need suggestions for something that won't bottleneck my GTX460 SLI

[Spurst]

Link: http://www.microcenter.com/specials/catalogs/index.html

Click on November Specials catalog and flip to page 27.

And trust me, it took me a while to find this. MC makes it so hard to find this deal, it's almost like they don't want you to know about it. Best print it out and take it with you when you go there.

Oooh, check this out: http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0366193. It's has 2-way SLI, costs $139, and with a 2500k combo, it would come to $260 ($180+$140-$60). Really, can you pass that up? Toss in memory and an SSD and you just hit $400 before you sell off your current rig and make back $200.

Do it, you know you want to!

that board is single pci-e at 16x, dual at 8x. i really researched my current board quite a bit. i'll have to really think this one through if i upgrade. i guess for now i'll move down o high settings.

 

[Termie]

I was just playing BF3 single player. All video settings untouched on Auto. which puts it on high.. and took motion blur slider all way down to 0. motion blur slows down stuff. Anyhow @ 1080p 8x CSAA 16x AF high quality, vsync on, triple buffer. ambient occlusion on, AA gamma on, multisample.

Used Fraps , and game was in 50's fps capping at 60's most of the time. This is throughout the first level. Oh and it used about 60 percent CPU power according to speedfan. so no bottleneck. Plus I got a monster OC. thx gg and gl

Are you sure you have 8x CSAA engaged? That's not the default under auto high settings.

Anyway, OP, consider these numbers from my BF3 crossfire benching:
(1) Singleplayer, all high, 1920: 110fps
(2) Multiplayer, all high, 1920: 80fps

I can promise you that you won't make it past 45fps in multiplayer on an e8400, regardless of your GPU setup. My quad is actually close to maxed at these settings.

 

[Termie]

that board is single pci-e at 16x, dual at 8x. i really researched my current board quite a bit. i'll have to really think this one through if i upgrade. i guess for now i'll move down o high settings.

All 1155 socket boards on the market today are 8x/8x, other than the ultra-expensive ones with an NF200 bridge chip. You'd have to wait for SandyBridge-E to get 16x/16x built in, and that doesn't exist yet.

Don't worry - no one's having any problems getting great performance out of 8x/8x. It's not the bottleneck in games today.

I'm doing a lot of the research for you, by the way!

 

[toyota]

Are you sure you have 8x CSAA engaged? That's not the default under auto high settings.

Anyway, OP, consider these numbers from my BF3 crossfire benching:
(1) Singleplayer, all high, 1920: 110fps
(2) Multiplayer, all high, 1920: 80fps

I can promise you that you won't make it past 45fps in multiplayer on an e8400, regardless of your GPU setup. My quad is actually close to maxed at these settings.

he always claims the same thing with every game.

 

[Zap]

my board will take a core 2 quad.

Which one? Your board is an Nvidia 680i chipset. I recall those having issues with 45nm quads.

 

[nenforcer]

Which one? Your board is an Nvidia 680i chipset. I recall those having issues with 45nm quads.

You are correct, sir. The best he can put in that XFX 680i board is the Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3GHz / 8MB L2 Cache @ 65nm.

 

[Termie]

Which one? Your board is an Nvidia 680i chipset. I recall those having issues with 45nm quads.

You are correct, sir. The best he can put in that XFX 680i board is the Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3GHz / 8MB L2 Cache @ 65nm.

Done deal.

OP - plenty to think about here, but it seems like you have some good options that won't cost you that much. An entirely new system (2500k, MB, SSD, 8GB) for $400, minus whatever you can collected for your old hardware, sounds like a good deal to me.

 

[SickBeast]

Lack of vram is going to bottleneck a pair of GTX 460s more than a weak CPU. My Phenom II X4 does not bottleneck me at all in games, aside from Starcraft 2.

 

[d4a2n0k]

I have 460's in SLI with a 2600k. I play at 19 x 12, motion blurring down all the way, HBAO on and every time I look up at the FPS its at 80+. I have AA off because I dont see a difference at all except for a huge hit to the FPS.

I have the Palit 460's that come from the factory at 800/2000 and my CPU is at 4.6ghz. This is 32 player servers and up.

 

[toyota]

I have 460's in SLI with a 2600k. I play at 19 x 12, motion blurring down all the way, HBAO on and every time I look up at the FPS its at 80+. I have AA off because I dont see a difference at all except for a huge hit to the FPS.

I have the Palit 460's that come from the factory at 800/2000 and my CPU is at 4.6ghz.

you did not even mention if this was on ultra or not. and I am guessing part of that huge hit with AA on is lack of vram.

 

[d4a2n0k]

Sorry, yes this is on ultra.

 

[Spurst]

Which one? Your board is an Nvidia 680i chipset. I recall those having issues with 45nm quads.

Its an XFX 680i Ultra. I've heard conflicting stories, that they will take the 45nm and that they won't.

To play it safe, I agree - one of the QX 65nm quads would be the best bet. They come in ~200 used. To sell my current e8400 @4050 and pick up a QX6850 would there be much of a noticeable performance gain, if that new CPU came in at $100 over what I'd get from my old e8400?

I'll keep my eyes peeled for the BF2011 ad for Microcenter - if I can score a better deal on a 2500k + board, I'll go that route. I'll probably stick with my raptors for now, until I can budget in a SSD, as the SSD probably isn't going to fix my issues, and I'm already comfortable with raptors in raid 0 for loading times, and the nine hundred is loud, so its not like I'm fretting about the noise from the raptors.

 

[happy medium]

There is a good chance that a 45nm quad will work since your board seems fine with a 45nm dual.

 

[Termie]

Its an XFX 680i Ultra. I've heard conflicting stories, that they will take the 45nm and that they won't.

To play it safe, I agree - one of the QX 65nm quads would be the best bet. They come in ~200 used. To sell my current e8400 @4050 and pick up a QX6850 would there be much of a noticeable performance gain, if that new CPU came in at $100 over what I'd get from my old e8400?

I'll keep my eyes peeled for the BF2011 ad for Microcenter - if I can score a better deal on a 2500k + board, I'll go that route. I'll probably stick with my raptors for now, until I can budget in a SSD, as the SSD probably isn't going to fix my issues, and I'm already comfortable with raptors in raid 0 for loading times, and the nine hundred is loud, so its not like I'm fretting about the noise from the raptors.

A $200 QX6850 just doesn't make sense. It's hot and it doesn't overclock that well - probably no better than a q6600. You do realize you're talking about taking a step back in generations, right?

There is a good chance that a 45nm quad will work since your board seems fine with a 45nm dual.

All this guesswork wouldn't appeal to me. While the q9550 is a nice chip, the OP could easily sell his MB for $60 and his DDR2 ram for $50, which nearly covers the price of an Asus Z68 board from MicroCenter and 8GB of DDR3! And the $100 you get from selling the e8400 will go a long way to covering the $180 2500k. You don't need a graphics upgrade, and an SSD will cost $100. The whole deal will cost you about $200 after you sell those parts, and that's not including what you might get for the Raptors (not much, to be honest - I sold my 150GB for $50 last year).

Seriously, OP, you're not going to be happy sinking net $100 into an old chip, especially if it doesn't work! For the same $100 net, you can have a 2500k system running on your old, loud raptors, or for $200 net, you'd have a whole new system with an SSD.

Take the new tech plunge. Things will never be cheaper than they are right now!

 

[Spurst]

A $200 QX6850 just doesn't make sense. It's hot and it doesn't overclock that well - probably no better than a q6600. You do realize you're talking about taking a step back in generations, right?



All this guesswork wouldn't appeal to me. While the q9550 is a nice chip, the OP could easily sell his MB for $60 and his DDR2 ram for $50, which nearly covers the price of an Asus Z68 board from MicroCenter and 8GB of DDR3! And the $100 you get from selling the e8400 will go a long way to covering the $180 2500k. You don't need a graphics upgrade, and an SSD will cost $100. The whole deal will cost you about $200 after you sell those parts, and that's not including what you might get for the Raptors (not much, to be honest - I sold my 150GB for $50 last year).

Seriously, OP, you're not going to be happy sinking net $100 into an old chip, especially if it doesn't work! For the same $100 net, you can have a 2500k system running on your old, loud raptors, or for $200 net, you'd have a whole new system with an SSD.

Take the new tech plunge. Things will never be cheaper than they are right now!

well, you'll be happy to know that today i picked up:
gigabyte Z68x-UD3H-BE
8 gigs crucial ballistix
i5 2500k

I'm going to stick with the raptors for now. I was looking at one of the OCZ 60gig SSD drives on sale for $64, and the guy told me not the bother, that they're slow and they've been having issues with them. I don't think its entirely true, but from all my research, the performance increases would be marginal. I wouldn't exactly call my raptors in RAID 0 sluggish.

 

[Termie]

well, you'll be happy to know that today i picked up:
gigabyte Z68x-UD3H-BE
8 gigs crucial ballistix
i5 2500k

I'm going to stick with the raptors for now. I was looking at one of the OCZ 60gig SSD drives on sale for $64, and the guy told me not the bother, that they're slow and they've been having issues with them. I don't think its entirely true, but from all my research, the performance increases would be marginal. I wouldn't exactly call my raptors in RAID 0 sluggish.

Yes, indeed. Now you're talking! That will be an excellent gaming platform.

As for the OCZ issues, yes, they exist. That's why I would go with a Crucial M4, which can be found on sale for under $100 at times, and Black Friday deals are just warming up.

I'd go to the Memory and Storage forum to get more info on Raid Raptors versus a small SSD. I think for a lot of things, the SSD would be much, much faster (I went from a 150GB Raptor to an OCZ 60GB and it might as well have been a new computer, given how much better it felt). Benchmarks look good for SSDs, but the "feel" is even better.

Of course, you were looking to increase BF3 performance, and an SSD, while it would decrease loading times, probably wouldn't have any effect on in-game performance, so you've already got that base covered with the 2500k.

 

[kapalua12]

I'm about to build a new high end system and have a minimally used q9550, never used for gaming, which I'd be willing to let go for less than $200. As I said, barely used since I've switched over to iMAC's with i7's and SSD's for the time being until Ivy comes out.

 

[Spurst]

thanks for pimping your sale and bumping my old thread - which had you read, stated i already bought an i5 2500k.