Best video card for my Opteron 165 rig, mainly for 1080p

[bryanW1995]

aigomorla thinks sandy bridge will be a dud. a very eco-friendly dud, but not much better than nehalem performance. Bulldozer looks to be very good on paper, but according to dirk meyer it will be 2h '11, so figure 15-18 mos before that is out. Also, if the OP is looking at a fry's deal then he won't be buying a SB or Bulldozer anytime soon.

@OP, I feel your pain bro. I bought an fx 55 (admittedly it was for $199 on a newegg deal) right after dual core came out b/c I thought that dual core wouldn't catch on. then I realized I was wrong and upgraded to an opty180. Blew my old mobo trying to get a 300 mhz OC. Upgraded to an e6750. then x3350. now I'm on an i7 920. If I had it to do over again I'd just get the kickass microcenter or fry's deal and oc the hell out of it.

fyi, I don't know what they are doing now but when I sold my opty 180 it brought stupid money in fs/ft. lots of people feel that their old amd system is "good enough" and just want a drop in cpu upgrade, you might be able to capitalize on that market and get some decent money still for that cpu.

 

[chucky2]

If all that is true, then doing an upgrade now wouldn't be so bad I guess. Problem is, without AMD or Intel telling us what the real deal will be, the only way to know is have a time machine or look at it in hindsight after BD is delivered (since SB looks to be in front of it).

Chuck

 

[Homerboy]

heh. Ironically I'm just about to retire my Opteron machine too (165@2.4Ghz) for an unlocked Phenom II X2 555 (4 cores)

I could have sworn though that my Opty did 1080p perfectly fine. I know 720p is flawless, but I swear it has done 1080p too.

 

[darkewaffle]

For a relatively similarly purposed machine, I picked up a GT 240 today. Until like the 19th I think you can get an EVGA GT 240 for about $35.xx at TD AR & BCB & coupon.

http://bit.ly/bd5bLl + "JDL3898" coupon for $10.00

It's not a powerhouse by any means, but does it's job efficiently and is single slot.

 

[bryanW1995]

if he's going to play starcraft 2 at 1920x1080 he might want something a little better than a gt 240, that that's a pretty good price.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Intel is going to use new sockets because of newer processes with voltage and similar. If you're going to buy Intel then LGA 1366 is the socket you want for longevity as it's also used by Xeon server lines.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Within the 45 mins of time I had the other night, I was able to overclock my Opteron to 2.55ghz on stock voltage. Temp averaged 50C during 75%-95% CPU usage while I was playing Dark Knight @ 1080p. The movie was actually watchable. but still some lag. CPU load averaging 90%. Turning off deblocking helped too. Still need to test with Prime95..

Use MPC with CoreAVC codec, You can play 1080p stuff no problem.

I can play a 45gig 1080p mkv rip which is basically a 1 to 1 of a bray disk with only 55-70% load on the cpu. using the COREAVC codec in Media player classic.

YOU REALLY shouldn't bother to upgrade anything if 1080p is all you're after. dxva is shoddy at times. CPU decoding works 99% to always.

If you want to get to 2.7ghz+, you'll need the Custom bios by Oskar Wu. It gives you the edge to get there. I was stuck at 2.6ghz before I used the custom bios to get to 2.85ghz, but the voltage required was 1.575v too high, any less than that I'm stuck at 2.7 no matter what.

 

[ashton4life]

Hello all,

I was just reading all your comments on the Optys. I will update my Sig in a bit but I just wanted to give you all my two cents. I have an Opteron 170 OC from 2.0 to 2.9 1.45volts with a Articfreeze cooler on a Gigabyte Nforce 3 board running an ATI HD3850 AGP card, Ultra 600watt with high 30amp 12 volt lead and 2 gigs of Patriot ram. and I play pretty much everything in either Med or High settings. I play BF2 Bad company 2 at medium settings and it runs smooth as silk. Dirt 2 runs the same. I do admit its boarderline for picky gamers but hey I built it for less then 170.00 and it rocks. 1080p runs perfect using PowerDVD not a glitch on my 37 inch LCD TV. If I am looking to run all games at high settings then yes I will need a better CPU. Honestly the HD3850 is a bottle neck. Next year I'll dish out flow and get a 4 core system, I'm always a step back in technology to get better pricing. lol

 

[heyheybooboo]

AsRock 939A785GMH/128M

AMD 785G + SB710 for s939. Should cut through 1080p like buttah with low cpu utilization. Good luck finding one in the USA --- suppliers have really dropped the ball on this one. If you find 'em, buy me two

Since that is most likely out of the question, as far as your gaming at 19x10, a 1GB card will do yah wonders. A 5670 is a nice card but this HD 4850 for $80 after rebate is FTW. It will pull around 100w at load so you should be safe with an 80% PSU in the 450-500w range.

I don't think any thing below the 1GB 4850/250 level will give you decent game play over the next few years (if that is still your goal) if you wish to squeeze the last bit of life out of your Opty.




--

 

[badboyeee]

For a relatively similarly purposed machine, I picked up a GT 240 today. Until like the 19th I think you can get an EVGA GT 240 for about $35.xx at TD AR & BCB & coupon.

http://bit.ly/bd5bLl + "JDL3898" coupon for $10.00

It's not a powerhouse by any means, but does it's job efficiently and is single slot.

thanks! i might be in on this one.. looks like all i need to play starcraft2 if im going to end up buying a new cpu anyway .. low power, looks quiet, single slot, HDMI, etc

i was gonna increase my budget to about $80 for a gts 250 or equivalent HD 5XXX series card (for dx11 & trueHD audio)..

hmmm lemme jus keep reading more reviews on it.. i was gonna wait for the official SC2 benchmarks for the final release, but that coupon ends tonight...

 

[badboyeee]

Use MPC with CoreAVC codec, You can play 1080p stuff no problem.

I can play a 45gig 1080p mkv rip which is basically a 1 to 1 of a bray disk with only 55-70% load on the cpu. using the COREAVC codec in Media player classic.

YOU REALLY shouldn't bother to upgrade anything if 1080p is all you're after. dxva is shoddy at times. CPU decoding works 99% to always.

If you want to get to 2.7ghz+, you'll need the Custom bios by Oskar Wu. It gives you the edge to get there. I was stuck at 2.6ghz before I used the custom bios to get to 2.85ghz, but the voltage required was 1.575v too high, any less than that I'm stuck at 2.7 no matter what.

Where can I get the Oskar Wu BIOS?

Yes I do have CoreAVC, but weird thing happened over the weekend:

while trying to overclock my Opty, i changed one of the settings wrong that made me have to clear the CMOS.. on reboot and slight OC to 2.1ghz i played Dark Knight at 1080p and it was running fine! my cpu load never went over 60% while playing it. now back to 2.5ghz overclock my cpu load is 40%-50%..

so something in my BIOS settings made my 1080p perform badly. i dunno what it was, my cool n quiet setting was always disabled.. i have no other idea..

well now that i can play 1080p fine, this changes my plans a bit...