Your rig

[Bizman]

No, there were some stability issues at first until I let the motherboard take care of the voltage. 400 MHz is a standard bus speed so I thought I'd better stay there. It's close enough to 4 GHz anyway, the performance gain would not be noticeable.

4.3 GHz... Tempting! But no, my bottlenecks are elsewhere. Which reminds me that my glass is empty, I'd better grab a bottleneck to fill it. 

[Kanth]

I just purchased some mini upgrades for my PC that should be here by the 20th so I'll take another benchmark then.
I haven't tried overclocking.

It's such an old machine I'm not going to do too much to it. But it just needs to hold out till early next year.

meanwhiile reading:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2008/03/18/xfx_nforce_790i_ultra_motherboard_preview/6#.V9MFsFQrJhE

[Bizman]

It was just because of its age I mentioned overclocking.

In my philosophy for a new computer you should get a system you need out of the box. It may not be top of the notch, but it should do the job. Then, after a certain time, the high end components will become obsolete to some people and your rig can be upgraded for zilch. At that point getting spare parts will not be an economic issue so playing with extremities won't do any serious damage.

[Kanth]

Yep makes sense, no parts of what I have now are expensive anymore. But I wouldn't do a 1:1 replacement unless I'm in a bind.
(like blew it up overclocking)   

[BuckShot]

Yes, of course this is the orientation I am talking about:

(Image removed from quote.)

Most monitors don't come with the ability to pivot like that, so you may have to make accommodations. You don't have to actually do the pivot to test it though. Just use the Nvidia Control Panel to rotate the display (which can get frustrating) in software and run the benchmark. If you get better results then you can decide from there.

I had planned for this when I designed my desk (4' x 7') and so I then just created a bookshelf to suit the situation (and with allowances for rack mount audio equipment and stereo tuner).

(Image removed from quote.)

From there it is just a matter of finding VESA mounts that can pivot and you can even change orientation on the fly.

http://www.amazon.com/Cheetah-Monitor-Displays-Includes-Magnetic/dp/B0088RIV1W/ref=pd_sim_229_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0P4YBNDZEYES3SBK1SR9

(Image removed from quote.)

Sweet looking setup! What's the big controller beneath the center monitor?

[Kanth]

my card came VERY fast...



And then in AH3 this meant Before I had (edit: actually that was at defaults settings)



And AFTER the card upgrade I get



that was a $279.00 purchase. Good to go. Hope that might help anyone looking for stuff.
Btw in the second screenshot EVERYTHING is on and vsync is off.

[Bizman]

THANKS, Kanth! That proves I can still use my Old Reliable by just upgrading the video card.

[Kanth]

you're welcome 

[Pudgie]

Just to throw it out there.....................

What you're seeing w\ Kanth's set up is a PCI-E 3.0 x16-compliant vid card being run on a mobo using a PCI-E 2.0 x16-compliant PCI-E slot..............

Seems to not be hindering the vid card's performance none being used in this PCI-E slot......................... ......
Also seems to not be "bottlenecked" by the Intel E8500 C2D CPU per se either...................

FYI.......................... .................

 

[Chalenge]

The video card should not be held back by a PCIe 2.0 slot, but the 1080 series may change that. Perhaps I should have bought one to do testing on. . .

I just had to run that benchmark again. You know, for old times sake. I would be interested in seeing what yours is doing Pudgie! Or someone with a top-of-the-line 1080.

[Kanth]

Yes, this is absolutely correct. From what I read you could see a 5-10fps drop in some games.
the motherboard is a EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard.

Just to throw it out there.....................

What you're seeing w\ Kanth's set up is a PCI-E 3.0 x16-compliant vid card being run on a mobo using a PCI-E 2.0 x16-compliant PCI-E slot..............

Seems to not be hindering the vid card's performance none being used in this PCI-E slot......................... ......
Also seems to not be "bottlenecked" by the Intel E8500 C2D CPU per se either...................

FYI.......................... .................

 

[Chalenge]

There are many published benchmarks where PCIe 2.0 game out ahead of PCIe 3.0, for whatever reason.

[Pudgie]

The video card should not be held back by a PCIe 2.0 slot, but the 1080 series may change that. Perhaps I should have bought one to do testing on. . .

I just had to run that benchmark again. You know, for old times sake. I would be interested in seeing what yours is doing Pudgie! Or someone with a top-of-the-line 1080.

(Image removed from quote.)

Here ya go, Chalenge.................

I tried to mimic the settings that you had set up in the benchmark to make the results more relative. I assumed that you had AA turned off so I turned this off for my run as well. If you had AA on then let me know the level and I'll rerun it.

 

PS---Using AMD Crimson 16.9.1 drivers (latest vers).

[Chalenge]

I don't actually know. I just installed the benchmark, ran it, and then deleted it.

For some reason I expected your results to be much higher?

[38ruk]

Hmmm pudgie , surprised my 390 scored a little better than yours cause it shouldn't. Mine came in a bit over 3800, wonder why.  My 980ti just came so i figured id run the 390 threw with the settings above just to compare . Your Min FPS seems a bit low , im thinking you must be running a higher setting somewhere that we aren't .