time for a change

rick fowler

rick fowler

rick fowler

Associate
Joined
28 Sep 2008
Posts
1,054
Location
nottinghamshire
hello all been a while since i came on here asking for help and yet again i need it;)

at minute i have
Q6600 quadcore overclocked to 3.4ghz
asus p5q pro
500w psu
Arctic Cooling Alpine 7 Pro CPU Cooler
4gb corsair dominator
his-radion hd-4850-512mb
500gb westen
antec case

i think its time to upgrade as i am starting to do a lot of modling using maya 2009,and its getting a bit laggy when getting to the final finishing of my models,what would be the best option to get it running a lot smoother,which graphics card would suit 3d work and should i up the ram to 8gig whats everyone thoughts on a good upgrade budget is gotta be as low as possiable but im up for ideas.
 
Last edited:
I wouldn't think you need 8GB of ram, 4GB should be fine.
Your CPU and mobo are sound, maybe upgrade to a gfx card with more memory
GTX 275 / 260 and 4890 and best bang for buck i'd say
 
ian|Squared² said:
I wouldn't think you need 8GB of ram, 4GB should be fine.
Your CPU and mobo are sound, maybe upgrade to a gfx card with more memory
GTX 275 / 260 and 4890 and best bang for buck i'd say
Click to expand...

Agreed depending on budget go for:

low budget:

4870 or 260

mid budget:

4890

high budget:

4870x2 or 275
 
8gb will help a bit, but not enormous amounts. The best low budget upgrade is a 512mb 8800gt flashed to quadro fx3700. Here's a link about it http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17995195

A second hand one will cost you about 50 quid. Maya showed an exceptionally massive improvement in benchmarks, number is frames per second

8800gt stock
maya-02 13.06

fx3700 650 mhz core
maya-02 13.05

fx3700 750mhz core
maya-02 42.11

The mod isn't very difficult, but people do seem to be struggling a bit following my directions. If editing the bios with nibitor looks too scary, theres a link in the thread for premodified bioses. It's worth changing the clocks to stock or something you know is stable however.

Well, that clearly took too long for me to write. None of those cards will make a significant difference, as the drivers for them do not support cad. The point to the above flash is to use quadro drivers, where suddenly everything works far better.
 
Last edited:
ok cheers for the replys but man its hard to chose these days on whats the best for you money well,i have worn out my calulator and my budget is £380 thats to included postage.

i have been reading up on maya and seems that only the nvidia cards which they recommend are like stupid prices,so i am stumped to what to do,
so for 380 including postage what upgrades should i go for now to get it future proof for gaming. im open for ideas and shopping list's.im hopeless when it comes to building a shopping list and as you lot helped me before with my last build, i was very happy and i hope you can do it again.

i forget to mention my monitor is a 22" polaroid hdtv that i have been using for a while and i think it does the job quite well.
 
so what should i do can i get this to run a lot better within the £380,just looking for some ideas to treat myself,or should i just leave it as it is.

regarding free delivery to loyal members do i qualify not sure as how it works i know i have over 100 post's or is there more to it.
 
do as JonJ678 said get an 8800gt and flsh the bios so that maya recognises it as an fx3700

it will then accelerate the program on the gpu
 
well i have had a rread of jonj678 thread and it looks good but a bit over my head and i rather not tamper with a card and end up breaking it,i will just have to be patience with maya in the final stages.so regarding upgrading any parts what would be a good to change as i think i go back to playing games,like my crysis ect
 
well if you are not going to go down the gpu acceleration route, nothing really can be changed in your budget, only thing I'd suggest is waiting till the mainstream version of i7 is released
 
I'd reconsider the 8800gt, as long as you have a floppy drive the process is really straightforward. Including recovering if the flash doesn't work. The quadro fx3700 costs a ridiculous amount, a second hand 8800gt costs 50 quid.
Your board has two pci-e slots, and you have a spare card, so if the flash doesn't work you just boot with the screen connected to the ati card and flash the nvidia one from there.

That gamble is well worth it, the performance improvement is enormous. Im going to pick up a second one at some point as insurance against my current one dying. It's quite heavily overclocked, and it'll be overvolted in the future so I daresay it won't last forever.

Looked back at your current spec. if you change nothing except sticking in a modified 8800gt, problems with maya will vanish, and it'll beat i7 non-quadro rigs for cad work.

Need to link your forum account to that of your shop account, that's it for free shipping. If you want to treat yourself, a vertex, a flashed 8800gt (I'll even email you the bios if you like :) ), and a very nice screen will fit in your budget. System will be far quicker, and you'll have two screens which rules
 
Last edited:
it does sound good pitty you cant buy them already done,i also dont have a floppy drive and i anit confident in doing these flashes ect.any other routes i could look at?
 
The fx3700 retails for a minimum of £700. Using a 50 quid card for the same end is an amazing deal. The hardware is identical. Incidentally as a 9800gt is a bios modded 8800gt, it's almost certainly possible to change the 9800gt into the fx3700 as well. That I haven't tried.

I think, get a floppy drive and a 512mb 8800gt, tell me your address and I'll post you a floppy disk already set up. I'm happy doing this as long as you'll run a specific benchmark before and after the flash, as I'm trying to work out how badly processor limited my system is now. Deal?
All you'd have to do is boot from the floppy disk and type nvflash -4 -5 -6 fx3700.rom
 
ok i will look into getting a 8800gt 512mb card from somewhere and i contact you soon as i have it if you can pm me your email i will let you know soon as i get it,where can i get a 8800gt from cheap and which one as i see theres a few different models?

lastly what should i do with my 4850 card?
 
Last edited:
I'd buy it from the members market here, but you don't get access until you hit 250 posts I think. It's possible since you've been here for quite a while you can ask for access now, theres generally one on offer most of the time so that would be ideal.

Not sure how to pm you, as you haven't enabled trust so I don't have an email address for you.

As for the 4850, pass. If you put quite a lot of effort in you might be able to get it playing nicely alongside the nvidia card and run four monitors. More likely you'll end up selling it. I suggest hanging onto it until the 8800 arrives :)
 
Get some more posts and grab the 8800GT off MM for about £50, or off a certain well known auction site for maybe a fiver more.

As Jon said, keep hold of it until you've got the 8800 sorted, then bung it on MM/that auction site and you'll be making a little profit overall.
 
i have an account with a certain auction site,i had a look but theres loads of different 8800gt types so which one would be the right one?
 
Any 512mb one should work. The fellow who did this before me used an nvidia reference card, I've used an evga ssc edition. The higher clocked ones will remain higher clocked after the mod, so I'd suggest one of the factory overclocked models

If the mod works with the 1gb model it would be faster. The original guy claims success with a zotac 1gb card but I haven't tried this, so it's more of a gamble

"GENUINE BUYERS ONLY

NO NEGATIVE FEEDBACK PLEASE

NO WARRANTY

NO RETURN"

what a site. MM for the win
 
Last edited:
i will have to post a bit more then to get into the members market then,as i anit gotta clue about what im looking for on the other auction site and whether its a genuine sale or not,unless admin are lurking on here and would be willing to let me in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom