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anyone know how 2 SLId 460 SOC versions (so kinda like 2 standard 470s) would fair these days? Planning my next upgrade but trying to work out if I need to get a new card, or simply stick in the spare one I have tucked away ready for when I get a new mobo with more than one PCIe 16 slot. I'd only be doing 1080p possibly 1920x1200 if I can afford a new monitor
Are you sticking with your current CPU and is it overclocked??
Assuming you're ordering from somewhere with free shipping, and are intending on getting a new board anyway, then you've not really lost out anything by trying it out. This guy over here has some benchmarks vs. A 670 http://www.overclock.net/t/1256780/b...-with-7970-ocd
That seems to suggest the performance is on a par with a 670, which is a decent enough card still (I can comfortably play battlefield 4 on high settings) So its really up to you. Assuming you have the PSU etc for it, then I'd be tempted to spend more on the CPU and look to update GPU later, but as with everything, budget is obviously a factor.
no - can't get new mobo for this chip anymore and current board only got 1 pcie slot. Clocked at standard for now. I am happy to give it the beans though - just not seen the point yet without the net connection to merit it. Once I'm online again and able to join MP war fests then you bet it's gonna get clocked.Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
yes quite. I'm trying to balance quite a few things at the moment. This might need to move to the build thread but....Quote:
Originally Posted by herulach
The master plan for the ik9000 house:
Item1 new laptop for mobile work+travel use: so - general office stuff, Needs to run 3d CAD which means screen size important, as is cpu and ram+reasonable GPU. portability long battery and decent screen essential. Also dvd watching and light gaming on flights etc. A conundrum if ever there was one. Decent screen = big and heavy. I think 15" is prob the best compromise... Current lappy is 17" and I love it, but it is not exactly shoulder portable. And finding good truly 17" capable laptop rucksacks is night on impossible.
I will transfer my current laptop's win7Pro licence onto this machine if necessary.
anyway without getting bogged down in that one
Item 2 - a new mATX machine built around current mobo and CPU + RAM. Probably a Bitfenix prodigy case unless something else has come out that would do the business. Would need new cooler, unless I just stick the Intel stock on it. Use - home recording, sound editing and 2nd machine for LAN gaming with the wife (if laptop can't do it). Needs to be able to take USB signals in primarily but a lot of the kit I have could work via midi. I'd prob feed most stuff into it via some form of interface. internals would be new SSDs and maybe 1 HDD if i can find a suitable low noise one.
We have an existing 19" monitor and existing Win7 Pro licence would travel with the mobo+CPU presumably + peripherals already got.
Item 3, replace mobo, RAM, CPU and possibly GPU in current machine to get it up to speed. Keep existing cooler for use with new gaming CPU. Already have new Win7Pro licence ready to roll
Now, if a big fat 17" powerhouse of a laptop would do for machine 2, and game at decent levels, + do the sound stuff I could just stick with current machine as is, and pump all into the laptop. But it would still leave me unable to travel with it and use it on-the-go. And I'd be worried about the whirr of the laptop fan kicking in during recording.
Add to the conundrum limited funds, and the need to get wife a N5 for christmas... and well. I could really do with a lottery win, you know what I mean?
You can always look for a secondhand socket 1156 Core i7 and get an HD7950 or the Nvidia equivalent.
true, and I am not ruling this out, but I'm wondering what is most sensible route. If I have to spend a lot on new 1156 chip + GPU I'd essentially be disposing of 2 GPU (one completely unused) and a perfectly well functioning CPU. I'm stuck still having to buy new CPU + Mobo, only for machine 2. Which with budget reduced on other CPU means I'd end up with two machines on mediocre CPU rather than just one. I have one eye on future proofing (so far as possible) and that doesn't seem the best value. (depending how much the 1156 chip would cost. A quick amazon suggests £300. Yeah. Right. LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
Though if I did go the simple upgrade route you suggest, i guess it would free up funds for decent lappy for sound editing stuff... Would a laptop be sufficient though?
These are the cards I have: http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...s-card-review/
I see that Anandtech have removed the 400 series SLI tests from their bench comparison. How inconvenient.
Any particular reason why 2 &3 can't be the same machine? I'd assume that a good gaming laptop (particularly if its only WOW etc) and 1 new machine (which could be built for 4-500 depending how much you can reuse and whether your sound editing stuff needs intel levels of FP performance) would be cheaper than 3 systems.
yes they live in two different parts of the house. And gaming is not WOW. FPS all the way. Some old RTS to keep in the wife's good books, but not WOW. But I would be willing to combine laptop and machine for sound editing ie 1 and 2 if that would achieve both. Just means I won't then be able to justify to my wife the need to upgrade my current gaming machine form more than the i3 it's currently on. I only got it as a stop gap. wish I waited for the B3 rev 1155 boards to ship. I would have got the 2500k and be contently sat on a dream rig, but the MOBO errors at the time put me off. Before I knew it I had to start running my finances by another and now comp outlay is, shall we say, not priority #1.Quote:
Originally Posted by herulach
i wouldn't use a laptop for sound editing - your initial concerns about the fan are *very* valid.
If you want a machine largely for portability, you'll have problems with screen size and decent hardware. I love my new laptop - 15.6", A10-4600, 8GB DDR3-1600 and a 1TB HDD - but it's not what you'd call light. It's rucksackable, portable and has decent battery life though, and only cost a bit more than £400. As usual if you want performance you trade off some of the portability and vice versa: my last lappy was an Acer 3810tz, which is fantastic for portability but near useless for gaming or complex tasks (makes a great office/web machine though ;) ). That said, if you're planning to use it for CAD you'll probably want a decent 1080p panel which is going to push the cost up. I think the right lappy for you is going to be down to which functions you're most willing to compromise.
Doing some crossreview comparisons (starting here: http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...ating-gtx-480/), it looks like the SLI setup comfortably beats a GTX480, so it's probably at least GTX580 performance, which rolls it in around GTX 660 performance (although depending on the game it can be below or above that!), rather than GTX670 (the link above is for OCed 470s, which probably explains that). That still means you'd need to invest at least £150 to get a significantly better GPU experience, and probably more, so you may as well go with the SLI setup since you're looking at rebuilding anyway :) Only caveat is that the 1GB per card memory miht hold you back a little (although at 1080p it should be OK).
Best value for an SLI setup at that performance level is probably an FX-6300 and a 990X-based motherboard (the 900 series chipsets should all be SLI-certified). You should be able to pick both up for < £200. It'll be a pretty decent upgrade for that kind of money :)