ATi or Nvidia - need help deciding

[skunksmash]

Well looks like the PSU isnt up to the job. Seeing the normal warning signs, lower FPS, games crashing, graphical anomilies, etc.

Here's the output table for the W0146RU:

The girlfriend is againt taking back the cards and paying the restocking fees on $430 so I'll be heading back to Bestbuy to pick up a couple new PSU's.

Was looking at the Antec EarthWatts 500 but after a little research there appears to be two versions of it, one has Dual +12v @22A the other one has Dual +12v @17A, not sure which one they have a BB betting its the 17A.

They also have this one but I can't find ANY info on it whatsoever, it's not even listed on the BFG site:
BFG - 550-Watt ATX Modular Power Supply

well im surprised.. i think the 9800GT is rated for 26A on the 12v, but it will run on much less.???

is it the same on both machines..??

here ya go mate.....grab two of these, you wont need anymore power...EVER i checked bestbuy's site, they only have 2 PSUs to choose from if you can buy fron the egg, do so......

these will run SLI GTX260's (at a push) & would run SLI 9800GT (if needed, all day long) & all your peripherals, with plenty left to spare.....



SK

 

[Beamish417]

Same signs on both machines. Took two times to get the crysis demo benchmark to finish without crashing, scored about 10FPS lower average than the 9600GT, other games crash on loading, LED in case fans dimmer, and there's this..



(Jury is still out on that, could be a driver issue..not sure, never seen anything like that before)

Done w/ bestbuy. Did find a 1000w antec at some rogue PC shop that was open on a Sunday but they wanted $300 for it

It's really funny that you linked that PSU, yesterday before we left I had that exact one in my cart to remind myself what I could get for a hundred bucks if i'd be smart and wait till monday. After reading this though "Power Supply Myths Exposed!" I'm leaning towards these CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W It has a single +12v@41A no modular cables and still way more power than we'd ever need.

Gonna do a little more research and wait for your opinion before I place the order. Thanks again for keeping up w/ this thread I know it's kinda all over the place, hopefully the new PSU's will do the trick.

**One last thing, should I put the 9600's back in untill the new PSU's get here? Don't want to damage the new ones.

 

[Firestrider]

That power supply (Corsair 550VX) is really nice.

I would either pick that one or one from PCP&C.

 

[skunksmash]

*One last thing, should I put the 9600's back in untill the new PSU's get here? Don't want to damage the new ones.

you might as well mate, the machine don't even look usable from that pic....

the VX is a good choice though.....



SK

 

[Beamish417]

Update:

Borrowed a Antec Truepower Trio 650w from a friend and guess what happened..

-Crysis bench still crashed
-It still scored at 10FPS less than the 9600gt when I got it to complete
-Led's on the 120's still dimmed
-and that white fill on the desktop was still there

This morning I decided to re install Vista64 just to rule out a driver/win7 issue and here's what I discovered..

-Crysis completed on the first go.
-Scored an average of 40.87FPS on the last three runs
(in contrast to 28.06FPS with the 9800GT+Win7 and 37.69FPS with the 9600GT+Vista)

-Turns out the LED's dimming was something I overlooked, the M3A78-EM has something called Q-Fan in the bios which was causing them to brighten and dim, disabled it and they are back to a steady glow.

-The white fill on the desktop I guess was also a Win7 nvidia driver issue since it hasn't happened yet this morning.

Already ordered the Corsairs and I plan on keeping them even though it turned out to be a driver issue. I'm sure I was running that little 450 at close to max which isn't very efficient from what I've read. Plus the Corsairs will allow for future upgrades Im sure.


Update #2:

Just to be thorough I put the 450w back in and it's still stable. Overclocked the 4850e back up to 3GHz and it just finished an hour (auto 1hr mix) under OCCT with no errors. Also added about 5FPS to the crysis score (45.81 average)

 

[skunksmash]

Update:

Borrowed a Antec Truepower Trio 650w from a friend and guess what happened..

-Crysis bench still crashed
-It still scored at 10FPS less than the 9600gt when I got it to complete
-Led's on the 120's still dimmed
-and that white fill on the desktop was still there

This morning I decided to re install Vista64 just to rule out a driver/win7 issue and here's what I discovered..

-Crysis completed on the first go.
-Scored an average of 40.87FPS on the last three runs
(in contrast to 28.06FPS with the 9800GT+Win7 and 37.69FPS with the 9600GT+Vista)

-Turns out the LED's dimming was something I overlooked, the M3A78-EM has something called Q-Fan in the bios which was causing them to brighten and dim, disabled it and they are back to a steady glow.

-The white fill on the desktop I guess was also a Win7 nvidia driver issue since it hasn't happened yet this morning.

Already ordered the Corsairs and I plan on keeping them even though it turned out to be a driver issue. I'm sure I was running that little 450 at close to max which isn't very efficient from what I've read. Plus the Corsairs will allow for future upgrades Im sure.


Update #2:

Just to be thorough I put the 450w back in and it's still stable. Overclocked the 4850e back up to 3GHz and it just finished an hour (auto 1hr mix) under OCCT with no errors. Also added about 5FPS to the crysis score (45.81 average)

congratz on getting it sorted!!


the corsair's are an investment, for any future builds, or added peripherals...... & they'll last for years...


well.... i never heard of the Q-fan causing a power drain...... still, ''learn something new everyday'', its now something else i can suggest to anyone in a similar situation...

45.81fps is a bloody good bench...... what settings was that run on..??




SK

 

[Beamish417]

well.... i never heard of the Q-fan causing a power drain...... still, ''learn something new everyday'', its now something else i can suggest to anyone in a similar situation...

45.81fps is a bloody good bench...... what settings was that run on..??

I guess Q-fan is a fan speed/temp monitor bios program, it was causing the case fans to spin at 700rpm (according to everest) really wierd that the lights dimmed, maybe Q-fan also has an effect on the voltage going to the fans themselves?..who knows. Disabling it did the trick though.

As far as the score it's all default settings..let me grab a screen, not even sure if Im adding the score up correctly. From what I've read you take the "Average FPS" of the last three runs add them all together then divide by 3, that's how I've been doing it atleast. Also the bench Im running is the built in time demo "Benchmark_GPU" from the Bin64 folder.

looks like the defaults are all on Medium. Popped it into windowed mode just for the screenshot.



**Wait, hold on.
Just noticed as I was putting it back in full screen the resolution defaults are 1024x768. That's why the score is as high as it is. Never noticed it before since I dont actually play the demo, I just install it and run the bench, not to go online and brag about them mind you, just for my own comparison when upgrading hardware, this is actually the first time Ive ever mentioned my scores online.

Just for the sake of things I'll set the res up to 1440x900 and see what happens..

 

[skunksmash]

that's pretty good...... for general game play, i would knock the ''texture quality'', ''physics quality'' & ''shader quality'' up to enthusiast if possible & leave the rest on medium, you will lose a few fps, but those three MAXED will make it look a damn site better...

if not try running them on gamer.....you should still be pulling over 30fps with these settings, if not knock the resolution down to 1440x900 & try that....

either way.....a steady 30fps on crysis is very playable.




SK

 

[Beamish417]

Here the results on 1440x900



Not as bad as I thought it was going to be, only lost a few FPS. So am I using the correct formula to calculate the overall average?

(Average FPS of last three runs added together then divide by 3)

The only thing I use Crysis for is benchmarking when I switch out new hardware. Those extra FPS make me a little more comfortable when spending almost 1k upgrading. Which is why I guess this thread got all over the place. Shelling out a butload of money (atleast to me) and loosing 10 FPS just didn't seem right.

 

[skunksmash]

Here the results on 1440x900



Not as bad as I thought it was going to be, only lost a few FPS. So am I using the correct formula to calculate the overall average?

(Average FPS of last three runs added together then divide by 3)

The only thing I use Crysis for is benchmarking when I switch out new hardware. Those extra FPS make me a little more comfortable when spending almost 1k upgrading. Which is why I guess this thread got all over the place. Shelling out a butload of money (atleast to me) and loosing 10 FPS just didn't seem right.

lol.... i agree


yes, your looking at your AVG fps for you results.... that's not bad at all, this shows you the rig will handle any modern game at very playable rates...... as everyone knows crysis is a pig for good results...

im a little confused as to your first run, was it @ 1280x1024..??




SK

 

[Beamish417]

im a little confused as to your first run, was it @ 1280x1024..??

1024x768 I guess when you install Crysis that's what it defaults to. Never noticed that since I dont play it, just use it for the time demo benchmark.

Tried 3DMark but didn't like it. Seemed like one gigantic advertisement. Also read that Nvidia and/or Ati did something to their drivers to detect and optimize when 3Dmark was running. Just not my cup of tea. I just want a real world benchmark I can use for my own comparison.

 

[mushroomboy]

I know this is an old post, but you mentioned having more DDR2 is better than DDR3, which in some cases is not true. If your going to figure out how the ram affects the video card you have to keep in mind memory interface... 512MB ram 128bit vs 256MB 384bit doesn't even compare with the exception of large texture files. Though really today you would be comparing 512MB and 1G, but if the 1G has the 96/128 bit and the 512 has the 256/384 bit the 512 wins, due to most games don't even need 512MB ram. This plays a HUGE factor in the overall performance of the GFX card. Though most likely you will becomparing the same size, just 96/128/384 bit or higher (now seeing 512+).

Really you want a high vertex clock (not the main clock) and ram with a higher mem interface. Overall you'll get better performance if you keep that in mind when your buying a low end card. That's why all the high end expensive cards have higher bit, more performance, these days it's not all about "large ram fast processing speed" but the extentions we add to it. I hope that all makes sense.

[Edit] Go for Nvidia always! ATI has crappy driver support for linux, it angers me.

 

[Gamer1238]

I know this is an old post, but you mentioned having more DDR2 is better than DDR3, which in some cases is not true. If your going to figure out how the ram affects the video card you have to keep in mind memory interface... 512MB ram 128bit vs 256MB 384bit doesn't even compare with the exception of large texture files. Though really today you would be comparing 512MB and 1G, but if the 1G has the 96/128 bit and the 512 has the 256/384 bit the 512 wins, due to most games don't even need 512MB ram. This plays a HUGE factor in the overall performance of the GFX card. Though most likely you will becomparing the same size, just 96/128/384 bit or higher (now seeing 512+).

Really you want a high vertex clock (not the main clock) and ram with a higher mem interface. Overall you'll get better performance if you keep that in mind when your buying a low end card. That's why all the high end expensive cards have higher bit, more performance, these days it's not all about "large ram fast processing speed" but the extentions we add to it. I hope that all makes sense.

[Edit] Go for Nvidia always! ATI has crappy driver support for linux, it angers me.

cheers mate that has really helped me out with buying a new Graphics card thanks for that