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The upgrading itch


Timotheus

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Thought this would be a nice thread for random upgrade discussions, should I take more RAM, what do you think of this sound card, how is your luck with running Sacred 2 with this DVD drive ;) *sigh*, that type of thing.

 

I'm currently thinking of doing a modest upgrade from my 7900GS TOP to a 7950GX2 which I can get for a nice price (demo product).

However, motherboard support is a b**** so I've contacted my motherboard manufacturer for more information... Anyone else ever had this beast running? :P

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I've had a 7950 GX2 running just great for about a year on my old system. (Athlon 64 X2 3800+, Asus A8N-SLI Premium with 1 gig ram, WinXP SP2)

 

I'm now using it on my brand new system (Asus P5Q motherboard, Intel Core™ 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz, 4 gigs of 1066 MHz PC2-8500 Ram, Vista HP 64) and I'm having problems with Oblivion crashing on me a LOT. Havent figured out why it crashes yet though so I guess it could be anything, and I haven't had time to test any other games yet. Oblivion ran great on my old system. It's supposed to run just fine in Vista too. :S

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Any news on Windows 7's appearance on the market? It seems to be Vista done right, from what I've learned so far.

 

Jetway sent me a reply, but I can't really make anything of it. A lot of talk, but no factual statements. I've sent a reply asking for a more definitive answer.

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OK, time for me to bite the bullet - My old Athlon XP 1500 and GeForce II Ti (yep, that's a 2) just don't cut the mustard anymore.

 

I really like nVidia and would prefer to stay with them rather than go to ATI, even though they're AMD now.

 

Here's what I'm looking at now:

 

Asus M3N/HT motherboard with SLI support built in (the onboard video is GeForce 8 with 512Mb of shared memory.)

AMD 9850 Phenom x4

8 Gb memory (PC-8500 DDR2 1066) I figure I'll need it all with the on board video taking a big chunk, and Windows Vista too

500Gb or so SATA HDD (have not picked a mfr yet)

DVD R/W (again no choice yet)

 

 

Now, with the nVidia on board, I figure I can save a few $$ now by skipping a video card, at least for a while. Any thoughts?

 

I'm also looking at around a 700W power supply with SLI support. The OCZ GameXStream 700 looks OK to me, but I really don't know this stuff very well. And I'll need an AMD accepted case, too.

 

Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

And thanks to Timotheus for getting this thread started.

Edited by gial
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Now, with the nVidia on board, I figure I can save a few $$ now by skipping a video card, at least for a while. Any thoughts?

 

Short and sweet;

If you want to play games other than Solitaire and Minesweep then you are going to need a separate video card.

(Well maybe you will be able to play more than that but you are going to be very limited on what you can play).

 

Why someone would even consider buying top line hardware like you have chosen and stick with onboard graphics is totally beyond me? ;)

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Do I misunderstand the specs? The onboard is a GeForce 8 with 512 Mb of ram Will I not get reasonable performance from it? Why even put something like that on board if its no good?

 

I'm confused ;)

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On board will always have issues as opposed to a dedicated card.

 

There are various reasons for this but suffice to say you're better off spending a bit more and getting a separate graphic card and a different motherboard that doesn't have an onboard card (onboard + dedicated can sometimes cause driver issues with regards to the onboard not wanting to give up it's job)

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My plan is to acquire an nVidia card at a later date (but not too much later) and take advantage of the SLI using both the card and the on board. I don't expect as good performace from the on board as a dedicated card would give - primarily because of the memory being shared, and on the motherboard rather than the video card itself.

 

I'm just wondering if anyone has first hand knowledge, rather than generic rules of thumb. Guess I'll try google and see what I can find. I just thought this way might be easier.

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and take advantage of the SLI using both the card and the on board.

 

 

Can you do that? I thought you had to use two identical cards for SLI. I may be wrong though.

 

;)

 

 

Edit: Either way I agree with Zinsho and Stubbie. Get another motherboard and a dedicated graphics card. Then you won't be bothered by any driver issues.

Edited by toret
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OK, I've done some more research on this SLI thing -- it's all new to me. There are a couple types of SLI - what might be called "traditional" - pairing multiple cards as toret has indicated, and a "hybrid" that also uses the on board gpu. This hybrid is brand new to the 780 chipset.

 

hybridSLI (using the on board gpu) offers 2 benefits. One is called GeForce Boost, alowing the onboard GPU to "assist" the video card with 3d rendering. The effect is only beneficial if the on board processor is approximately equal to the dedicated card. Since the 780a chipset is approximately equivalent to an 8400 GS, it won't buy much with high-end cards.

 

The other benefit is called HybridPower, and really doesn't improve graphics, but rather, reduces power consumption when advanced graphics aren't being used - by turning off the graphics card and taking all the work on board. But this only works with the 9800GTX and the 9800GX2.

 

And neither benefit is available unless you have Windows Vista.

 

So now, I guess my question boils down to whether an 8400GS will be enough. I'm still looking

 

Alas, it appears not.

Edited by gial
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in my experience on board GFX cards are a big NO NO :4rofl:

 

its just not worth the troubles :4rofl: ( in fact the only on board card I would ever use myself is a network card/adapter)

 

;)

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For gaming: don't even THINK about getting a card lower than a 9500GT or a 4650/4670. Really, you don't want that, it's a waste of money and actually the cards I've just name may be a waste of money too. It'll be a pain to have to upgrade in 6 months again because games are getting unplayable. I cannot put it otherwise, but cards on the low end really are not for games that hit the market these days, they are perfect for games like CounterStrike, WoW or Guild Wars. But games like Crysis, Call of Duty (well actually these series are pretty good in scaleability so it won't be that bad) or Sacred 2 will really be on the worse end of performance scale.

 

And I completely agree with stubbs here, with that setup of yours, why cut costs on the graphics department, assuming it will be a gaming system ofc. ;)

 

 

 

 

My upgrade is pretty much decided now, I'm getting a 3870, some faster RAM sticks to see whether I can OC my system a bit and that's pretty much it. I think I'll be ordering the parts next week...

Edited by Timotheus
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Hi. I'm running Windows XP, SP3. I have 4 Gig of Ram installed; when I run DXDIAG it shows just over 3Gig. Is this a limit on Windows XP? I have two empty memory slots and had been thinking about upgrading in the future....

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Ayup, that means you have a 32-bit version of XP.

That version is limited to 4GB RAM, and that includes any virtual memory and I even thought the RAM it finds on your graphics card as well.

 

More info on OS (operating systems) & RAM support

 

For higher RAM support, you need a 64 bit version OS. In that case, get Vista 64-bit, since XP 64-bit has crappy driver support, or wait for Windows 7.

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Ayup, that means you have a 32-bit version of XP.

That version is limited to 4GB RAM, and that includes any virtual memory and I even thought the RAM it finds on your graphics card as well.

 

More info on OS (operating systems) & RAM support

 

For higher RAM support, you need a 64 bit version OS. In that case, get Vista 64-bit, since XP 64-bit has crappy driver support, or wait for Windows 7.

 

That's interesting Tim, I thought it was limited to 3.something. I'll definitely be having a poke about with the following (from the above link) & upgrading to 4Gig(!):

 

The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file.

 

Ahhh ####, just noticed it's XP Pro, not XP Home.

:lol:

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Ayup, that means you have a 32-bit version of XP.

That version is limited to 4GB RAM, and that includes any virtual memory and I even thought the RAM it finds on your graphics card as well.

 

More info on OS (operating systems) & RAM support

 

For higher RAM support, you need a 64 bit version OS. In that case, get Vista 64-bit, since XP 64-bit has crappy driver support, or wait for Windows 7.

 

Thanks, I'll wait for Windows 7.

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I'm waiting for it as well. It sounds awesome: looking good and working good as well. It runs only a tiny bit heavier than XP but it seems to perform and look better :lol:

Tomorrow my new GFX card is coming in, that'll be in time for a major overhaul on my system: clean and legal install on the way!

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  • 4 months later...

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