New Gaming PC Suggestions?

[hawkin90]

Tsss. Radeon cards run just as nicely on intel cpu's, it's the games that makes the difference, not the cpu.
And btw, the 5970 HD 2GB/4GB is a better card for gaming (shows every test, it pwns them all in 3dmark/vantage) and the nvidia cards eats power like a fat dude on mcdonalds, it's loud and gets extremely hot.
Radeon ftw.

 

[Lordbob75]

And btw, the 5970 HD 2GB/4GB is a better card for gaming (shows every test, it pwns them all in 3dmark/vantage) and the nvidia cards eats power like a fat dude on mcdonalds, it's loud and gets extremely hot.
Radeon ftw.

:roflmao:

Great analogy, if a little stereotyped.

~Lordbob

 

[DarkFang]

A lot of people say the Radeon HD 5970 is better than the GeForce GTX 480. However, I really don't like ATI so I would always go with nVidia. The choice is yours.

 

[hawkin90]

And btw, the 5970 HD 2GB/4GB is a better card for gaming (shows every test, it pwns them all in 3dmark/vantage) and the nvidia cards eats power like a fat dude on mcdonalds, it's loud and gets extremely hot.
Radeon ftw.

:roflmao:

Great analogy, if a little stereotyped.

~Lordbob

Yeah, have to admit that was a little stereotyped, it was just the first thing that came to mind

 

[JonM33]

I dont want to start an argument but i would disagree with most of this post.

I do believe you would notice a difference with the i7 compared to the core 2 quad.

Fact: AMD's Six-Core Phenom II X6 1090T & 1055T Reviewed - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

You wouldn't notice a couple frames per second.

The GTX's will run hotter but with a 5k budget im sure you will be on liquid cooling so heat shouldnt be an issue.

Regardless of the budget I would never use liquid cooling.

Generally its a good idea to match Intel with nvidia and AMD with ATI although you dont have to by any means.

Where do you get this from? It has never been the case, ever. So I would like some sort of viable reference from you.

How a 5970 would outperform a GTX 480 with the core i7, maybe look at some benchmarks to know for sure?

A 5970 is a pair of 5850 in Crossfire on the same graphics card.

Look here and you will see a single Radeon HD 5970 beating the GTX 480 in every single benchmark: NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470: 6 Months Late, Was It Worth the Wait? - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

Again running hotter and louder shouldnt be an issue at all with liquid cooling.

They are if you don't want to lose your hearing.

The 480 and 5970 are similar in price, so that is more a matter of preference.
I will say that I have never had a driver issue with NVidia, but I did with ATI.

~Lordbob

I'll say that both have had driver problems, nVIDIA more so than ATi.

Vista-capable lawsuit paints picture of buggy NVIDIA drivers

 

[steve-pressman]

If I had your budget then I would go for something like this


"Ultima Carbon" Intel Core i7 980X 3.33GHz @ 4.20GHz SLI DDR3 System [] Pro Gamer - Ultima


Steve

 

[hawkin90]

JonM33: Couldn't agree more!

 

[Lordbob75]

The 480 and 5970 are similar in price, so that is more a matter of preference.
I will say that I have never had a driver issue with NVidia, but I did with ATI.

~Lordbob

I'll say that both have had driver problems, nVIDIA more so than ATi.

Vista-capable lawsuit paints picture of buggy NVIDIA drivers

If you noticed, I meant personally.

~Lordbob

 

[JonM33]

If you noticed, I meant personally.

~Lordbob

I noticed. I'm just pointing out some facts that go a bit beyond your personal experience.

 

[Lordbob75]

If you noticed, I meant personally.

~Lordbob

I noticed. I'm just pointing out some facts that go a bit beyond your personal experience.

Fair enough.

~Lordbob

 

[Solarstarshines]

if i were you i would go amd if you want two 5970's tailor made for each other intel i would go with gtx 480 because intel has had a good configuration working with nvidia

 

[Solarstarshines]

@hawking90 LOL eatting up energy like a Fat dude eatting mcdonalds well put and very true seems like radeon is using green power saver to give performance without draining your psu and cpu by drawing to much to just play a game

 

[JonM33]

if i were you i would go amd if you want two 5970's tailor made for each other intel i would go with gtx 480 because intel has had a good configuration working with nvidia

Please, stop spreading the false statements. None of what you just said was accurate.

 

[smarteyeball]

My dilemma is with the graphics card. I read that the HD Radeon 5970s were good, and I'm considering having two of them.

Don't. They scale very badly, and Tri/Quadfire+eyefinity does not work very well at all.

Just to clarify I will be getting liquid cooling.

If you don't mind losing the Eyefinity option and have the PSU to back it up, then x2 480 SLI will handle the vast majority of titles with extreme ease.

Liquid cooling eliminates the heat/noise issue - the only major downside to 480 SLI is the massive power draw (hence the reason you'll need a good PSU).



The 5970 is a good card, but outside of benching, quadfiring a pair if them is a waste.

A 5970 + 5850/5870 Tri-fire setup would be a better option for single screen gaming goodness.

Alternatively, two/three 5870 E6 2GB is also another option. (the extra VRAM is very beneficial if you are planning on going Eyefinity)

 

[kellymac35]

5k you can build a kick.... gaming rig. But just remember no matter how you go in a couple month time there will be something that seems better. Maybe it's just me, my mother in law made a comment to my wife some 20 years ago she said I am never satified. It took me a while to relies but man was she right.

 

[vierasniper]

5k you can build a kick.... gaming rig. But just remember no matter how you go in a couple month time there will be something that seems better. Maybe it's just me, my mother in law made a comment to my wife some 20 years ago she said I am never satified. It took me a while to relies but man was she right.

Amen Brother

 

[smarteyeball]

5k you can build a kick.... gaming rig. But just remember no matter how you go in a couple month time there will be something that seems better.

Technically speaking, it's already superseded - but that's the 'beauty' of technology, there is always something better around the corner.

It's the old catch 22 - buy now, be out of date. Keep waiting for the next big thing and you'll never buy anything

Although whatever setup the OP chooses to go with should realistically see him at the pointy end of gaming / desktop usage for another good 2-3 years.

Maybe it's just me, my mother in law made a comment to my wife some 20 years ago she said I am never satisfied. It took me a while to relies but man was she right.

Satisfied? I've heard of it - but I'm still not quite sure what it feels like

 

[StoneHeart]

Hey Larsa, i you're willing to go over budget you can have one of the ultimate rigs possible.


Here's my ideal spec:

• EVGA Classified SR-2 270-WS-W555-A1 Motherboard - $599.99 TigerDirect EVGA 270-WS-W555-A1 Classified SR-2 Motherboard - Intel 5520 Chipset, Dual LGA1366, 4-Way SLI, CrossFireX, Triple Channel DDR3, Dual Gigabit LAN at TigerDirect.com
• 2x Intel Xeon X5680 3.33 GHz CPU - $1,799.99 Overstock Intel Xeon X5680 3.33 GHz Processor - Hexa-core | Overstock.com
• 4x EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) - $529.99 TigerDirect EVGA 015-P3-1482-AR GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) SuperClocked Video Card - 1536MB GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.0, Dual DVI, HDMI, SLI, DirectX 11 at TigerDirect.com
• Mountain Mods U2-UFO case - $359.99 MountainMods MountainMods.com-Computer Cases-U2-UFO-U2-UFO (Black Wrinkle Powder Coat) - 3 Big Window
• Modular HPTX-SR2 Motherboard tray assembly - $79.99 MountainMods MountainMods.com-Computer Cases-Parts-Motherboard Parts-Modular HPTX-SR2 Motherboard tray assembly
• Thermaltake TRX-1200M 1.2kW PSU - $199.99 Overstock Thermaltake TRX-1200M ATX12V & EPS12V Power Supply - 80% - 1.2 kW | Overstock.com
• Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 Mhz Kit - $439.99 TigerDiect Corsair XMS3 Tri Channel 12GB PC10666 DDR3 Memory - 1333MHz, 12288MB (6 x 2048MB) at TigerDirect.com

Tell me what you think.
P.S. you can think up everything else you need.

 

[JonM33]

Don't. They scale very badly, and Tri/Quadfire+eyefinity does not work very well at all.

That depends on the game though.

 

[Dave76]

I'm planning on building a new gaming pc this September and am wanting to make it as good as I possibly can. I have $5k saved up for it. I'm considering getting the Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition 3.33 GHz CPU and 6gigs of DDR3 RAM at 1800ghz. My dilemma is with the graphics card. I read that the HD Radeon 5970s were good, and I'm considering having two of them.

Would this setup work, or are there some problems? I want to play current and near-future titles on max settings as smoothly as possible. If you have any recommendations for alternative graphic cards that would be great too (or a different CPU if the one listed will cause problems.) Thanks in advance.

With that budget your entitled to a bragging rights PC.
Go for it if that is what you want.
I'll try to find time in my busy schedule to build and test it for you, just send me all the parts

The HD Radeon 5970 is a good choice.

As noted here and on many reputable benchmark sites, Ati/Nvidia work perfectly well with AMD/Intel, in any combination.
Have read the Intel-ATI combination is sweet :sarc:

As mentioned, anything from an i7 930 and up will run anything you want very well, and you'll likely not notice much of a difference between any one of these and the i7-980X.

Get a nice SSD and the best quality PSU you can find.

You might consider to hold back 20% of that for the gotta have upgrade that you will run into in the next six months.

I would just like to add whatever way you decide to go, don't forget to buy a quality power supply.
Check the motherboard manufacturers recommended Ram if available to avoid any problems with temperamental ram/mb combination.
I'm going to be building a new system soon and am looking at the i7 920 or 930 the x58 chipset and hopefully Mushkin Ram, probably a couple of GTX460's a 800w modular PUS, a full tower with cutouts for CPU changing without having to remove the MB and good cable management the largest SSD available and a 1 or 1.5 terabyte internal drive with the blu ray optical I already have. And either stick with the H50 CPU water cooler or The Ultra chillTec. But then I'm not planning on spending 5k for a system I just don't see any need for it for what I use my system for. My 2cents worth. Fabe

That sounds like one heck of a nice system, go with the i7 930 it's replacing the 920.
Good call on the SSD, IMHO it's the most noticeable performance upgrade you can do right now.
Get one big enough to put your OS and most of your programs, mines 40GB and using 16GB, the rest of my data is on a HDD. No need to store music, videos, pictures and any other files on a SSD.

Although whatever setup the OP chooses to go with should realistically see him at the pointy end of gaming / desktop usage for another good 2-3 years.

Hopefully, but there's always something...

Hey Larsa, i you're willing to go over budget you can have one of the ultimate rigs possible.

Here's my ideal spec:

...

Tell me what you think.
P.S. you can think up everything else you need.

WOW :shock:, that's definitely an ultimate machine