New rig.....just wondering about GPU, raid

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

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Joined
30 Sep 2006
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Midlands, UK
Hi all,
ok, so got hold of:
Asus P8Z58-V Pro
i7 2600K
12Gb Corsair XMS3 1600
Vertex 3 (2.11)
ATI 5850

Now...just wondering IF i get another Vertex 3 to raid 0 them, just to see what performance i can get really. I have a penchant for quick loading maps during games :rolleyes:
Also, if i had a £200 budget what GPU could i get that would significantly increase 1920x1080 gaming over the 5850. 6950 seems approx. 30% faster (according to some benchies). Or maybe crossfiring another 5850, surely that would be much faster and cheaper.

edit: mobo model amends, thanks to Reaper for pointing that out. :)
 
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that stuff is looking very incompatable to me.

the processor will not fit in the motherboard as the X58 motherboards are socket 1366 and the i7 2600k is socket 1155. hopefully thats a typo and you meant the Asus P8Z68-V pro because otherwise your stuffed.

the RAM is correct for the motherboard you chose, but not correct for the processor you chose. it will technically work, but if you use a sandybridge motherboard you will have one stick lying around because sandybridge motherboards use dual channel RAM, not triple. i dont think you can have 8GB in one channel and 4GB in another but im happy to be proved wrong there.

if you RAID 0 the vertex drives i cant see any reason why you shouldnt see loading times cut almost in half.
 
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Admiral Huddy said:
Good advice there from reaper. Certainly a good spot as far is the incompatibility is concerned.

Not sure about the raid halving the loading times.. The vertex 3 is a lightening fast drive already. Doesn't seem viable to me.. I'd invest in a new GC

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-114-MS
Click to expand...

if his motherboard does crossfire @x8/x8 or higher i think a second 5850 would be a better upgrade:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/303?vs=330
as much as i like nvidia it just seems far more sensible to go crossfire

also, the vertex 3 might be lightning fast, but surely RAID 0 doubles the read/write times meaning you get double lightning fast. not what i'd recommend but with my very limited knowledge of RAID i cant see why it wouldnt reduce loading times.
 
I see yes a second card would be a better choice indeed.

I've not had the luxury of playing around with SSDs in raid, but my experience with standard HDD, the yields of RAID-0 are nothing near double the speed. In some cases the performance is negligible. I might be completely wrong about SSDs though.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
I see yes a second card would be a better choice indeed.

I've not had the luxury of playing around with SSDs in raid, but my experience with standard HDD, the yields of RAID-0 are nothing near double the speed. In some cases the performance is negligible. I might be completely wrong about SSDs though.
Click to expand...

ok fair enough. my experience of RAID is nil, i was just going by the theory of it. even if it did double the speed i wouldnt recommend RAIDing SSD's for extra speed mostly because as you say they are fast enough already, but also because the revodrives would probably be more sensible if you want stupidly fast SSDs
 
Thanks for the replies so far guys, and my apologies for writiing the post in a hasty manner.
So...here's an update.
The board is indeed (thanks to Reaper) an Asus P8Z68-V Pro. (simple type there)
PSU is HX650, not 850. Jeez, my memory. :rolleyes:
I bought 12gb of ram, as i already have another identical stick of 4gb from a recent build. Although i foresee no issues with using 12gb instead of 16gb, just means one stick will obviously be single channel. Done that plenty of times before without issue.

As you'll no doubt be aware, i don't NEED to raid 2 V3's, but i'd sure like to see how well it performs.
I've never used dual GPU setups before, instead always opting for decent single cards, but the benefits that a 6950 would bring for shelling out £200 doesn't seem as worthy as shelling out approx. £140 and getting much more fps.
Oh...a H80 will also be cooling the cpu, in the same CM690 case as in my sig, which already has 3 x 120mm cas fans.

Is xfire easy to setup? I've heard they can be troublesome?

edit: need to update my sig methinks.
 
you'll be fine with the 650W PSU. you might need a couple of the molex to PCIe power adapters, but the PSU looks like its up to the job.
*edit*
wow, the PSU has enough PCIe power cables. i am impressed
*/edit*

not sure about setup though, never done a multi graphics card setup myself
 
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Well, moving the V3 from the rig in my sig to the new one, hasn't gone altogether smoothly.
It boots, but just like another rig imoved around the other from i5 to i7, the Catalyst Control Center won't load up, even after uninstalling ALL Catalyst software, rebooting and re-installing.
So, maybe a reformat is due. Now looking at a couple of the Agility 3 120gb drives. They seem nearly as fast as the V3, and with them in raid0 should give me better performance than one V3 don't you think?

Also, didn't realise that their is no native spdif on the board, so need to buy a bracket for that as my altec lansing 4.1 setup needs spdif......bummer!

edit: just looking at V3 versus A3 benchies, the V3 is way ahead, yet they seem to offer the same specs. I'm guessing IOPS is totally different between the two.
 
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i wouldnt bother with SSD's in RAID 0, they are fast enough as it is.

if you really want stupid SSD performance go for the OCZ revodrives. i wouldnt go for one myself because normal SSD's are plenty, but if you really do want to get one make sure you know exactly what shares the PCIe lanes for the bottom PCIe slot of your mobo, because there might be some problems with there
 
Personally, I'd go with a single GPU set up unless you game at a very high resolution. Not all games work/scale well with Crossfire and there have been driver issues. Then there's the added heat, power draw etc.

Don't get me wrong, Crossfire is a valid option it's just that with a good single card you can avoid potential annoying gaming niggles which are Crossfire related.

If in doubt, pop into the GC section where there's more knowledgable people than me. A wealth of information in there.
 
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