Graphics help - possible bottle neck

[gwr3850]

Hey guys,
As you can see from my sig my current system spec. But I seem to find that the games I play most arent truely smooth. Railworks just lags completely when driving a steam locomotive and this is aggrevating Also BFBC2 will at times have random lag spikes and slowdowns for a couple of seconds and then back to normal.

I am not sure if my system is having a bottleneck somewhere. Although it will run Dirt 2 on ultra with 8AA and 16AF no problem but I think this was in DX10 as my Vista doesn't seem to run DX11 at the moment. Will play HAWX smoothly on max detail. seems to be just those couple of items. So I have put my sapphire 5830 on ebay for sale and my question is for true smoother play do I go gtx 460 or 5850? Right now I only have a 19" so game res is 1280x960 But I will go up to 32inch TV so will be at 1920x1024

If I was to get a 5850 would this solve the problems?

 

[Marine-RX179]

AA hit the performance of 5830 pretty hard (not sure if it has anything to do with it only having half the ROPs of 5850/5870). When you run BFBC2, are you using 4xAA or 8xAA?

Raw power wise the 5850 will be a bit faster than the GTX460 1GB, but bare in mind it is average price of £200 vs £180.

Another thing to consider although people always ranting there are games that are more Nvidia optimised than ATI, that is unfortunately the reality of things. Because of this, may be you could consider getting a GTX470 instead? It in a way has the best of both worlds in terms of raw power and won't suffer in games that prefer Nvidia...and you can pick one up now for £220. Yes they are know to be hot and the fan can be loud, but mostly it is because the default fan profile for the card doesn't increase the speed of the fan much until it reach too high temp, and by then it is speeding at like 80% fan speed. According to people that actually own a GTX470, the heat and noise in not really that much of an issue if they set their own custom fan profiles (using MSI Afterburner etc) to have to fan increase speed in earlier stage, instead of leaving it till the card becomes too hot.

5850 is a great card for its price, but I would probably get the GTX470 instead just in case for those games that prefer Nvidia cards...that's just my 2p. In the end though, it's entirely up to you buy whichever card you want, but it's worth investigating of the games that you'll be mainly playing will run better on Nvidia or ATI card.

With that said, you should really check the frame rate of BFBC2 with you 5830 on 4xAA first if you were running it on 8xAA.

 

[gwr3850]

I apologise I forgot to mention in CCC, I have set the settings for AA and AF to application controlled so I only use x8 in Dirt 2, BC2 is indeed at 4, and I get a constant 60fps, my guess is due to the monitor being at 60hz

Railworks game engine can not deal too well with AA and even at x16 its still jaggy so when I force it through CCC fps are at a nice 40-70fps even with upto 16AA. Until I drive a steam engine is when it lags, cant cope with the steam particles. so as you said I think it is due to the ROP being halved - me being a novice I didn't think this would affect performance that greatly.

I think maybe a GTX470 is abit of a stretch out of budget but in the end it is worth it! I shall not be getting one until I have sold this 5830 I reckon. Maybe an alternative would be to single a GTX 460 for now and SLI them later, I think I read that the 460s scale better in SLI than 470s or am I incorrect.

and thanks for the reply marine

 

[gwr3850]

So I will no doubtedly be buying the card within the next few weeks. And the arrival of the Gigabyte 460s I think that is the card I would choose between the 460s, 5850 or a 470. A 470 would seem nice but just out of reach of my budget I think.

For performance and OC ability I think the Giga is a winner. Question is, wuold my system be enough to cope with all of this. And is it abnormal for my PSU to click twice on start up? Although peolpe have said it could be the Asus Xonar DS card as I have one of those.

 

[Marine-RX179]

GTX460 would be able to overclock to 800MHz at the very least. Power consumption wise, it is no more demanding than a 5830, if not may be only around 10W higher or so. A Q6600 overclocked to 3.3GHz would be fine for games that use more than two cores, but for older games that only use one or two cores, than it might bottleneck an overclocked GTX460 a bit. You should try to overclock the Q6600 further for the sake of those games.

As for clicking sound from the PSU doesn't sound right...are you certain the sound is from the PSU?

 

[gwr3850]

GTX460 would be able to overclock to 800MHz at the very least. Power consumption wise, it is no more demanding than a 5830, if not may be only around 10W higher or so. A Q6600 overclocked to 3.3GHz would be fine for games that use more than two cores, but for older games that only use one or two cores, than it might bottleneck an overclocked GTX460 a bit. You should try to overclock the Q6600 further for the sake of those games.

As for clicking sound from the PSU doesn't sound right...are you certain the sound is from the PSU?

Well I read in another thread that someone had A DS xonar and he said that he had some clicking so I think it is the soundcard - it only happens in the process from pressing the power button into windows. Only twice everytime.

And a 460 sounds best option and best option also to SLI later months. Seems to be that as soon as I try to get the memory speed any higher than 800MHz the system BSODs and that was at 3.6GHz with I think 1.38V CPU voltage and 2.2V for RAM, doesnt stick at all, so I am limited to what seems a max of 3.33, its the B stepping chip. I dont play many old games and they have played fine at the minute - Oldest game I own would be COD and this plays fine

Thank you again - I hope that this movement will improve gameplay greatly - still no bids on my 5830 =[. Is that common auction site E.... the best place to try. As I don't qualify for the MM yet

 

[Marine-RX179]

Thank you again - I hope that this movement will improve gameplay greatly - still no bids on my 5830 =[. Is that common auction site E.... the best place to try. As I don't qualify for the MM yet

To be honest I think it will be difficult to get reasonable amount of money back for selling 5830, with the price drop for the 4890 down to £105 and 5830 down to £140, as well as with the GTX460 now out. You can probably get around £100 for it if you were to sell it.

I think may be you should try overclock the 5830 to see if it will give you acceptable frame rate. If you must upgrade, think of it this way...you sold your 5830 for £100, you'd still need to pay £75 extra for getting the Gigabyte GTX460 1GB. Instead of getting the GTX460 1GB, may be you could consider trying your luck getting another 5830 for dirt cheap at £100 or less 2nd hand? Considering a pair of 5770 in Crossfire is slighting faster than a 5870, a pair of 5830 in Crossfire should put the speed between a 5870 and a GTX480. I know you mention about considering SLI for GTX460, but your board is a X38 board and I believe it only support Crossfire not SLI.

Not really trying to push you toward neither the Green or Red camp, just trying to give you something to consider, and have a think about what's best value/performance for the money.

 

[gwr3850]

Thanks again, I didnt realise this would hit me so badly, I hope I will not be at a loss, it is less than 2 months old!! and I am not thinking of XF or SLI right now as first I will make the transfer over to the i series and DDR3 with a big enough board before I try that.

I have tried the max settings in ATI overdrive and this still was incapable of coping with the smoke particles And well I do not mind having to fork out an extra £75 As I think it would be worth it, and only real way I can afford to bridge the gap is by the sale of this card to help fund the biggest part.

And true my board at this time does only support Xfire. I think 2 x 5770s are just a little too expensive for My budget, I would say 200 Max at a stretch 220.

At a question what are GTX 260s like? worse than the 5830?

 

[Marine-RX179]

And true my board at this time does only support Xfire. I think 2 x 5770s are just a little too expensive for My budget, I would say 200 Max at a stretch 220.

At a question what are GTX 260s like? worse than the 5830?

GTX260 is more around 5770 level. I think you are pretty much stucked with the 5830, unless you willing to sell it low which I doubt it's something you want to do. The reason I'm suggesting you could consider getting an extra 5830 to Crossfire with your current 5830 is that since you are having a hard time selling your 5830, so will other people...so may be you can grab one for cheap if you are lucky. Another thing to consider is whether or not your PSU will be up to the job...if not, then forget this option as you are not only need to pay for the extra card, but for a PSU upgrade too.

 

[gwr3850]

Just checking Ebay and smallest cost on there was 149 then it jumps to 160+ So I thik i should be able sell it close to cost at 165.

Also, I do not think that 2 of them would fit in my case to be honest as the PSU is bottom mounted and both PCI-e 16s are right next to each other! and the Sapphire card is pretty wide so do not think they would fit. Also I am sure I would ned for than 650W for Xfire?

Finally, it would depend how much less I would sell this card for and how much it would cost for a 2nd one. and would another one give me a great performance boost? how do XF 5830s cope at 1920 res?

Thank you again

 

[gwr3850]

Can I just ask people, what currently average sale value for a 5830, as someone just offered to buy for £100 :s I only bought it 5 weeks ago for 163!! i can not afford a £63 loss

 

[Marine-RX179]

Can I just ask people, what currently average sale value for a 5830, as someone just offered to buy for £100 :s I only bought it 5 weeks ago for 163!! i can not afford a £63 loss

One of the problem for people buying 2nd hand card is that the warranty are mostly non-transferrable from the previous owner to the next, which contribute the most toward the depreciation of the value of a current gen card...beside price-drop of new cards of the same model of course.

However, while I'm not 100% sure...I recall reading that Sapphire's RMA only require the prove of the original purchase, doesn't matter if the person that RMA card is not the first owner or something like that. You might want to have a search for some info on that.

If Sapphire's warranty is indeed "transferrable", then I would suggest you try not to sell for anything less than £115-£120. The new 5830 card that are being sold at £140 is Powercolour's, not Sapphire's as well.

 

[gwr3850]

One of the problem for people buying 2nd hand card is that the warranty are mostly non-transferrable from the previous owner to the next, which contribute the most toward the depreciation of the value of a current gen card...beside price-drop of new cards of the same model of course.

However, while I'm not 100% sure...I recall reading that Sapphire's RMA only require the prove of the original purchase, doesn't matter if the person that RMA card is not the first owner or something like that. You might want to have a search for some info on that.

If Sapphire's warranty is indeed "transferrable", then I would suggest you try not to sell for anything less than £115-£120. The new 5830 card that are being sold at £140 is Powercolour's, not Sapphire's as well.

Well for time being I have reduced it to 130 to see if that gets any attention. Cant believe how much the depreciate so quick

 

[gwr3850]

Right well I think in the end I have sold the 5830 for 110-115 awaiting confirmation. So my I have been looking on ebay and I am thinking of getting a 260/280/285 or the 295 (2nd hand) after doing research obviously hehe will this be a good move and provide good frame results for games like BC2 and DIRT2 and how about FSX? never really had proper chance to play this game hehe and be a good move to SLI them in the next 12 months to make them last longer or maybe see what I can get in the GT4 series?