Soon to take the plunge and buy a SCAN!

[en3sge]

en3sge

It will be possible to collect the system I am sure I can organise somehting like this.

Regards

That will be great

What is your opinion on my sli dimemma at the moment?

SLI or not at this stage of the year? The more I think about it the more I am leaning to Nvidia (due to CUDA and it is the strongest single card available at the moment). And more towards the 285 instead of the 295 as games that arent too optimised for sli I can just disable the other 285 and still have single 285 performance left (on the 295 I would roughly have 260 or 275 performance left).

[Sammorris I did investigate the ATI option more but I feel happier with Nvidia after scouring youtube and various other forums on benches, drivers and general performance and features. Its true 2x4870X2 is a seriously monstrous proposition but I really am gonna miss the CUDA and non sli games/apps are gonna suffer more as they will be effectively running on a 4870 vs the gtx285]

Its all complicated, I just want to make a sensible decision for my money.

[sammorris]

That's true, but there are very few demanding games nowadays with no CF support, so much so that I never consider the 4870X2 to be two 4870s, more as one extra-powerful card. of course, quad crossfire is a different story, but it's rare to have to fall back on one 4870 GPU. of course, you could always use two 4890 black edition GPUs, at a cost of around £385 total. They're not far behind the GTX285 at all.
I really don't see what there is to miss about not having CUDA.

[en3sge]

That's true, but there are very few demanding games nowadays with no CF support, so much so that I never consider the 4870X2 to be two 4870s, more as one extra-powerful card. of course, quad crossfire is a different story, but it's rare to have to fall back on one 4870 GPU. of course, you could always use two 4890 black edition GPUs, at a cost of around £385 total. They're not far behind the GTX285 at all.
I really don't see what there is to miss about not having CUDA.

My view is this: although there are not too many games that use CUDA at the moment, what if it takes off in the next year and lots of games start to offer it? If Im spending 2 grand, I want to make sure I have the absolute best experience. I have seen cryostasis with/without cuda and there really is a difference. Mirrors edge looks quite fancy with it on too.

Agh decisions again. I know the 2x4890 option is very tempting as the cost is so much lower...if I can get them slightly overclocked too they may match the gtx285 sli setup...

I need to redo my maths! ha

[sammorris]

the 'what if it takes off' approach has been used a lot. PhysX has much more of a case for that than CUDA, and not even PhysX persuades me to cut performance back to using 285s, or suffer the memory issues of the 295s. Long story short, CUDA is what, a year old now and I haven't seen a single game I remember making a big deal out of CUDA. There are several titles sporting PhysX, some with more effective results than others. The best example I've seen so far is Mirrors Edge - all well and good, but a few fancy extra graphics bits added onto a game does not warrant solely considering nvidia unless it becomes functional in the majority of games. Since it doesn't I'm not really fussed. The end result of the HD4890s is that they won't quite match the pair of 285s, but they won't be far off, and since ATi's memory management is slightly better than nvidia 's the 1GB HD4890 is effectively like a 1.2GB GTX285, you've less memory woes to worry about, not to mention you're at least £90 richer

[en3sge]

the 'what if it takes off' approach has been used a lot. PhysX has much more of a case for that than CUDA, and not even PhysX persuades me to cut performance back to using 285s, or suffer the memory issues of the 295s. Long story short, CUDA is what, a year old now and I haven't seen a single game I remember making a big deal out of CUDA. There are several titles sporting PhysX, some with more effective results than others. The best example I've seen so far is Mirrors Edge - all well and good, but a few fancy extra graphics bits added onto a game does not warrant solely considering nvidia unless it becomes functional in the majority of games. Since it doesn't I'm not really fussed. The end result of the HD4890s is that they won't quite match the pair of 285s, but they won't be far off, and since ATi's memory management is slightly better than nvidia 's the 1GB HD4890 is effectively like a 1.2GB GTX285, you've less memory woes to worry about, not to mention you're at least £90 richer

ATI has better memory management? I didnt know that. And yeah I cant stop looking at the price difference of two 4890s vs two 285s. Thats halfway towards a good SSD!

I also see what you mean about CUDA. I guess Im coming from a perspective of 'I havent been able to afford this kind of pc all my life and now I can I want the best one ever!..with all the bells and whistles.'

At the moment it seems Im all for the 285s then Im thinking of the 4890s then Im looking at the 295 then back to the 285s ha Im sure there are more important things in this world I should be worried about at the moment apart fom a handful of fps in Crysis(!) but it is occupying my mind a lot.

I will sleep on it and see what the angels tell me in my dreams... haha

Thanks so much for your help today and stick around if you can

[en3sge]

Ok, things have got a bit more complicated for me now. I was settled on the gtx 285 sli setup and with this my budget was pretty much dead on £2000.

Then I discovered the wonderfulness of the SSD! Before I was pretty set on a small 10,000rpm for my boot and system drive. Knowing that would be noisy and hot but...an acceptable compromise.

Then I discovered the OCZ Summit SSD (still not sure whether to go for the 60Gb or the 120Gb) and the AMAZING boot times and response times. But its £240 for the 120Gb! This probably means going for the 4890 Crossfire setup to make my budget. No bad thing! But I was set on the 285s before.

One worry though - if anyone can help - is the performance drop off that bad on SSDs after long use? Is life expectancy better these days?

[sammorris]

The OCZ Summit is eclipsed by the Intel X25-M for real world benchmarks (don't let the low raw write speed fool you), and is around £170 for 80GB. SSD lifetime is much better these days.

[en3sge]

The OCZ Summit is eclipsed by the Intel X25-M for real world benchmarks (don't let the low raw write speed fool you), and is around £170 for 80GB. SSD lifetime is much better these days.

Yep the low write speed really had me concerned on that one. The OCZ has over 200Mb/s write speed and the intel 80 - so how can the intel compare? Unless Im missing something.

The OCZ has had some amazing reviews. And the design specs are hard to ignore. But the price is very high...

Also how many Gbs are enough for a system drive (assuming running windows 7 and vista off it with enough room for a few key games etc?

Thanks for all your help btw. You have spent a lot of time helping me on this thread and every suggestion you make I am fully investigating as there is a lot more still to learn for me about computers!

[sammorris]

because the Intel slams the OCZ in every test but raw write speed. The minimum size for a system drive is 30GB for Windows 7, 50GB for Windows Vista, 15GB for Windows XP. Essentially, for multiple OSes just add them up.
Here are some examples why an OCZ is a bad idea:
http://techreport.com/r.x/intel-x25m...ter-writes.gif
http://techreport.com/r.x/intel-x25m...bench-nero.gif
http://techreport.com/r.x/intel-x25m...nch-winzip.gif
http://techreport.com/r.x/intel-x25m...oad-farcry.gif
http://techreport.com/r.x/intel-x25m...create-mp3.gif
http://techreport.com/r.x/intel-x25m...eate-video.gif
http://techreport.com/r.x/intel-x25m...ad-program.gif
http://techreport.com/r.x/intel-x25m-g2/fc-copy-mp3.gif
http://techreport.com/r.x/intel-x25m...py-program.gif
and every graph on this page:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17269/8

[en3sge]

Ok, point taken

80Gb is just enough then for 2 OSs then.

If I can strip vista a little, might leave enough room for some important apps and programs.

OK, almost nailed my setup now. The ATI crew are gonna be happy cos Im going for the 4890 crossfire. With the 80Gb SSD, a 1000Gb spinner for storage (thinking of adding another 500Gb as well - Im into HD )

I7 920 at 3 bios profiles (2.66, 3.2, 3.8), 6GB RAM (btw do you recommend the PC3 16000 over the 14900?) I guess these get overclocked too.

Antec P193 case, 850W supply and maybe a few fancy fans inside.

Last point to consider, to water-cool or not to water-cool? I know that will overshoot my budget but I would rather get more longevity out of my components and keep noise down.

[pollaxe]

I've just got two HD 4890s going in Crossfire on my ageing QX6700 system - I'm very, very impressed with them.
(I'm a 2560x1600 type.)

[en3sge]

I've just got two HD 4890s going in Crossfire on my ageing QX6700 system - I'm very, very impressed with them.
(I'm a 2560x1600 type.)

Thats good to know

Im more of a 1080p person so hopefully it will be even smoother!

If you read back you might see my original concern of no CUDA and physix but it seems this is less important than having an SSD. I didnt realise just how fast these ar for windows and general read performance!