I know all about that. I broke the push pins of my stock intel cooler trying to get it on so bought a new cooler that had metal risers that the fan then screwed into intead of push pins but broke the screws to secure fan since it couldn't sit on the risers properly due to my motherboard layout. luckily the fan i've got now has went on safely using the push pins and my new motherboard is laid out better.
AWS helped me put that stock fan on my CPU, well, he did most of the stuff and I just watched, and I was a little nervous that it would fall off one day while the PC was on. It was a pain to get on the CPU. I need to take a better pic of my rig, but its nothing super special. Its a bazillion times better than my OLD PC though.
Dude, you are not kidding when you said the stock fan was a pain in the ass. I built a system for Mr. Casual a little while back (as he already said), and putting that thing on was terrible. Like you, I was used to the AMD fan units just clicking on. Anyway, for my system I've decided to stick with the 8800GT... two of them actually. It seems right now the 8800GT is about the best buy on the market. You won't break the bank, and you get kick ass performance. I've also decided to make the leap to DDR3, so I'm going to be putting 4GB of OCZ Reaper RAM in my system initially. That will later be increased to 8GB as funds become available for upgrades. As for the Fan Heatsink I got, it's actually elevated by the pipework on the bottom of it, so that it clears those pesky capacitors. As for the socket, it has a special frame that goes over it. Where you could possibly run into trouble is the fact that it is so huge it comes close to the RAM slots, enough to where if you've got something like Corsair Dominator RAM with the special fan, it won't fit. Here's a pretty good example of what it looks like on an actual board: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/images/articles/1199289297DPhkyToulZ_4_9_l.jpg This gives a better representation of how truly massive it is in comparison to everything else on the board.
Yeah, the fan was a pain in the ass. I was going to do 8800GT but the 9800GTX KO by eVGA is 210$. I think 8800GT's were 180$ or something. I can't do dual though, I only have one slot. It should be fine. I use 1440x900 anyway. I got Ballistix Tracers 4GB kit for 130$, but the cool thing, is that they were free! My old DDR Ballistix went defective, and Crucial credited me for them enough to pay for the RAM. Pretty sweet. Definitly nicer then the old DDR and 4GB is nicer then the 1GB I had! Is DDR3/8GB actually worth it? It looked like $$$ last time I checked. I guess PCI Express 2.0 is around now too. I don't think my board has it, but whatever. This thing is already good enough for anything I need anyway, and I haven't even stuck in the 9800!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130319 Maybe I should just get this and step up to a 9800 GTX+ if it isn't enough....I was thinking of it and everything has run perfectly with just a 7900GS so this ought to be enough. Crysis was the only thing I had to run at medium.
I just picked up a 3DLabs Oxygen GVX1 card up from a parts bin, funny to think that just 9 years ago this 32MB AGP GLiNT R3 / GLiNT G1 based with its 4.75 Million lit and transformed triangles a second with a dedicated flat panel connector graphics card cost a shade under $1000. Going to stick it in a P3 system to party like it's 1999.
Does anyone knows if a 1GB 9800GTX exists? cuz I couldnt find one... Dunno, 512MB doesnt seems to be enough. Speaking of that, can two 9800GTX in SLI outperform the GX2? because if they do is a nice deal seeing you can save $50-100 by buying the GTXs instead of the GX2. Anyway, for a gaming rig what mini/microATX cabinet would you guys recommend?
I think 512MB is enough. I have 256MB right now and Crysis is the only thing I had a problem with. A lot of the tests I've seen with 1GB cards, there hasn't been much improvement. X-QPack 2 is what I'd say for an mATX case. I had the first one. The cooling is better on the second one, but getting a 9800GTX in there is going to suck. The motherboard selection is crap too, that's why I'm not using it anymore. I ended up getting a Geforce 8800GT Akimbo SC. The core clock is 720 or something ridiculous. It was 155$, so I think it was worth it. Now I just gotta wait for the stork to deliver it.
You can never have too much RAM (in the context of running the latest, greatest computer games) :nod: As far as I know a 1GB 9800GTX does not exist. 512MB is actually plenty, especially when you start talking about SLi. Yes, a 9800GTX SLi setup will outperform a 9800GX2. You can read more about it in this article: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ5NiwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0 It goes into comparisons of a two card 9800GTX SLi setup, vs a 3 card 9800GTX SLi setup, vs a Quad 9800GX2 setup... factoring performance gains against prince increase among the three setups, the 2 card 9800GTX setup wins hands down. As for your question about a mini/microATX rig, that's a realm I've yet to explore, so I couldn't be much help there without doing a bit of research first.
True, but when it pushes the price of an already expensive video card up a lot, then it's kind of a waste. The 8800GT with 1GB had almost no advantage in frame rates, though it could probably be useful on later games. But if it doesn't help on Crysis, then I dunno. I guess with video cards, your resolution is what it all comes down to. My widescreen 19" 1440x900 works out pretty cool. It looks great, basically as good as my 460+HDTV without needing an ultra high powered card. I was just surprised at how smooth Unreal 3 and Gears of War run with the settings maxed on my 7900GS. The CPU and RAM obviously made a huge difference. I did all mATX last PC I had, so I've been around the block. A lot of people liked the NZXT Rogue and some others like the Microfly, but I loved the X-QPack. It just didn't have very good mATX Intel boards when I was building so I went ATX. The size sucks but I went to exactly 2 lan parties in the last 3 years so it doesn't really matter for me. Nobody here plays PC anymore.
Well, I was talking about main memory, not video card memory. I agree with you that 1GB vs 512GB in the video card realm doesn't make much of a difference. However, when talking about main memory it seems computers just can't get enough of it. This is the Memory I will be putting in my system: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227293 As you can see it's not too terribly expensive. The only reason I made the jump to DDR3 in the first place is because I decided to go with the 790i Ultra motherboard, which I picked because my system is going to be based around SLi and when it comes to SLi, there isn't a better board on the market. Interestingly enough, I have been planning and researching my computer build for nearly two years now. It's gone through numerous changes, but now that I have a really good paying job at the moment (internship with a respectable IT company here in Arkansas), I actually have the funds to pour into this project of mine.
Oh yeah! Main memory, the more the merrier. That's some awesome RAM, although I don't think I can agree on not being terribly expensive lol. With DDR3 hopefully the performance is worth it though. I think mine was 140$. What resolution are you going to be pushing? Right now i'm looking at some of the PC games I've missed out on. I'm replaying Half Life 2 again, then I guess I'll get Orange Box. Crysis was pretty fun, and Quake 4 is pretty cheap. My video card comes with Quake Wars, hopefully that's decent. Gears on PC is way better then the 360 one, because of the multiplayer. There wasn't host advantage when I was playing, and people didn't just shotgun the whole time.
I've read that the ATI 4850 and 4870s are great cards. I'd probably go with one of those if I was into buying a new video card right now. Their drivers can't be any worse than nVidia's current offering. They're supposed to run hot, but that is fixable.
Well, in context with other ("higher end") DDR3 memory, it is quite cheap. But yeah, compared to DDR2 it's anything but cheap. That was a decision I had to mull over when deciding whether or not I wanted to make the jump to DDR3. I've got a 22" monitor and its maximum resolution is 1680 x 1050. Honestly, I'm going to push my cards to their limits and just see what they can handle. The monitor is something I kind of went cheap on, because I was more concerned with putting money into the internal components of the computer. I'm under the mindset that it's easier to just get a new monitor than to make upgrades on your computer.
Yeah, miniATX's can be a bitch to keep cool, but since I might be moving to a apartment, having a smaller PC (instead of a bigass tower) coupled to a HDTV can save lots of space. Speaking of projects, I have had a pretty big one going on since 2005: making a big rig with some serious liquid cooling. The thing is, I cant decide what method will work the best: classic pipes all over the place, or submerging the entire mobo in a fishtank full of mineral oil. The first one is hard to build yet easy to maintain, but the second one is a mistery to me. The thing is that while I've seen many classic water-cooled rigs, I've never seen a submerged one, not live. I've heard only good things about those setups, but I get the feeling that an entire mobo covered in oil cant last forever. The oil can keep every component fairly cool, but how you cool so much oil? would a regular air pump do the job? or I've to add a bigass radiator? I may try to make a prototype with my current rig (which I'm planning to retire) cuz theres no way I'm trying that on brand new components:fresh: If my house doesnt explodes, I'll make one for the new rig:-( I'm not sure about those models, but ATi cards dont look so hot nowadays, and that comes from a former 9800Pro fan:shrug:
I can't link to the benchmarks I'm looking at (they're on a closed forum on SomethingAwful), but it says that a single Radeon 4850 gets higher FPS in Crysis than an 8800GTX (24.7 fps vs. 22.2 fps at 1920x1200 - no AA). The same card tied with a GeForce 9800 GTX+ in Call of Duty 4 (2560x1600 - 4xAA). If those are real benchmarks (and I have no reason to believe they aren't), then that is a very fast card. ATI lost to nVidia with the last generation of cards, but these are new and it looks like they have definitely improved.
I've heard HD4850 is a great card, here is a review of the HD4850 vs a 9800 GTX + : http://www.legitreviews.com/article/731/1/
The 4850 is pretty awesome for the price, and someone got Physx running on it too. There drivers are usually improved as time goes on, but they definitly sucked some wang last gen. However, with the drivers thing, I was under the impression ATI's drivers were worse under linux vs. Nvidia. I haven't had problems with Nvidias drivers....yet. Or Ati's. Me and a bud did the oil trick on a pentium 4 a long time ago in his garage. We used vegetable oil. It was pretty cool for a little while. It's just so wierd.
