Gaming Rig in 45K

[harikt]

^^ Hawx 2, metro 2033 and many more to follow. Go for a 6870 like others pointed. Forget the 5850 as its eol. Barts is much more optimized for future rendering techniques including tesselation.

My budget is giving me dirty looks, but I'm getting greedy lol thanks for the advice.

You still havent finalised your configuration?

I gave myself a month. better to be sure than to have post-purchase regret.

Now HD 5850 offers better performance than HD 6850 and my recommendation goes for HD 5850 as a better alternative than HD 6850. IF you want Tessellation performance, go and grab the Sapphire HD 6870, available @ 11.3K

That's where I'm stuck. Tessellation isn't all that widespread, and supposing I pop in a 5850/6850 now, can I use CrossFireX to add a better card to my rig at a later date? The GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 you suggested will run at x8, will that do?
GREED is the downfall of man.....

Also, Cilus, the Ebay link you posted is a GlobalEasyBuy link.
What are my chances of getting a defective part RMA-ed all the way from the US?
Have any of you tried this before?

 

[Skud]

My budget is giving me dirty looks, but I'm getting greedy lol thanks for the advice.



I gave myself a month. better to be sure than to have post-purchase regret.



That's where I'm stuck. Tessellation isn't all that widespread, and supposing I pop in a 5850/6850 now, can I use CrossFireX to add a better card to my rig at a later date? The GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 you suggested will run at x8, will that do?
GREED is the downfall of man.....

A month??? Recommendations can get changed by that time.

And you can safely crossfire at a later date. x8 speed on the 2nd Graphics card is not at all a hindrance. If you plan to CFX later, better stick with 6850. Cause by the time you will add a 2nd card, rest assured no 5850 will be available in the market.

 

[rchi84]

Hi

One thing I want to know is, why is there such an obsession for a Z68 Mobo, for a gamer's PC? I can understand if a person wants to use the IGP on the sandy K CPUs, and wanted the benefit of both OCing(P67) as well as access to the IGP (H67).

If you're a gamer though, you wouldn't bother using the onboard video capabilities anyways, and since you're investing a dedicated GPU, it makes more sense to go in for a cheaper P67 motherboard, and use the difference to upgrade to a better GPU.

In your case, the jump from a 5850 to 6870/560 Ti will be substantial, in terms of playing upcoming games at high/ultra level settings.

Think about it.

 

[harikt]

A month??? Recommendations can get changed by that time.

I know I know... Let's say, 17 days? End of June. If the Llano proves to be as big a deal as SandyBridge my plans could be a bit shaken

And you can safely crossfire at a later date. x8 speed on the 2nd Graphics card is not at all a hindrance. If you plan to CFX later, better stick with 6850. Cause by the time you will add a 2nd card, rest assured no 5850 will be available in the market.

You sure it won't be a hindrance? cool.

And yeah I know lol the 5850 is on its way out..

Hi

One thing I want to know is, why is there such an obsession for a Z68 Mobo, for a gamer's PC? I can understand if a person wants to use the IGP on the sandy K CPUs, and wanted the benefit of both OCing(P67) as well as access to the IGP (H67).

If you're a gamer though, you wouldn't bother using the onboard video capabilities anyways, and since you're investing a dedicated GPU, it makes more sense to go in for a cheaper P67 motherboard, and use the difference to upgrade to a better GPU.

In your case, the jump from a 5850 to 6870/560 Ti will be substantial, in terms of playing upcoming games at high/ultra level settings.

Think about it.

I'm a gamer with a substantial interest in transcoding video, and I didnt know about QuickSync until much later. In short, greed.

 

[vickybat]

@ op

Don't think about going for a 5850 mate. Get the 6850 or 6870 accordingly. 5850 has way more power consumption and runs a lot hotter.

Stick with the 6 series cards.

 

[nilgtx260]

will HD 6870 be better or GTX 560 (Non Ti) ?

 

[rchi84]

@harikt Let me ask you something. Think about it before answering.

When you talk about transcoding videos, are you looking at doing transcoding for a living? I.E., are you a movie editor/movie SFX student type? If that's the case, then yes, Quick Sync is a must have.

But if you are a casual movie viewer, who likes to convert videos into various formats, because you watch them on various output devices, then even the regular Sandy Bridge processors are so fast at encoding, that your total rendering times are far lesser than the previous gen Intel/Current AMD CPUs.

Think objectively, because the money you'll spend now on your purchase will not be available for the next two years at least. What would you rather spend your money on?

1) The ability to encode a video in let's say 4 minutes with quick sync on, vs 10 minutes without it.

Or

2) The ability to play all upcoming games (for the next year atleast, till the next console refresh happens) at 4xAA, at ultra settings, at upto 1920x1200 (which is what you'll get if you buy a 560 Ti)

In short, where does your priority lie? Is it movie editing (CPU heavy choice, go for the Z68, with a weaker GPU) or gaming (Not so CPU specific, go for the p67, with a more powerful video card).

Think carefully before you make the choice. forget about bragging rights with your friends, and only consider what really matters to you.

I am not trying to dissuade you at all. Since your answers in the template indicated that your primary preference was gaming, we are all trying to help you make the right investment for it.

cheers

 

[vickybat]

will HD 6870 be better or GTX 560 (Non Ti) ?

No they are equal but 560 has better tesselation performance owing to the fermi architecture.

 

[Skud]

@harikt Let me ask you something. Think about it before answering.

When you talk about transcoding videos, are you looking at doing transcoding for a living? I.E., are you a movie editor/movie SFX student type? If that's the case, then yes, Quick Sync is a must have.

But if you are a casual movie viewer, who likes to convert videos into various formats, because you watch them on various output devices, then even the regular Sandy Bridge processors are so fast at encoding, that your total rendering times are far lesser than the previous gen Intel/Current AMD CPUs.

Think objectively, because the money you'll spend now on your purchase will not be available for the next two years at least. What would you rather spend your money on?

1) The ability to encode a video in let's say 4 minutes with quick sync on, vs 10 minutes without it.

Or

2) The ability to play all upcoming games (for the next year atleast, till the next console refresh happens) at 4xAA, at ultra settings, at upto 1920x1200 (which is what you'll get if you buy a 560 Ti)

In short, where does your priority lie? Is it movie editing (CPU heavy choice, go for the Z68, with a weaker GPU) or gaming (Not so CPU specific, go for the p67, with a more powerful video card).

Think carefully before you make the choice. forget about bragging rights with your friends, and only consider what really matters to you.

I am not trying to dissuade you at all. Since your answers in the template indicated that your primary preference was gaming, we are all trying to help you make the right investment for it.

cheers

Nicely put up mate. I suggest OP to think about it.

 

[nilgtx260]

OP must go for GTX 560 then

 

[Cilus]

I don't think GTX 560 non Ti version is available anywhere in India. None of the Online shop has them I don't think it is a good idea to get one due to their higher power consumption.

@ op

Don't think about going for a 5850 mate. Get the 6850 or 6870 accordingly. 5850 has way more power consumption and runs a lot hotter.

Stick with the 6 series cards.

HD 5850 consumes slightly higher power and run less hotter that HD 6850. Check it here.

Its power consumption is on the same range with GTX 460 1 GB version, not at all anything alarming

 

[harikt]

When you talk about transcoding videos, are you looking at doing transcoding for a living? I.E., are you a movie editor/movie SFX student type? If that's the case, then yes, Quick Sync is a must have.

Not professionally, but second to gaming my biggest pastime is editing videos and gaining (personal) satisfaction out of the results... which are slightly better than the Spiderman 4-type stuff we find on youtube. But, I'm improving, so there's hope. While editing and the creative parts are a great experience, waiting for the final encodes on my Core2Duo T5800 is frankly NOT fun.
Also, thanks to my trauma with a fried Turion laptop, I like to keep the machine occupied for as little time as possible. And I have close to 300 GB of stuff thats waiting to be transcoded/edited. I understand that my experiences with older hardware may not be relevant, but I just want to be sure.
EDIT : VERY IMPORTANT, does anyone know where I can find the Lucid Virtu transcoding app whitelist? Their website is no good.

1) The ability to encode a video in let's say 4 minutes with quick sync on, vs 10 minutes without it.
Or
2) The ability to play all upcoming games (for the next year atleast, till the next console refresh happens) at 4xAA, at ultra settings, at upto 1920x1200 (which is what you'll get if you buy a 560 Ti)

Frankly, since I didn't know about Quicksync when i filled in the questionnaire, it was 2, since I assumed whatever does 2, can do 1 as well.
This is where I need to know about CFX. Is it possible to CFX a 5850 and (say,) a 6950 or 6970 and extract more performance at a later date? (I'm wondering cuz of the different architectures...)
What I'm saying is, if I (can) CFX these two, would it approach the performance of whatever 17K-20K card is currently available. Sure, I end up spending more in total, but I dont have to wait 2 quarters to start using the machine. That way, I can game at a slightly lower level while I wait for the funds I need to get another card. (With the 5850 we're talking a card that pumps 54 fps out of Battlefield : Bad Company 2 at Full HD max settings 4xAA so its not bad at all) I'm just bothered by the tessellation bit and the fact that AMD cards use some Morphological AA thing to get the level of AA thats achieved on better cards. And If SLI is better than CFX, I'll just get an equivalent NVidia card instead of the 5850 and play the waiting game. You guys know better so help me out.

Think carefully before you make the choice. forget about bragging rights with your friends, and only consider what really matters to you.

Nah I'm not concerned with bragging rights, just need the machine to do EXACTLY what I want for the money I'm paying. Sounds crazy, but yeah. That's something to brag about. The perfect rig, not the most awesome one. You guys will be a little disappointed when I post pics of it cuz I'm going for the cheapest functional cabinet I can get lol.

I am not trying to dissuade you at all. Since your answers in the template indicated that your primary preference was gaming, we are all trying to help you make the right investment for it.

cheers

You've been real helpful, sorry about the questionnaire. I've always thought of gaming as the most resource intensive thing for a computer to do, and that everything else is decently covered by a gaming computer. Well, I cleared that misconception thanks to the SandyBridge procs

No they are equal but 560 has better tesselation performance owing to the fermi architecture.

Tessellation. Meaning better simulation of interlocking patterns. How bad is it on AMD's cards compared to NVidia?

HD 5850 consumes slightly higher power and run less hotter that HD 6850. Check it here.

Yeah, also on that Anandtech link.

PS: I write stuff that may sound unrelated so that you guys need to ask less questions to figure out what I have in mind. Hope that's okay.

 

[rchi84]

@harikt well, making the transition from a Core 2 Duo T5800 to a sandy CPU is an astronomical shift. You'll be surprised by just how much your waiting times are reduced.

No matter, it's your money and you have the right to spend it the way you want to

About the crossfire question, while you can crossfire two different AMD cards, the thing with crossfire is that your performance will always be held back by the slower card. So in this case, (say), you Xfire a 5850 and a 6950, then more often than not, the 6950 will wait for the 5850 to catch up, and your FPS will be closer to a 5850 Xfire result.

The better approach is to buy the best video card you can in your current budget. that way, you can always add the same card at a later stage and at a lower cost, to get better performance.

Tessellation, well I wouldn't worry too much about it tbh. There aren't many games that you'll actually notice the difference with it on or off. It's not as visible a difference, as say HDR was, seven years ago.

Again, remember, most games are still being coded for the consoles, which have very limited Tessellation capabilities. By the time game companies actually get around to making extensive use of it, there will be far better video cards on the market anyways.

I mean Crysis 2, The Witcher 2 were coded in DX 9. Know when DX 9 came out? lol

Last point. Don't ever underestimate the value of a good cabinet. You'll be surprised how much of a difference a good cabby from a reputed brand makes, when it comes to internal temperatures and cable management. Choose a roomy cabinet that has atleast three fans and allows you to re route the cables via the sides.

Good ventilation lowers load temperatures, which increase the longevity of your system.

 

[harikt]

About Xfire, i just found this

*game.amd.com/us-en/content/images/crossfirex/CF_combo_chart.jpg

5850 will hold me back.
As an aside, The Witcher 2 (and Arkham Asylum) are my main intentions for this card actually. yeah DX9 was back when a core2duo was HOT.

For the Cabinet I was thinking a CM Elite 310 or 430. Would they handle the heat generated by (hypothetically) an HD 6950 and a 2500k? Provided I have a hyper 212+ for the CPU also.

 

[Cilus]

About the crossfire question, while you can crossfire two different AMD cards, the thing with crossfire is that your performance will always be held back by the slower card. So in this case, (say), you Xfire a 5850 and a 6950, then more often than not, the 6950 will wait for the 5850 to catch up, and your FPS will be closer to a 5850 Xfire result.

1st of all Crossfire is not possible between the cards as they belong to complete different series. Crossfire is only possible with cards of the same series to make sure that there won't be that much performance difference.

And it is not true that CF is bound by the performance of the weakest card..it was a case long before...in the 1st and 2nd gen CF setups. Now if you are Crossfiring a HD 6950 and a HD 6970. both of them will run on their own speed and the work will be distributed between them according to their processing capability. It is like 60% to HD 6970 and 40% to HD 6950 so that data processing can be finished at the same time.

i have tested it with a HD 6870-HD6850 setup and the performance is just little behind my HD 6870 CF and better than HD 6850 CF (checked the performance in 6850 CF review).

 

[rchi84]

^^ My Bad.. Sorry

 

[Skud]

Not professionally, but second to gaming my biggest pastime is editing videos and gaining (personal) satisfaction out of the results... which are slightly better than the Spiderman 4-type stuff we find on youtube. But, I'm improving, so there's hope. While editing and the creative parts are a great experience, waiting for the final encodes on my Core2Duo T5800 is frankly NOT fun.
Also, thanks to my trauma with a fried Turion laptop, I like to keep the machine occupied for as little time as possible. And I have close to 300 GB of stuff thats waiting to be transcoded/edited. I understand that my experiences with older hardware may not be relevant, but I just want to be sure.
EDIT : VERY IMPORTANT, does anyone know where I can find the Lucid Virtu transcoding app whitelist? Their website is no good.



Frankly, since I didn't know about Quicksync when i filled in the questionnaire, it was 2, since I assumed whatever does 2, can do 1 as well.
This is where I need to know about CFX. Is it possible to CFX a 5850 and (say,) a 6950 or 6970 and extract more performance at a later date? (I'm wondering cuz of the different architectures...)
What I'm saying is, if I (can) CFX these two, would it approach the performance of whatever 17K-20K card is currently available. Sure, I end up spending more in total, but I dont have to wait 2 quarters to start using the machine. That way, I can game at a slightly lower level while I wait for the funds I need to get another card. (With the 5850 we're talking a card that pumps 54 fps out of Battlefield : Bad Company 2 at Full HD max settings 4xAA so its not bad at all) I'm just bothered by the tessellation bit and the fact that AMD cards use some Morphological AA thing to get the level of AA thats achieved on better cards. And If SLI is better than CFX, I'll just get an equivalent NVidia card instead of the 5850 and play the waiting game. You guys know better so help me out.

Nah I'm not concerned with bragging rights, just need the machine to do EXACTLY what I want for the money I'm paying. Sounds crazy, but yeah. That's something to brag about. The perfect rig, not the most awesome one. You guys will be a little disappointed when I post pics of it cuz I'm going for the cheapest functional cabinet I can get lol.



You've been real helpful, sorry about the questionnaire. I've always thought of gaming as the most resource intensive thing for a computer to do, and that everything else is decently covered by a gaming computer. Well, I cleared that misconception thanks to the SandyBridge procs



Tessellation. Meaning better simulation of interlocking patterns. How bad is it on AMD's cards compared to NVidia?


Yeah, also on that Anandtech link.

PS: I write stuff that may sound unrelated so that you guys need to ask less questions to figure out what I have in mind. Hope that's okay.

@harikt well, making the transition from a Core 2 Duo T5800 to a sandy CPU is an astronomical shift. You'll be surprised by just how much your waiting times are reduced.

No matter, it's your money and you have the right to spend it the way you want to

About the crossfire question, while you can crossfire two different AMD cards, the thing with crossfire is that your performance will always be held back by the slower card. So in this case, (say), you Xfire a 5850 and a 6950, then more often than not, the 6950 will wait for the 5850 to catch up, and your FPS will be closer to a 5850 Xfire result.

The better approach is to buy the best video card you can in your current budget. that way, you can always add the same card at a later stage and at a lower cost, to get better performance.

Tessellation, well I wouldn't worry too much about it tbh. There aren't many games that you'll actually notice the difference with it on or off. It's not as visible a difference, as say HDR was, seven years ago.

Again, remember, most games are still being coded for the consoles, which have very limited Tessellation capabilities. By the time game companies actually get around to making extensive use of it, there will be far better video cards on the market anyways.

I mean Crysis 2, The Witcher 2 were coded in DX 9. Know when DX 9 came out? lol

Last point. Don't ever underestimate the value of a good cabinet. You'll be surprised how much of a difference a good cabby from a reputed brand makes, when it comes to internal temperatures and cable management. Choose a roomy cabinet that has atleast three fans and allows you to re route the cables via the sides.

Good ventilation lowers load temperatures, which increase the longevity of your system.

YOU CAN'T CFX 5850 WITH 6850/6950!!! Sorry, for the caps but this chart should be helpful:-

*sites.amd.com/PublishingImages/Public/Graphic_Illustrations/WebBannerJPEG/AMD_CrossfireX_Chart_1618W.jpg

1st of all Crossfire is not possible between the cards as they belong to complete different series. Crossfire is only possible with cards of the same series to make sure that there won't be that much performance difference.

And it is not true that CF is bound by the performance of the weakest card..it was a case long before...in the 1st and 2nd gen CF setups. Now if you are Crossfiring a HD 6950 and a HD 6970. both of them will run on their own speed and the work will be distributed between them according to their processing capability. It is like 60% to HD 6970 and 40% to HD 6950 so that data processing can be finished at the same time.

i have tested it with a HD 6870-HD6850 setup and the performance is just little behind my HD 6870 CF and better than HD 6850 CF (checked the performance in 6850 CF review).

That's a really wonderful piece of information for me. I have the option for go crossfire with either of the 3 cards: 6950 1gb, 6950 2gb and 6970. Although AMD don't recommend pairing the 6950 1gb with any other card, it might be tempting to CFX my current 6950 1gb with something better.

Thanks really.

 

[Cilus]

No problem buddy, anytime @ your service

 

[harikt]

For the Cabinet I was thinking a CM Elite 310 or 430. Would they handle the heat generated by (hypothetically) an HD 6950 and a 2500k? Provided I have a hyper 212+ for the CPU also.

Any ideas?

VERY IMPORTANT, does anyone know where I can find the Lucid Virtu transcoding app whitelist? Their website is no good.

Also, this, does anyone know?

1st of all Crossfire is not possible between the cards as they belong to complete different series. Crossfire is only possible with cards of the same series to make sure that there won't be that much performance difference.

YOU CAN'T CFX 5850 WITH 6850/6950!!!

Thanks for that, I had a suspicion it wouldnt work. and thanks for the updated chart ... speaking of which, it doesn't mention the Z68 chipset, cuz its new right, not cuz it won't be supported?

 

[Skud]

@harikt: CM Elite 430 has good ventilation and you can install a total of 5 fans for good airflow. So it should handle the temps of a 6950 & 2500k. But I have a suspicion the 212+ will block the topmost fan.

And yes, the Z68 is not mentioned because its newer, that's it.