The new ATi graphics cards - noise?
Discussion
Does anyone have one of the 3800 series cards - 3850 or 3870?
Are they loud? I currently use the Sapphire Ultimate range of graphics cards because they are built to be silent - my PC is in my bedroom and usually on in the night and also used to play music. But the 3850s are apparently quiet so I wonder if I could get away with fitting a normal one - they're available for £90, whereas it's £130 for the silent Sapphire ultimate version (now passively cooled and don't even have a fan).
They look a fantastic value/performance bargain..
Also does anyone want to buy my silent X800 GTO, maybe for a media centre or something? £30? I have the box and most of the connectors, plus even the CD of games that comes with it from which I haven't redeemed the free game yet. One of them is Richard Burns Rally too.
Are they loud? I currently use the Sapphire Ultimate range of graphics cards because they are built to be silent - my PC is in my bedroom and usually on in the night and also used to play music. But the 3850s are apparently quiet so I wonder if I could get away with fitting a normal one - they're available for £90, whereas it's £130 for the silent Sapphire ultimate version (now passively cooled and don't even have a fan).
They look a fantastic value/performance bargain..
Also does anyone want to buy my silent X800 GTO, maybe for a media centre or something? £30? I have the box and most of the connectors, plus even the CD of games that comes with it from which I haven't redeemed the free game yet. One of them is Richard Burns Rally too.
Well looks like I won't have to worry about it. Sitting here on my PC, I hear a clonk and a minute later it turns off.
This is odd, thinks I, and I open up the case.
The heatsink/fan for the CPU has fallen off. The plastic clip that holds it onto the motherboard is broken completely.
Rather than get a new motherboard (socket 939 for an Athlon 64) the same, I might as well put the ~£30 towards a whole new mobo/cpu/memory. £100 will get me a new Socket AM2 motherboard, an Athlon 64 X2 3800+, and 2GB of RAM - a marked improvment on the Ath 64 single core 3200+ and 1GB I have now.
Just have to soldier on with that X800 GTO a bit longer! System barely runs Team Fortress 2 and World in Conflict so I hope I'll see improvments..
This is odd, thinks I, and I open up the case.
The heatsink/fan for the CPU has fallen off. The plastic clip that holds it onto the motherboard is broken completely.
Rather than get a new motherboard (socket 939 for an Athlon 64) the same, I might as well put the ~£30 towards a whole new mobo/cpu/memory. £100 will get me a new Socket AM2 motherboard, an Athlon 64 X2 3800+, and 2GB of RAM - a marked improvment on the Ath 64 single core 3200+ and 1GB I have now.
Just have to soldier on with that X800 GTO a bit longer! System barely runs Team Fortress 2 and World in Conflict so I hope I'll see improvments..
No reason except that I understand the nomenclature better! Always had AMD since my Athlon 1.1 Ghz (the one that ran super hot) and they were always cheaper back then. Have things swung in the pentium's favour now? I am just happy with AMD and more familiar with them, and couldn't be bothered to look up a comparable pentium model number. Also I have very quiet a socket 939 cooler which *may* work on the new socket AM2.
Indeed DDR2 RAM is very cheap!! £14 for 1GB sticks of 'extra value' (but the full speed 800Mhz) or £15-16 for branded sticks. I can't believe that price it's great. The price is more than double for plain DDR which in itself just makes spending money upgrading a 939 system a waste of time. That's what made me just go with a whole new mobo/cpu/memory - £30-40 spent on another 1GB for my 939 system is a waste of money and could fund 30-40% of the cost of an entirely new AM2 system. Especially sensible since my 939 motherboard broke anyway and it wouldn't take dual core 939s either.
I originally bought my current 939 machine just over 2 years ago on the basis of future upgradeability. Turned out not to be worth it because:
a) memory stayed too expensive then they brought out DDR2
b) socket 939 was replaced (to my annoyance at the time but irrelevant due to C)
c) the mobo was Rev 1.0 which it turns out couldn't take dual core CPUs anyway and the single cores only go a bit faster than the 3200+ that it has
d) the mobo broke anyway (see 2nd post)
This all leads me to conclude that buying a PC for future upgradeability is possibly an exercise in futility because by the time you want to upgrade it's too old anyway and all the parts you want are more expensive because they're out of date technology. I reckon best off buying the cheapest motherboard, memory and best value CPU that you can, so that it's always of minimal value, then when the next new technology comes out it's not hard to make the decision to ditch your current setup.
But then I've never been one for buying PC tech when it's brand new, due to price...
Indeed DDR2 RAM is very cheap!! £14 for 1GB sticks of 'extra value' (but the full speed 800Mhz) or £15-16 for branded sticks. I can't believe that price it's great. The price is more than double for plain DDR which in itself just makes spending money upgrading a 939 system a waste of time. That's what made me just go with a whole new mobo/cpu/memory - £30-40 spent on another 1GB for my 939 system is a waste of money and could fund 30-40% of the cost of an entirely new AM2 system. Especially sensible since my 939 motherboard broke anyway and it wouldn't take dual core 939s either.
I originally bought my current 939 machine just over 2 years ago on the basis of future upgradeability. Turned out not to be worth it because:
a) memory stayed too expensive then they brought out DDR2
b) socket 939 was replaced (to my annoyance at the time but irrelevant due to C)
c) the mobo was Rev 1.0 which it turns out couldn't take dual core CPUs anyway and the single cores only go a bit faster than the 3200+ that it has
d) the mobo broke anyway (see 2nd post)
This all leads me to conclude that buying a PC for future upgradeability is possibly an exercise in futility because by the time you want to upgrade it's too old anyway and all the parts you want are more expensive because they're out of date technology. I reckon best off buying the cheapest motherboard, memory and best value CPU that you can, so that it's always of minimal value, then when the next new technology comes out it's not hard to make the decision to ditch your current setup.
But then I've never been one for buying PC tech when it's brand new, due to price...
I understand your points (and come from a similar point of view) but the fact of the matter is that if you are upgrading the mobo anyway you may as well go for intel. The new core duos run faster and cooler than AMD chips and [if you are that way inclined] overclock much better.
Something like the Core duo E2180 2GHz(about £55) and the Abit IP35 (about £70) will be a heck of an upgrade. With a decent cooler you should see an easy 3GHz out of it.
Something like the Core duo E2180 2GHz(about £55) and the Abit IP35 (about £70) will be a heck of an upgrade. With a decent cooler you should see an easy 3GHz out of it.
I got a HD 3870 (the faster one) 512MB, just arrived 2 days ago. £125 which is a great price. To answer my own question, my card is dead quiet. I'd go so far as to say silent in fact. It's not the reference design but a Triplex one with a big round HSF that looks like it could be loud but isn't.
Have to say though I'm not as blown away by my system as I thought I'd be. Thought most games would run with medium-high graphics and great framerates (over 50), but actually that's not the case. Half Life 2 does full graphics, 1024x768 pretty smooth but not more than 50fps estimated. No problem I guess but my X800 ran a decent 35-40 fps with the graphics only somewhat lower (low quality textures, 2xaa 2xaf) and it looked hardly any worse. World in conflict just looks no better and runs no faster? Well perhaps 30-50% faster but not really enough to be worth it. The water effects are rendered much much faster but explosions and things still bring it to a chug. And this is still in dx9 mode. Viva Pinata is smoothish but not silky silky high-FPS smooth, this is on the same settings as my x800 was. It may have gained 20 or 30fps at a guess.
I'm MEGA disappointed actually because the reviews of these cards say they're pretty stonking, I guess my old X800 was an exceptionally capable card for what it was? I 3dmark'd the new card and scored 7,900 which is about par for my system so I don't think the card is faulty... I've got the crysis demo which I'll try today. Reading around on the web I should be able to run that at medium or high settings with playable framerate. If not I will cry (not really)
Have to say though I'm not as blown away by my system as I thought I'd be. Thought most games would run with medium-high graphics and great framerates (over 50), but actually that's not the case. Half Life 2 does full graphics, 1024x768 pretty smooth but not more than 50fps estimated. No problem I guess but my X800 ran a decent 35-40 fps with the graphics only somewhat lower (low quality textures, 2xaa 2xaf) and it looked hardly any worse. World in conflict just looks no better and runs no faster? Well perhaps 30-50% faster but not really enough to be worth it. The water effects are rendered much much faster but explosions and things still bring it to a chug. And this is still in dx9 mode. Viva Pinata is smoothish but not silky silky high-FPS smooth, this is on the same settings as my x800 was. It may have gained 20 or 30fps at a guess.
I'm MEGA disappointed actually because the reviews of these cards say they're pretty stonking, I guess my old X800 was an exceptionally capable card for what it was? I 3dmark'd the new card and scored 7,900 which is about par for my system so I don't think the card is faulty... I've got the crysis demo which I'll try today. Reading around on the web I should be able to run that at medium or high settings with playable framerate. If not I will cry (not really)
Do you have the latest drivers for it?
Performance should (I would have thought) be pretty astounding in comparison to your old card!
I'm getting tempted by the 3870X2, but there are rumours the 4xxx series cards may be around in June, which is putting me off upgrading (again, again, again....)
Performance should (I would have thought) be pretty astounding in comparison to your old card!
I'm getting tempted by the 3870X2, but there are rumours the 4xxx series cards may be around in June, which is putting me off upgrading (again, again, again....)
Unfortunately even with a pretty impressive system you will not run alot of games on Full wack! i have (a couple of years old now) a good system with 4 gig Ram, Duel 4800+ and SLi 7800 GTX x2 and i did not notice a huge amount of difference, you should easily be ok with Crisi (great game!) but sometimes it is down to the games themselves.
Has anyone been able to play MS Flight Sim X on full everything and had a good frame rate?
Has anyone been able to play MS Flight Sim X on full everything and had a good frame rate?
Nope, I think it's even harder to run that on high settings than Crysis!
Had a play with it at work on my machine there (it was for work purposes, the playing you see!) which is QX6850, 2Gb RAM & 8800GTX (much more CPU punch than my home machine) and was able to get about 30fps @ 1680x1050 with med. settings. Looked good though
Had a play with it at work on my machine there (it was for work purposes, the playing you see!
) which is QX6850, 2Gb RAM & 8800GTX (much more CPU punch than my home machine) and was able to get about 30fps @ 1680x1050 with med. settings. Looked good though I have an ATI 3850 which is an Asus card. How loud it is depends on what you are doing with it - the fan speed is temperature dependent, and also congfigurable. You can adjust what speed it runs at for which temperature. At full pelt it is fairly loud, but it doesn't switch that fast very often. If you overclock it then it does so more often, but even then it becomes quieter after about 20 seconds or so. During normal desktop use there is no noticable noise from the graphics card at all as it runs the fan at the slowest speed.
Performance wise it is not bad - I don't have all that much to compare it against, but it runs EVE Trinity at 1280x1024 with absolutely no problems and a decent frame rate.
Performance wise it is not bad - I don't have all that much to compare it against, but it runs EVE Trinity at 1280x1024 with absolutely no problems and a decent frame rate.
wolves_wanderer said:
Mattygooner said:
Has anyone been able to play MS Flight Sim X on full everything and had a good frame rate?
I've got a Q6600 @ 3.6 GHz with 4gb RAM and a 2900xt and I'm nowhere near full settings.
It makes you wonder if the developers even know how good it looks on full settings, either that or what the hell are the developers running to know.
said:
Blimey, who needs a work pc like that!?
He he, yeah I err specced two machines like that.... They do get used for pretty heavy photo and video-editing though
Much like Far Cry & Crysis, it's just too far ahead of current hardware.
Although I'm pondering crossfired 3870X2's in place of my 8800GTX, so perhaps that'll have enough graphical oomph!
That was me that said that but my username didn't show for some reason.
Anyway.... last night I disconnected a dodgy, stuttering IDE drive that I had recently connected about the same time I bought the card. I also noticed I'd only hooked up half of the power connector for the gfx card but not sure if that actually mattered at all (don't think so I think it was a pass-through cable).
Now World in Conflict does play really smooth in dx9 on medium settings. However ther is a definite stutter going on if you, say, pan around and around, or move across the map. It's like there's a problem with loading things from the hard disk or from memory or something. The stutter causes tearing across the screen (like Vsync is off).
Any thoughts/ideas? I might have to do a full Vista reinstall but I only did it a month ago when I bought the new CPU, mobo and memory. And the 3870 is surely not that different to the X800 to require a complete windows reinstall?
Anyway.... last night I disconnected a dodgy, stuttering IDE drive that I had recently connected about the same time I bought the card. I also noticed I'd only hooked up half of the power connector for the gfx card but not sure if that actually mattered at all (don't think so I think it was a pass-through cable).
Now World in Conflict does play really smooth in dx9 on medium settings. However ther is a definite stutter going on if you, say, pan around and around, or move across the map. It's like there's a problem with loading things from the hard disk or from memory or something. The stutter causes tearing across the screen (like Vsync is off).
Any thoughts/ideas? I might have to do a full Vista reinstall but I only did it a month ago when I bought the new CPU, mobo and memory. And the 3870 is surely not that different to the X800 to require a complete windows reinstall?
Pentoman said:
Any thoughts/ideas? I might have to do a full Vista reinstall but I only did it a month ago when I bought the new CPU, mobo and memory. And the 3870 is surely not that different to the X800 to require a complete windows reinstall?
Check this threadhttp://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=...
And follow the section about un-installing your previous drivers. It needs to be done in full and may take a little while but is essential when you change cards, even if they are from the same manufacturer.
Thanks, I'm more than willing to give this a go. I hate stutter more than just a low framerate! Because you can see it should/would be like!
By the way is it normal for the graphics card properties page (in device manager IIRC) to list
on-board memory 512MB
Shared system memory 768 MB (or thereabouts can't remember exactly)
Apparently this is normal as part of WDDM or something? Can someone on vista have a looky see?
By the way is it normal for the graphics card properties page (in device manager IIRC) to list
on-board memory 512MB
Shared system memory 768 MB (or thereabouts can't remember exactly)
Apparently this is normal as part of WDDM or something? Can someone on vista have a looky see?
Pentoman said:
Thanks, I'm more than willing to give this a go. I hate stutter more than just a low framerate! Because you can see it should/would be like!
By the way is it normal for the graphics card properties page (in device manager IIRC) to list
on-board memory 512MB
Shared system memory 768 MB (or thereabouts can't remember exactly)
Apparently this is normal as part of WDDM or something? Can someone on vista have a looky see?
Yep, mine has 512mb on board and quotes 2302 mb total memory with 1790 as shared system memory.By the way is it normal for the graphics card properties page (in device manager IIRC) to list
on-board memory 512MB
Shared system memory 768 MB (or thereabouts can't remember exactly)
Apparently this is normal as part of WDDM or something? Can someone on vista have a looky see?
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