PC Buying Guide 2011- Q4

Skud · Sep 13, 2011

More than anything else, in respect of current Indian prices, 560Ti Hawk is a serious contender.

Jaskanwar Singh · Sep 13, 2011

Ok cilus.

Batman about hawk, i mean what will i do if a card is cheaper and offers better performance that too at stock. Obviously i will put that.

And poll is not a solution. Most will vote in bias, thats for sure. We have reviews and we need to see those.

vickybat · Sep 13, 2011

Jaskanwar Singh said:
Ok cilus.

Batman about hawk, i mean what will i do if a card is cheaper and offers better performance that too at stock. Obviously i will put that.

Didn't get you mate.

Jaskanwar Singh said:
And poll is not a solution. Most will vote in bias, thats for sure. We have reviews and we need to see those.

Well the reviews say that the hawk is a worthy card. Its tomshardware approved and solely because of its performance in its price point.

I don't think voting for 560-ti hawk is biased in any sense. 6950 might also get biased votes as well.

Talking about newer games, check hardocp's review on deus ex human revolution. 6950 performs equally as a stock 560-ti.

*www.hardocp.com/article/2011/09/12/deus_ex_human_revolution_gameplay_performance_review/5

Hawk will be even faster.

Jaskanwar Singh · Sep 13, 2011

^i meant bias for both cards.

desai_amogh · Sep 13, 2011

Re: PC Buying Guide - July 2011

desai_amogh said:
Hi guys,

my friend needs a powerful rig. He is not much into gaming. but he just wants to own one. This is the config he gave me and asked me to check if everything is good.

Processor: AMD Phenom X4 955 BE - can spend at the max 6K
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 or X-UD3 MAX - can spend at the max 10K
RAM: Corsair 1600 MHz Dual Channel (2 x 2) 4 GB - can spend at the max 2.5K
Power Supply : Seasonic S12II-520 520 Watts - can spend at the max 4K
Graphics Card: MSI R6850 Cyclone 1GD5 Power Edition/OC - can spend at the max 10K
CPu Cooler: Cooler master Hyper 212 Plus

Kindly suggest any changes which could be worth and advise if anything is wrong in this config.

Hi Guys,

Is this a wrong thread for this question ?? could you guide me to a right one ?? or can somebody answer my question?? my post is lost in the pile of 6-7 posts

vickybat · Sep 13, 2011

Jaskanwar Singh said:
^i meant bias for both cards.

Check the new review link i've given. Deus ex is the newest kid in the block and has amazing graphics. Performs a bit better in nvidia cards on average.

A small quote from that review:

At 1920x1200, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti outperformed not only the AMD Radeon HD 6870, but challenged even the Radeon HD 6950. The GeForce GTX 560 Ti performed on the same level as the Radeon HD 6950, and about 7% faster than the Radeon HD 6870.

Both the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti and the AMD Radeon HD 6870 were playable at 1920x1200 with FXAA High, 16X AF, and maximum in-game settings selected. Both video cards maintained an average framerate higher than 50, and neither video card dipped below 30 FPS during testing.

Remember mate that this is only a stock 560-ti. Hawk will perform close to a gtx 570 here.

Cilus · Sep 13, 2011

Vicky, I'm sure that GTX 560 Ti Hawk is on the par with the 1 GB HD 6950 and offers almost same performance at the same price point...but the price point is in Europe and US market. In Indian Market, currenly in some places like Mumbai, Kolkata etc the Sapphire 2 GB version of HD 6950 is available around 14K in local market. A member posted the pricelist of the costToCost.in pricelist where the 2GB Saphhire HD 6950 is retailing @ 13.8K, chepaer than Hawk GTX 560 Ti, making it very difficult to suggest 560 Ti at the same price point. Other thing is 2GB graphics memory is a bit futureproof for upcoming shader heavy games, you will agree with me I guess in that point.

That's why I guess Jas is going for the HD 6950. I still think we can have GTX 560 Ti Hawk is a worthy mention and can be put as an alternate suggestion. A little price cut from Nvidia...thats all we need now.

vickybat · Sep 13, 2011

^^ Not at all. At fullhd, 6950 2gb and 560-ti hawk's performance is absolutely similar. In that costtocost pricelist, zotac 560-ti is even cheaper.
Maybe they can arrange a hawk at a lower price.

Talking about 2gb vram, its hardly a make or break deal at fullhd. Its required at 2560x1600 res or higher. Since amd gives eyefinity support in a single card config, 2gb vram becomes a necessity here. Yes when xfired, 2gb becomes a necessity and does beat a 560-ti in sli in current games.

With the advent of amd GCN and nvidia KEPLER, people will eventually forget 560-ti and 6950. So no need to look that ahead into the future. Presently, 1gb vram is sufficient for fullhd resolution atleast.

Tess heavy games will also favour nvidia's current architecture and i guess that is evident in deus ex which uses tesselation as well. That's why even a stock 560-ti was able to edge past a 6950 at fullhd.

Check the following quote:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is built upon a modified Crystal engine from Square Enix subsidiary Crystal Dynamics. The engine itself was initially designed for the Tomb Raider franchise in 2006, but has been updated, and heavily modified for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. DirectX 11 support has been added, featuring tessellation, SSAO, and post-processing features by way of DX11's DirectCompute technology. AMD was extensively involved with Nixxes during the development of Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution uses a Phong tessellation "to turn triangle patches into curves based on the position and normals of each vertex defining a patch." (For more information on Phong tessellation, see this PDF whitepaper.) This technique allegedly improves on standard tessellation mechanisms by more realistically mimicking organic human shapes. Tessellation magnitude in Deus Ex: Human Revolution varies with the object's distance from the camera, so meshes further away from the camera will be shown with less detail, which wouldn't be visible anyway.

Tenida · Sep 13, 2011

We buy Graphics card to play games not only for benchmark.Many user stress their card so much that the card losses juice so early than expectation.So stop doing that and use the card only for gaming.
As for the MSI GTX560Ti Hawk, i think we can consult this(GTX560Ti Hawk) card as well as HD6950.Let user decide whether he will opt for Nvidia or AMD.Both card almost same performer but Nvidia is better in extreme tessellation.Even my Card i.e. MSI GTX560Ti TF II/OC performs so close to Powercoler HD6950 2GB DDR5.So you can guess what GTX560Ti Hawk can do. :))

*i.imgur.com/rz2TO.jpg

keur · Sep 13, 2011

Hi I am a regular reader of digit(3-4yrs).
I am Buying a pc under Rs.25000 without monitor....
my Suggested Configuration:-
Graphics card :- ATI Radeon HD 5570.
motherboard:- intel DH61Sa.
Ram:-4GB DDR3.
hard disk :-500 gb seagate.
processor :-core i5.
Please suggest me a power supply.And as i am not buying a screen as i am tight on my budget.I am Using CRT monitor so,is there any compatibility issue.OR Do i hve to buy new Screen for it ....?
if any changes in my configuration please suggest it...Thanxx in advance.

Jaskanwar Singh · Sep 13, 2011

People currently having 6950 will not change to 7 series immediately.

Agree with cilus.

And about tessallation, well, metro, avp, dragon age 2 etc also use it with 6950 ahead.
69 series have better normal tess performance with aa.
Extreme tess makes card give low fps.

another -
*www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/msi_560gtx_hawk/

ok so these?

Sub 15k (Best for office work,downloading)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sub 20k (Best for office work,movies,downloading)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sub 25k (Best for office work, multimedia)

Optional upgrades for 25k -

Component | Make | Price Motherboard |MSI R6770-MD1GD5|6200

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sub 30k (Casual gaming,multi media)

Optional upgrades for 30k -

Component | Make | Price Motherboard |Asus M5A97|5700

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sub 35k (Entry level gaming,multi media)

Optional upgrades for 35k -

Component | Make | Price Motherboard |Asus M5A97|5700

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sub 40k (Mid range gaming,multi media)

Optional upgrades for 40k -

Component | Make | Price Graphic Card |MSI R6870 Hawk|11500

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Sub 50k (Mid range gaming)

Optional upgrades for 50k -

nilgtx260 · Sep 13, 2011

I think this can clear out
all are dx11 games

nilgtx260 · Sep 13, 2011

source guru3d.com & tbreak.com

Tenida · Sep 13, 2011

nilgtx260 said:
I think this can clear out
all are dx11 games

Its GTX560 without Ti.

nilgtx260 · Sep 13, 2011

yeah dunno why

vickybat · Sep 13, 2011

@ jaskanwar

Dragon age II isn't a shader heavy title. Don't conclude based on one fact. Tesselation is poorly used in dragon age 2.

DA2 uses an updated version of BioWare\'s Eclipse engine, known as Lycium. Dragon Age 2 has a different visual style than Origins, owing not only to the updated engine, but also to the art direction and assets used in the game\'s construction. DA2 is more stylized in appearance, but not entirely unrealistic in presentation. Lycium also has a new lighting engine from what appeared in Origins. The new engine features a global illumination renderer, which creates higher-resolution lightmaps for static meshes (such as building and landscape objects). The new lighting model allows hundreds of dynamic lights for spell effects in DirectX 11, as opposed to two or three in DirectX 9.

Tessellation has also been added to the engine for Dragon Age 2. In this game, tessellation is used to smooth the silhouettes of terrain. Displacement mapping has been added to the engine in order to increase the detail of some surfaces. Screen space ambient occlusion makes an appearance here, adding shadows to all objects in the scene, increasing contrast and depth. BioWare has utilized diffusion depth of field in order to realistically blur objects that are very close to the camera as well as distant objects.

So tessellation is only used in the silhouettes of terrain. That means only the background outline which doesn't appear that much distinctively. Hence its low in tessellation as compared to others.

Read the deusX review i gave properly. Its the best tessellation title released yet and surely looks better than avp and metro as well. Being an AMD optimized game, it responds well to nvidia architecture due to more emphasis on the polymorph engines that compute tessellation.

Though metro is a bit shader intensive, deus X has better tessellation and thus has more realistic rendered objects.

And you are absolutely wrong about that fact that tessellation gives low fps. Properly optimized game will give much better fps and will assist rendering as well. The next metro game dubbed "metro last light" will be more optimized, will look better than metro 2033 and will provide more fps as well.

That's because the developer will now fully utilize and optimize the engine as well as the code for tessellating objects.

@ everybody

The bottom line of this discussion brings down to one statement "should we add the msi gtx 560-ti hawk as an option in the pc buying guide"?

Yes or no?

If yes is the answer and its still not updated in this guide, then updation power of this thread should be given to someone else cause the op simply isn't listening to suggestions made by other members and monopolizing the thread which is very very bad imo. In the end, there will be a unanimous decision for a member who can update in an unbiased manner.

If no, then i won't post any further comments on this matter.

I think most members here will agree with me to include 560-ti hawk as an option cilus,topgear ,tenida,skud etc...

nilgtx260 · Sep 13, 2011

^^ me 2 wanna see MSI GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II/OC or MSI GTX 560 Ti Hawk or Asus GTX 560 Ti Direct CU II Top as an optional gpu.

MegaMind · Sep 13, 2011

Me too agree with the inclusion of 560TI Hawk...

Tenida · Sep 13, 2011

+1 for inclusion of MSI GTX560Ti Hawk.

d6bmg · Sep 14, 2011

vickybat said:
The bottom line of this discussion brings down to one statement "should we add the msi gtx 560-ti hawk as an option in the pc buying guide"?

Yes or no?

If yes is the answer and its still not updated in this guide, then updation power of this thread should be given to someone else cause the op simply isn't listening to suggestions made by other members and monopolizing the thread which is very very bad imo. In the end, there will be a unanimous decision for a member who can update in an unbiased manner.

If no, then i won't post any further comments on this matter.

I think most members here will agree with me to include 560-ti hawk as an option cilus,topgear ,tenida,skud etc...

Obviously the answer is yes.

PC Buying Guide 2011- Q4

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