Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Wing19 on September 30, 2009, 10:11:17 PM

Title: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: Wing19 on September 30, 2009, 10:11:17 PM
I was thinking of getting this EVGA 017-P3-1296-AR GeForce GTX 295 Superclocked Edition 1792MB 896 (448 x 2)-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI ... - Retail

Or I can buy 2 of these in SLI EVGA 896-P3-1255-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

I play a few other games than AHII

Any comments welcome

SKWing19
Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: eagl on September 30, 2009, 10:40:50 PM
If you can wait a few months, nvidia's next generation should be out within 6 months.  Or if you have to buy now, get one of the new AMD cards that do 3 monitors.  And then buy 3 monitors :)  Stand the monitors up into portrait mode, and you'll have just about the best display system for AH you can get without going for a full projection system.

The nvidia card you mention (295) may get you better framerates than the AMD card, but the AMD card will push 3 monitors and it should work perfectly with AH without any driver or game tweaks.  AMD also finally implemented angle-independent ansio filtering, which should reduce texture crawling.

I'd get AMD or wait to see what nvidia's next generation can do.  The next nvidia generation is pretty much a single-chip supercomputer that also happens to be optimized for graphics, and it'll either be amazingly good or a massive flop.  Either way, it ought to drive down prices :)

Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: paulieb on October 01, 2009, 09:56:04 AM
The AMD/ATI 5870 series thatjust came out looks VERY promising. There are versions that will push SIX monitors, too.
Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on October 01, 2009, 12:54:37 PM
If you can wait a few months, nvidia's next generation should be out within 6 months.  Or if you have to buy now, get one of the new AMD cards that do 3 monitors.  And then buy 3 monitors :)  Stand the monitors up into portrait mode, and you'll have just about the best display system for AH you can get without going for a full projection system.

The nvidia card you mention (295) may get you better framerates than the AMD card, but the AMD card will push 3 monitors and it should work perfectly with AH without any driver or game tweaks.  AMD also finally implemented angle-independent ansio filtering, which should reduce texture crawling.

I'd get AMD or wait to see what nvidia's next generation can do.  The next nvidia generation is pretty much a single-chip supercomputer that also happens to be optimized for graphics, and it'll either be amazingly good or a massive flop.  Either way, it ought to drive down prices :)



If past history is correct it will not drive down prices one bit. Nvidia will be forced to drop pricing of current products as long as ATI can compete but once the new chip comes out will be megaexpensive. Well, at least unless ATI has something reasonably priced to compete with it. Cheap and Nvidia have never walked hand in hand.
Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: Kazaa on October 02, 2009, 07:35:14 AM
I'm waiting for my Evga GTX295 to arrive, Evga offer a 90 day step up program!

When the next big thing hits the market, I'll save up and buy another GTX295 for quad SLI.
Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: Chalenge on October 02, 2009, 03:06:33 PM
The two 295s are major overkill for AHII so if you are at all penny pinched I would always recommend getting two affordable cards in SLI. You will also have to do some work and go through some effort to get SLI configured properly and most importantly do not use nHancer if you want to use SLI with AHII. Dont even think about it.

Right now two 9800 GTs in SLI will do everything AHII can offer (and in fact so will 8800 GTs with shadows at 2048). If you only want to buy once for a long time to come then the 295 is perfect. Bear in mind the 295 in Quad will require some major horsepower off the PSU (I am using two PSUs).
Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: TilDeath on October 04, 2009, 03:57:46 PM
The Dual 260s will still not perform as well and the single 295.  The 295 is a beast, make sure the PSU you have has the available power requirements for either setup.

TD
Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: Wing19 on October 04, 2009, 04:38:06 PM
The Dual 260s will still not perform as well and the single 295.  The 295 is a beast, make sure the PSU you have has the available power requirements for either setup.

TD

I have a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750w, Will the work?
Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: TilDeath on October 04, 2009, 05:08:21 PM
I have a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750w, Will the work?
What do you have in your system... mb, dvd/cds, hard disks, floppys, fans, etc everything that gets power
Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: Wing19 on October 04, 2009, 05:18:55 PM
Here is my system if that helps

Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
EVGA 132-YW-E178-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI FTW ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8500 - Retail Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
G.SKILL 4GB (4 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-2GBPI
PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply compatible
Nvidia 9800GT SLI
DVD burner
Coolmax V8
Title: Re: New Video Card (What to Buy)
Post by: Wing19 on October 04, 2009, 09:34:50 PM
just checked out you wed site, pretty nice :rock