have some good quite cooling there.

muckymick · 27 Feb 2006 at 18:10

Themaltake big typhoon or a thermalright sl-120 with a quiet fan of your choice.

Monstermunch · 27 Feb 2006 at 18:15

The X1800xt's in 512mb should be about the same price as the 7800gtx if not cheaper and should perform better, not sure of how quiet they are though.

Also The 3700+ San Diego is a better choice of chip because of the higher L2 Cache and it's cheaper.

The Seasonic PSU's are one of the best available.

Monstermunch · 27 Feb 2006 at 18:30

It looks like the x1800's don't come in silent versions but here is what I would recommend:

FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£14.50 £14.50
CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£129.95 £129.95
MB-088-AS Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£61.95 £61.95
CA-000-AR Arctic Cooling T1 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-000-AR)
£49.95 £49.95
GX-033-OK OcUK GeForce 7800GTX SILENT Extreme 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) (GX-033-DE)
£224.95 £224.95
Subtotal £481.30
VAT £84.23
Total £565.53

simon_xazza · 27 Feb 2006 at 20:05

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Monstermunch - why the Asus? I have read a few post of USB issues with Asus boards. Do you think it is better than the BFG?

Cheers

ACESHIGH · 28 Feb 2006 at 00:06

The AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm is the CPU to get.

HOWEVER IF NOT GOING SLI DO NOT GET THE SLOWER OcUK GeForce 7800GTX SILENT Extreme 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) (GX-033-DE) FOR £264.32.
** GET THE CHEAPER & FASTER Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO) AT ONLY £234.94* **

Synergy · 28 Feb 2006 at 00:25

I'd just like to say that the 1800's generally dont outperform the GTX - but the 1900 do.

ACESHIGH · 28 Feb 2006 at 00:51

Synergy said:
I'd just like to say that the 1800's generally dont outperform the GTX - but the 1900 do.

Sorry you are WRONG. On average the X1800XT is faster than the 7800GTX
(However the 7800GTX 512MB is faster than the X1800XT but about 300 pound more expensive!)

Post this question in graphics card forum & you will get proof.

simon_xazza · 28 Feb 2006 at 08:08

Thanks again guys. I also considered these two

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)

MSI ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-058-MS)

Faster than the GTX? Can anyone link to benchmarks for these boards? Toms Hardware VGA charts don't show much between them. FEAR is the game that caused me to realise I need to upgrade by the way

Monstermunch · 28 Feb 2006 at 08:14

ACESHIGH said:
Sorry you are WRONG. On average the X1800XT is faster than the 7800GTX
(However the 7800GTX 512MB is faster than the X1800XT but about 300 pound more expensive!)

Post this question in graphics card forum & you will get proof.

Waiting for this one to come up again from Aceshigh. Please Aceshigh have a look through these benchmarking tests as you are contantly accusing everyone of being wrong about gfx cards. I'm afraid that this will prove you WRONG!

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/24/ati_radeon_x1900_heats_up_with_48_pixel_pipelines/page8.html

BigDom · 28 Feb 2006 at 08:58

Monstermunch said:
Waiting for this one to come up again from Aceshigh. Please Aceshigh have a look through these benchmarking tests as you are contantly accusing everyone of being wrong about gfx cards. I'm afraid that this will prove you WRONG!

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/24/ati_radeon_x1900_heats_up_with_48_pixel_pipelines/page8.html

Actually he is right, that review is using the £400+ 512 card NOT the 256. If you note the 1800XT isn't much slower.

Also in Fear the 1800 is QUICKER than a 512 when running AA/AF - which most people will do.

The 256meg 7800GTX is clocked noticeably SLOWER than the 512 version.

GT 425/1050 £185
GTX 256 460/1300 £295 (BFG)
GTX 512 550/1700 £499

There are other 'specials' like the £280 490/1250 Leadtek but I'd expect the 1800XT overall the beat all of them except the 512 £499 version.

In fact the GTX range is confusing at best. Many are barely clocked higher than the stock GT BFG. Basically the X1800XT will beat some easilly, some less easilly, but beat them all it will.

Synergy · 28 Feb 2006 at 09:26

BigDom said:
Also in Fear the 1800 is QUICKER than a 512 when running AA/AF - which most people will do.

I disagree, in my own experience most people use reasonable AF (i.e 8x ) and NO AA, pretty much everyone I have spoken to uses no more than 2x AA (if at all) if they run at 1280x960 or higher. Mainly because jaggies are far less noticable at these resolutions.

It is worth taking into account which card runs quicker under the situations you will be using it in, for instance - will you be enabling AA? Also benchmarks can be misleading, you should be aware that a lot of the time there is only a few FPS between the speeds of the cards in a specific game and the speeds may be system and/or code limited.

In your shoes I would go for the cheapest card in this (top end) range I could find, be it ATI or NVidia - I am a fanboi of neither. It is worth considering also that although some games do see a (small) performance increase from the 512mb of RAM on the card many do not, so if it is affecting the price, maybe you'd opt for a 256mb version. Every game I have seen with a 'very high' texture option requiring more than 256mb video RAM just uses uncompressed versions of already high quality textures and I personally have not managed to notice any difference between the two.