Confused...

[Caveman]

Thinking of getting a new vid card so I've been studying the benchmarks...

4870 looks appealing, but a few questions:

1) The weakest card benched appears to be a 8800GT or 3870. How do these cards rate against a 6800Ultra? I'd assume about 2X as fast? I'd like to know how much faster a 4870 is against my 6800 Ultra.

2) Why does a 9800GX bench faster than the 280. I thought the 200 series cards were newer than the 9800 series???

 

[JPB]

The 4870 is probably 5 times faster than your Ultra. LOL. But this card will be SEVERELY bottlenecked by your CPU.

9800GX2 is like 8800 GT SLI. Thats why its sometimes faster.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: Caveman
Thinking of getting a new vid card so I've been studying the benchmarks...

4870 looks appealing, but a few questions:

1) The weakest card benched appears to be a 8800GT or 3870. How do these cards rate against a 6800Ultra? I'd assume about 2X as fast? I'd like to know how much faster a 4870 is against my 6800 Ultra.

2) Why does a 9800GX bench faster than the 280. I thought the 200 series cards were newer than the 9800 series???

1. Well...I'll go with JPB on this, a 3870 or 8800GT is probably about 5 times faster at least than a 6800Ultra.

2. 9800GX2 is a Dual GPU card, that is it has two GPU's on differing PCB's in the one package. The GT200 and 4870 are Single GPU cards and it would be expected that in most cases two GPU's are faster than one. However there are drawbacks to Multi-GPU's and that is you can only really expect 1.7x scaling with two GPU's amoung other things (Increased power draw, Cost, 'microstutter'). The 4870X2 will be released in the coming months which is basically two GPUs on the one card and looks like it will address most of these things with some added tricks to improve scaling as hinted at in the AT article.

The 4850/70 are definitely the best deal/performance going round, but I would not put one in the rig in you're sig as it will be bottlenecked by the CPU as JPB stated.

 

[BadRobot]

if you are going to buy a new video card it goes like this.

$150-200 buy the 4850
$299-350 get the 4870 or crossfire 4850's or sli 8800GT's (depending on which mobo you have and which game you like to get the highest e-peen fps on)
$600-700 Crossfire 4870
$1300 sli 280

 

[Caveman]

My OP was a bit confusing... I meant to conclude that my Ultra 6800 would be about 8X slower than the fastest new card out there (not 2x), but after looking at the numbers again, I agree, it's probably more like 5-6X slower.

Still excited about the performance jump.

Also, the assumption is that my upgrade will include a new mobo, and CPU. I plan to do some extreme OC'ing the CPU (may even use Phase Change)... So... GPU shouldn't be held back.

One thing I'm wondering is why anyone bothers with SLI since it seems to scale poorly and is not very supported? Does a dual GPU have the same issues? Does a game have to be coded to take advantage of a dual GPU like it has to be to take advantage of SLI? Or... is the dual hardware architecture such that the software sees the dual unit as a single, "super card"?

My primary interest is building a rig for flight simulations, and it appears the gaming software is at least 1 step ahead of the simulation software when it comes to SLI compatibility (which is still arguably not really worth it). Of course, if the GX2 or HD4870X2 is seen as a single GPU, then that would be added value for flight simulations.

 

[Caveman]

Anyone in early morning crowd?

 

[BadRobot]

Whats your budget?

 

[Denithor]

CPU
e7200 (2.53GHz, 3MB cache) $130 -or- e8400 (3.0GHz, 6MB cache) $190

Memory
mushkin 2x2GB (DDR2-800, 5-4-4-12@1.8V) $71 AR (free copy of 3dMark06 Vantage included)

Motherboard
No specific recommendations here, if going singleGPU use a P45 chipset board, if going Crossfire use an X48 board, if going SLI use a 750i, 780i, or 790i board (make sure you select a 750i board with two or more PCIe x16 slots, some only have one slot).

GPU
BadRobot pegged this one already. I will say, take a look at the multiGPU benchmarks in the 4870 review before making your decision. If budget allows, a pair of 9800GTX cards in SLI looks like a great value for $400 (beats GTX 280, beats/ties 9800GX2 & 4850CF, and ties 4870CF). But just remember if you go multiGPU you need a powersupply with lots of amps on the +12V rail.

 

[JPB]

Yea, the E7200 would be a great cpu. But like BadRobot said, what is your overall budget for this ?

 

[Caveman]

My budget isn't a huge driver, just want "best bank for the buck"... I'd definitely pay an extra $60 for an extra 3MB cache on the CPU (8400).

My real questions is about SLI vs dual GPU config: Does software interpret a dual GPU on a single card, just like it interprets SLI or CF?

I want overall speed, but I've read negative things about SLI, it certainly doesn't seem to fit "best bang for the buck" mentality due to scaling, and the extra complexity is a drawback. Furthermore, additional issues can be introduced like stutters, etc...

If single card dual GPU is not frought with the same issues as SLI, I'd probably go that route just to save "issues"...

 

[BadRobot]

Currently the best bang for the buck is the 4850 for around $170 dollars after rebate
The 4870 is not a bad choice either for $300. I also prefer single card solutions to sli/crossfire

And if you are thinking about spending big bucks I might wait till the 4970x2 is released beacuse it is a "single card" with the performance of crossfire.

EDIT:Lately the "single" x2 cards have better compatability than the true dual card configurations.

 

[Caveman]

So... From what I gather through this thread, the new single card X2 architecture from both Nvidia and AMD has more or less addressed glitches typically found in SLI/CF?

Is that a "safe" assumption?

 

[HumblePie]

6800 ultra? where the hell have you been? in a cave? welcome to 2008


This is an exciting time right now for gamers. Very powerful gaming machines can be built for cheap that seriously put to shame previous generations of systems. I've been building a few systems for friends and they are all loving it. For as cheap as $450 to as serious as the sky's the limit on spending, you can put together a system to play any game out there with most if not all the eye candy turned up. the exception to this is Crysis, but oh well.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Caveman
So... From what I gather through this thread, the new single card X2 architecture from both Nvidia and AMD has more or less addressed glitches typically found in SLI/CF?

Is that a "safe" assumption?

no, I'm surprised nobody has addressed this question yet. it is POSSIBLE, perhaps even likely, that 4870x2 will address some of the issues that frequently come up with sli and crossfire, but it is a near certainly that it still won't be as seamless as a single gpu card. However, if you're planning to do hardcore overclocking with perhaps even phase then you'll want an x48 mobo anyway, which would allow you to crossfire 2 4870's. of course, the 4870 x2 is supposed to be $499 while the 4870 is $299, so you'd be better off most likely in that case with the x2 card anyway.

btw, I highly recommend a quad if you're doing flight sims. Throw out a post in cpu/overclocking if you haven't already, but iirc flight sims are one of the few apps that actually benefit from more than 2 cores. The QX9650 is getting pretty cheap these days, too, I think you can get a nib one for ~ $700 on ebay right now. Stay away from QX9770.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Caveman
My primary interest is building a rig for flight simulations,

For FS9, get an E8400. For FSX, definitely get a Q6600, or other quadcore. FSX will put all four cores to use. See this page for more details. FSX is CPU-bound with an 8800GT, while using a 4Ghz quad, @ 1600x1200 or 1680x1050.

 

[Caveman]

Thanks all... Yeah, One of the reasons I was going to forego FSX is because it is so CPU bound... Even with a souped up rig...

I may just stick to FS9 for my civilian sim and wait to upgrade to Nehalem in another 18 months befor etrying FSX... Will be sure to be playing IL-2 and the Battle of Britain (when released)...

I've often wondered why Flight sims aren't used much more frequently for benching since they are so CPU and GPU taxing... Thanks for the FSX link... Very interesting...