GPU advice and RAM query

[yfaykya]

Howdy,
I have a 30" monitor at 2560×1600 (over display port) connected at the moment to a HD5870. What I would like is advice on *one* card solution for this resolution. I am prepared to wait until the next round of cards but I am wondering would I realistically have to wait even longer? Obviously a little bit of future proofing would be necessary but something that could run all current games at highest settings would be very close.

Other query is about RAM (or non-ECC ram to be exact). I just bought 16GB for a new ivy bridge build and wondered about RAM errors. Surely buying that much RAM would just lead to potentially more issues?

Thanks,
Y.

[carvedeye]

Howdy,
I have a 30" monitor at 2560×1600 (over display port) connected at the moment to a HD5870. What I would like is advice on *one* card solution for this resolution. I am prepared to wait until the next round of cards but I am wondering would I realistically have to wait even longer? Obviously a little bit of future proofing would be necessary but something that could run all current games at highest settings would be very close.

how much ram do you have on your gpu? If you are wanting to game at high end then i would probably say atleast 3 gig of vram, just to be on the safe side as the resolution will use alot of the ram.

Other query is about RAM (or non-ECC ram to be exact). I just bought 16GB for a new ivy bridge build and wondered about RAM errors. Surely buying that much RAM would just lead to potentially more issues?

Thanks,
Y.

More ram does not mean more issues you will only get errors if you ram is faulty.

[Willzzz]

Well a 7970 would be a solid upgrade, should make quite a big difference.

If you are reasonably happy with current performance of your 5870 then by all means wait for the next gen coming in the new year.

[yfaykya]

how much ram do you have on your gpu? If you are wanting to game at high end then i would probably say atleast 3 gig of vram, just to be on the safe side as the resolution will use alot of the ram.

Just 1GB. I will definitely wait. I guess I phrased my question wrong. Will the next gen of cards be sufficient (not crossfire/SLI) to drive this resolution in all its glory?
Also do we know when they are due?

More ram does not mean more issues you will only get errors if you ram is faulty.

Not sure this is true. In the server world you see ECC errors now and again but you do not swap out the RAM.

[phil4]

Other query is about RAM (or non-ECC ram to be exact). I just bought 16GB for a new ivy bridge build and wondered about RAM errors. Surely buying that much RAM would just lead to potentially more issues?

It does a little bit. However unless you leave your PC on 24/7 the chances of errors diminishes. If you imagine how this all started off... cosmic rays and servers. Your server would sit running 24/7 for years on end. Cosmic rays would occasionally change a few values in memory, and the server could crash or display incorrect results. So ECC memory is used, to detect and correct those Cosmic ray effects, and allow the server to keep functioning day in day out.

You too could suffer the same problem, but first it would need to effect an area of memory in use and critical, and secondly that error is removed when you reboot. As desktop PC's don't tend to be on Day in Day out, the chances of it causing a problem are slim.

Indeed, if you look at chipsets and motherboards, you'll see that ECC isn't supported on most of the mainstream boards, chipsets and CPUs, as it's an overhead that's not really worth it.

[Thorsson]

Your 16Gb, is it 2x8Gb, or 4x4Gb?

[DanceswithUnix]

Indeed, if you look at chipsets and motherboards, you'll see that ECC isn't supported on most of the mainstream boards, chipsets and CPUs, as it's an overhead that's not really worth it.

Really must measure that one day, I haven't seen figures since the days when a Pentium 200 was considered top of the line. Back then it was something like a 5% reduction in performance, but these days with bigger caches and aggressive pre-fetching I kind of expect that to have gone down.

In terms of chipsets etc, Asus have traditionally supported it on their AMD motherboards, even the cheap ones. Can't cost much if it is part of the spec of a £35 board.