Upgrade time perhaps

MattShepherd · 1 Mar 2011 at 21:54

Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail
Asus P6T Deluxe Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Antec 902 Nine Hundred Two (V3) Ultimate Gaming Case (with USB3.0 Support)
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK)
OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Triple Channel
Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD753LJ)
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366)
Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM

Bout back in 2009....i7 sits clocked at 3ghz.

I think my gfx card may be on its last legs...im seeing weird graphical errors in a few games im playing recently. I just ran the shogun 2 demo and I cant actually see the campaign map at all, its all choppy and distorted. Im unable to play wow for weird pink/green lines appearing out of the ground clutter. Somebody suggested the cards overhearting, but I have tried running at 100% fan speed before launching and It makes no diffrence. Tried updating drivers etc. What is weird though is both wow and the shogun 2 demo look fine on windows default drivers.

I would very much like to enjoy shogun 2...is there a decent card out there that will fit nicely into my rig? Im a little annoyed that a £350 card didnt last more than 2 years but these things happen i suppose! (i was using overdrive though)

stulid · 1 Mar 2011 at 21:58

Any king of budget in mind?

the new ATI 6990 is out in 7days or similar, and the Nvidia GTX590 is close behind.

if you wanted to just get a single gpu card, then a 6950 2GB is good at £200 and can be flashed to a 6970 bios.

or a GTX480 is £194 and a seriou power house, but a little loud/hot

MattShepherd · 1 Mar 2011 at 22:02

Well a few hundred quid is fine, as long as it works well with my current set up and runs shogun 2 well enough!

Cookeh · 1 Mar 2011 at 22:22

Clock that Bloomfield properly! Up to the 4.0GHz they all reach easy as pie.

Also, GTX480 is a brilliant card, but as mentioned you'll need good cooling.

The HD6950 2GB flashed to a HD6970 is a very capable card and can easily hold its own.

Seeing as your P6T only seems to support CF it might be better to take the AMD/ATi for a cheap performance boost in the future

MattShepherd · 2 Mar 2011 at 07:11

Is there any guides kicking about on how to chuck the nehalem to 3.5+?

Sorry, could you please expalin a little more about the p6t only supporting "CF" ?

thanks for the help, it is greatly apreciated as always.

RJC · 2 Mar 2011 at 07:25

Is this your board below, by looking at the specs it does support SLI & Crossfire.

http://usa.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=vXixf82co6Q5v0BZ&content=specifications

I know there was a Asus board which could only do crossfire!

Edit: It's the P6T SE which only had crossfire support:
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=t4yhK6y9W9o7iQ9E

MattShepherd · 2 Mar 2011 at 07:36

Yeah its the deluxe I have.

I think i might buy me 1 of these lovelys

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-026-HS

Are these likely to come down a notch when the 6990's come out?

Cookeh · 2 Mar 2011 at 10:07

CF = CrossFire - multiple ATi/AMD graphics card running in "parallel".

Overclock the 920 to 4GHz, and wait for the HD6990/GTX590. Might affect prices, or might be in your budget dunno yet

MattShepherd · 2 Mar 2011 at 11:01

yeah i figured the moment i had posted haha. the mobo supports cf and sli i think.

I dont even remember how i overclocked it to 3ghz tbh, i remember it was a guide on here. any pointers would be awesome!

is the 6990 going to be anything ground breaking? or is it just another notch up the ladder