what is the best?????

[mcmeat51]

Hi Guys,

I am looking at the future of my rig and what i may or may not do in the future.

I am looking at getting a 940 or 955 and Ocing but worried about my board limiting the OC (SB 600), does it matter on P II?

also looking at getting another 4870 512.


depending on how well I earn money this summer I may sell all and splash out on a new rig so few questions.

what is the best GPU combination?

1) 4x 4890's
2) 3x285's
3) 2x295's

Would I need a Ci7 to make proper use of this, or could a P II under water handle it? I have seen mixed reviews on P II.

my 9950 just wont go above 2.8 :( I dont know if its my board or the chip.

Any help like "make sure xxxx Voltage is at least xyz" is welcome. I have tried different things and it just dont like it lol. Ideally if I could get it to 3.3 and 2.4 NB Id be a hppy bunny.

ALSO

DFI smart gardian reports my chipset and power chips hitting like 60-70 deg C!!! I have removed the piece of crap little black heat sink, lapped it down a bit on course sand paper (anything was better than the previous finished job), replaced with AS5 and stronger springs.. helped a bit.

Im thinking I may need to do that to the power system heatsink.


cheers for all input.


PS why is it that all the intel boards look (and are) so much more badass??!!
they have like 14/16 phase power... c'mon I recon if there was an AMD boad with those kind of bells and whistles it would kick ass!!!

[3Z3VH]

best way to determine which card to use, is to choose how you want to cool it.

If you plan to watercool, makes sure it is a card you can get a block for (meaning the new Single PCB GTX295 is out, as are some of the GTX285s). The 4890 has a couple blocks made for it, as do the dual-PCB GTX295s, and the older GTX285s.

If you plan to air cool it, you will need to find a good cooler for it as well.

Without a cooling solution, you won't be able to OC all that high.

[demonkevy666]

most phenom II 940 will do-3.6-3.7ghz on air, if you want more go with water cooling.

this is great question though.

it's important to know what resolution you'll be playing at too.

the reason I7 board look so much better is because the power usage at OC is much higher then phenom II

Phenom @ 1.6v and 4.0 ghz eats about 180 watts
where I7 @ 4 ghz would use less voltage, but eats about 230 watts

TDP for I7 at 2.66ghz is at 130 watts (it my not use that much though)
Phenom II is 3.0ghz is at 125 watts and 95 watts 2.8ghz

the end is mother board makes cater to the more powerful cpu sadly true (fact lol).

[zanzabar]

4x 4890 will be the best that u can get with an amd chip, but unless u are benching 2 4890 will be the best for the money there isnt much scaling with the tri gpus and quad is a pain to fit in a case, and im not sure how quadfire scales with non ln2 on the amd system

[iTravis]

Best GPU combination? Asus MARS GTX 295 in SLI if you have money to burn :D

[zanzabar]

Best GPU combination? Asus MARS GTX 295 in SLI if you have money to burn :D

then that leaves the foxconn destroyer as your only choice, and compaired to the amd chipsets the NV ones are lacking

[perkam]

Best combination = Core i5 + Dual 4890s.
Overkill Combination = Core i7 + Tri 4890s
HolySh*tWTFMan Combination = i7 975 + Quad 4890

My Pick:

VeryNiceBalancedRigMan Combination = Phenom II 955 + Current Mobo + Dual 1Ghz 4890s.

Perkam

[demonkevy666]

Best combination = Core i5 + Dual 4890s.
Overkill Combination = Core i7 + Tri 4890s
HolySh*tWTFMan Combination = i7 975 + Quad 4890

My Pick:

VeryNiceBalancedRigMan Combination = Phenom II 955 + Current Mobo + Dual 1Ghz 4890s.

Perkam

you forgot AMD Phenom II TWKR Black Edition 7ghz + 1ghz core 4890 x4 = pwnage.

[mcmeat51]

cheers guys,

altho I am an AMD fanboy lol I was interested to see if the P II overclocked could keep up with a heavy crossfire/sli setup in comparison to i7.

I used to prefer Nvidia, but I was disheartened with the 8800gts 320's I had and went ati with teh 4870's. ppl say nvidia drivers are better than ati but i completely disagree, ati have been all gravy with me!!!


I was thinking o getting rid of my dfi m2rs and getting the msi G70? ( the new one with the massive heatsink on the fets etc.) would it be a worthwhile upgrade, or not really?

If I keep with this rig, I may go.

1) new chip.
2)3rd 4870.
4)SSD
5) another 4Gig of ram

otherwise I may sell all and go 955 + msi board + 4890

[zanzabar]

a phenom 2 will really help u out over the original phenoms. i would guess that a properly oced phenom 2 will be about 2x as fast as your current phenom.

3rd 4870 wont help tri fire dosnt work outside of benchmarks

ssd are nice but the a mechanical f1 or WD black will be alot faster than the seagate that u have and its alot of mony for a good ssd with some capacity

adding anouther 4GB will only lower your oc it wont help with gaming.

[mcmeat51]

cheers, Ill keep that in mind, kinda pissed that i went for 512 4870 as I feel they limit me raising AA as I have a 22" screen.

:( I bought the Seagate cos I thought it was faster than a WD Black?!

[zanzabar]

cheers, Ill keep that in mind, kinda pissed that i went for 512 4870 as I feel they limit me raising AA as I have a 22" screen.

:( I bought the Seagate cos I thought it was faster than a WD Black?!

ur on a 500GB with the 333 and 512GB platters (the current gen) WD and samsung make the best drives and the only ones that i would buy and they are about 50-65% faster than the last gen with the old 500GB running at about 80MB/s the current gen samsung and wd are at about 115-135MB/s. and seagate might have been faster with the 500GB im not sure on thier exact numbers but the samsung 501j and f1 500GB are at 90-95MB/s so they were the fastest but there was no1 importing them in large numbers for retail so they were hard to find.


my choice would be a 720BE (if ur board can unlock if not then a 940be) and a pair of samsung f1 1TB or WD black 640GB

[perkam]

Sell the dual 4870s (they will sell for ~$110 each) and get dual 4890 OC cards (~$250 each) and grab a Phenom 955 or a Phenom 940 and you're set.

Perkam

[mcmeat51]

Im looking at getting a 4Ghz proven 940 on Ebay.

If I get a 940 and hit 4Ghz on my watercooled loop, how long do people reckon that will last me for?

when/what are the next bunch of AMD chips coming out?

cheers

Matt