WANT

10/22/2010 6:44:04 AM

2x (two) Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 1GB PCI Express Video Cards $324 after MIRs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.513966

n/m, I guess you can get 2x (two) EVGA versions for the same price and only 1 rebate.

[Edited on October 22, 2010 at 4:21 PM. Reason : .]

10/22/2010 4:19:24 PM

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/09/nvidia-geforce-gtx-580-reviewed-what-the-gtx-480-should-have-b/

580 is out! I'm glad my 2 460's still win out.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/19934/13

So basically it's still a better deal to get x2 460's for around $400 then get a 580 for $500.

11/9/2010 10:03:39 AM

^I was thinking about upgrading my GTX295 to a 580

think it's worth it, if I resold my 295 (if that's even feasible)?

11/10/2010 12:33:56 AM

@JK: Out of the last 25 sold between Oct 31 and today; used gtx 295's on ebay, the average was about $245, with 400 being max and 175 being min. I'm sure if you throw it up and put a reserve price for 250 or buy it now option, you could offload it fairly easily.

In terms of 580, it looks badass and a nice 10% performance gain from 480's, but remember, it's a new card and puts a hefty premium on the flagship. It's suppose to be about 500, but looks more like $540-560 from retailers. If you can squeeze $300 from your old card, that's still a good $200-260 more for the 580.

Granted you get a big boost, a little more than double the performance, but looks like 2x 460 or 470's still win. Personally, I'd go with 460 SLI than one 580 from the jump of your 295 if I was dead set on upgrading. To me, I'd stick with a 295 for another generation or so before a jump, but I like to stretch my $$$ a little more these days.

[Edited on November 10, 2010 at 8:55 AM. Reason : ]

11/10/2010 8:54:28 AM

I would wait for AMD to put out the 6970. Actually, why are you upgrading? The card you have will play 99% of the games out.

11/10/2010 3:37:08 PM

^that's what I'm saying. 295 is still plenty fast, shit my 8800gts still most games just fine.

11/10/2010 5:02:29 PM

i don't like the high-end cards, they're never worth the money, 2x mid-range cards are almost ALWAYS faster and cheaper anyhow.

[Edited on November 10, 2010 at 5:12 PM. Reason : .]

11/10/2010 5:03:17 PM

I've been considering a switch to amd as well. I get video related crashes in pretty much all my games these days. Starcraft 2 black screens, metro 2033, bad company 2, stalker (well stalker crashes for everyone). Drivers are updated regularly so I have no clue. I'm hoping an upgrade will clear up my issues.

11/10/2010 5:17:13 PM

^Weird that's the opposite for me. I've always had issues with AMD cards and never with Nvidia cards.

Quote :

"i don't like the high-end cards, they're never worth the money, 2x mid-range cards are almost ALWAYS faster and cheaper anyhow."

This is true and what I'm currently doing.

On the other hand if you invest in 2 midrange cards then you're SOL when you want to upgrade (limited to 2 cards in SLI with the 460's.)

If you went with a single 580gtx for a little more you could be happy with that for a while then instead of completely getting new hardware get a second 580gtx in the future and be back on top.

11/10/2010 5:54:03 PM

^never happens.

typically when you want to upgrade you don't go out and buy a 3rd card, or 2nd card, typically months pass, new architecture, and you go from 2x SLI to 2x newer cards in SLI, or like JK, jump from GTX295 to 580

i'm not going to pay a $150 premium for a high-end card that's not as fast as two mid-range cards "just so I can upgrade" later... that's absurd.

[Edited on November 10, 2010 at 6:02 PM. Reason : .]

11/10/2010 6:01:44 PM

Yeah I guess. I bought my first 8800gtx in 2007 then got a second one for dirt cheap in 2009 and the performance from the second one put it back on top in 2009. Worked great for me.

Then again right now I have the two 460's. So in a year or 2 I guess I'll have to get two entirely new cards.

[Edited on November 10, 2010 at 6:56 PM. Reason : s]

11/10/2010 6:54:54 PM

yeah I agree with Pro, if you don't buy two cards for SLI/Crossfire straight off the bat, and go with the plan "I'll get one now and one later down the road for an upgrade", it usually never works out unless you get a 2nd card within 6 months. These cards generally last a generation which can be 6-18 months. Usually it's easier and cheaper to just upgrade it all at once then trying the "save now and buy later" approach.

Also, I've had some issues with AMD's latest drivers that came out in late October and had to recover to the previous versions. Driver kept failing and crashed a few games. The good thing is that windows 7 is pretty good at changing graphic drivers without any issues on the fly.

11/10/2010 10:30:29 PM

Well it worked great for me. Getting an 8800gtx then a second one more than 2 years later. Put the pair back close to the top in terms of performance.

11/11/2010 8:57:19 AM

Upgraded the guts of my PC, thinking it was a motherboard failure. Now thinking it was the PSU all along as after I put the new stuff in last night, on power up it sort of stutters, like a car trying to start. I get power to the fans, etc, but briefly and intermittently. Same problem occurs regardless if it's only the CPU and chassis fan or if everything is hooked up. Don't have a voltmeter or anything to test the PSU, though.

Sucks.

11/18/2010 8:28:46 AM

I bought an 8800 GTS 640MB back in Q1 2007 with the intention to do what neodata did. I still have just the one card and my 775 motherboard just died slightly out of warranty. So now it's time to upgrade again.

11/18/2010 8:53:05 AM

Ive a GA-EP35-DS3P board Im hoping to stay with but I need to replace the vid card. 8800 GTS. Board is PCIExpress v1. Most cards now are v2.

Im not seeing much but does v2 backport to v1?

If so, or otherwise, whats a good card to replace it with, or should I look into getting a new board?

11/19/2010 11:49:04 AM

Been running stable at 4 GHz for a few months now.

Ready to put this thing through its paces. What is the most demanding title out right now? Still Crysis?

11/19/2010 12:03:45 PM

Crysis is just to max out GPUs, AFAIK. Though maybe a good balance of both.

Metro 2033, Cryostasis, FSX, World in Conflict, GTA IV I think are more CPU demanding.

[Edited on November 19, 2010 at 12:34 PM. Reason : .]

11/19/2010 12:31:46 PM

^^Yeah more and more games are GPU bound. Overclocking doesn't do as much these days. Why I haven't put going above my stock 3.2 a priority.

11/19/2010 1:11:02 PM

what's a good budget AMD processor? i figure there's no reason not to go quad (i'm leery of triple core chips and for the difference in price i might as well skip dual)

intel's i-series is still too expensive for what you get, IMO...it's not for me, though if i were to upgrade from my c2d, i'd still probably go with AMD

i guess i'm trying to decide if deneb (which has an L3 cache) is worth the premium over propus

11/19/2010 4:52:58 PM

quick!

AMD Phenom II X4 925 Deneb 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W quad-core
ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX motherboard
$160

OR

AMD Phenom II X3 740 Black Edition Heka 3.0GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W triple-core
ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX motherboard
$170

the motherboards are pretty much the same, but the second option has onboard video and 2 fewer USB 2.0 ports on the back...the triple core is an almost guaranteed unlock

long ago, i decided i'd never have another motherboard without onboard video...not because i use it, but on the off chance that the video card dies (or the slot goes bad) and i need it ASAP, i want to be able to use the computer...that said, i suppose i could always pick up a cheap PCIe video card to keep on hand

anyway, aren't these heka triple cores just denebs where one core didn't pass QC? anyone currently using a triple with an unlocked core?

[Edited on November 24, 2010 at 5:34 PM. Reason : nm, i picked up first one and a geforce 210 for $10 to keep around as a spare]

11/24/2010 5:13:51 PM

all i gotta say is i picked up the x4 965 and it is a beast. OC'd and been running strong for almost a year. AAA++++ would buy again

11/25/2010 12:09:36 AM

i have a radeon hd4870 right now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121276

i have an asus P5Q pro motherboard with E8500 intel core 2 duo 3.16 ghz proc.

saw some deals at best buy - http://bit.ly/hKM6vV

should i bother upgrading? everything i want to play right now plays just fine on this card but if there's a good deal to upgrade and some great game is coming out soon that i want to play, i'll kick myself for not looking into it.

[Edited on November 25, 2010 at 2:03 AM. Reason : .]

11/25/2010 2:02:53 AM

lol at the 9800 gt on sale for $90.

11/25/2010 3:43:47 AM

PNY GeForce GTX 460 Overclocked 1GB (XLR8 Black Box) PCIe Video Card
http://www.jr.com/pny/pe/PNY_VCGGTX4601X

Single card = $186 - $30 MIR = $146
SLI (2x) = $362 - $60 MIR = $302

Coupon: geico10 = $10 off

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 1:40 PM. Reason : .]

11/29/2010 1:39:57 PM

damn $302 for a combo that will still crush a 580GTX.

11/29/2010 1:50:21 PM

If anyone is looking at upgrading:
http://www.dailytech.com/Get+Radeon+HD+6970+for+Price+of+HD+6950+Via+Firmware+Unlock/article20485.htm

12/28/2010 11:17:15 AM

Just ordered 4 more tBytes. Wooohoo!!

12/28/2010 2:51:32 PM

I need a 24 gigabit switch. Can someone recommend one for me? This will be installed in my home and will not be stressed all that much. I was looking at this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817111031

12/28/2010 7:20:17 PM

^^^ it's pure ignorance on my part but that's the kind of stuff that makes me wonder how practices like that aren't completely illegal

[Edited on December 28, 2010 at 7:43 PM. Reason : ]

12/28/2010 7:43:04 PM

jailbreaking has been around for years, it's no different. unlock the software, flash with new, enable features that the hardware is made for.

12/28/2010 8:29:44 PM

there is (or should be) nothing immoral or illegal about doing whatever you want (within reason, of course) with a product you paid for and own in its entirety

12/28/2010 9:42:18 PM

I'm always the last to know, but in case other people haven't:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/31/intel-finds-sandy-bridge-chipset-design-flaw-shipments-stopped/

1/31/2011 1:47:29 PM

overclocking should be illegal

1/31/2011 1:58:06 PM

^^yea, just wait til end of February to buy a Sandy chip and you should be ok.

1/31/2011 2:05:19 PM

yeah, I was about to order a Sandy chip last week and upgrade, but then my better half was like "no no no, I have fast enough". Well it was more like I couldn't pawn the i7 and mobo off to my friend in time before my reasoning chip clicked on. lol

1/31/2011 2:22:19 PM

i'll probably jump on the i5 2500K later this summer. i'm on a Core2Duo 8500 and it still performs great.

1/31/2011 2:31:17 PM

why not the i7 2600k? I mean $330 is a pretty good bargain for beating some of the current $1k chips.

1/31/2011 2:36:33 PM

Quote :

"yeah, I was about to order a Sandy chip last week and upgrade, but then my better half was like "no no no, I have fast enough". Well it was more like I couldn't pawn the i7 and mobo off to my friend in time before my reasoning chip clicked on. lol"

Don't you already have an i7?

It was my understanding that the i7 Sandy Bridge chips don't offer a performance increase over similarly clocked i7 9 series chips only a performance increase over the 8 series.

So if you have a 920, 930, 950 etc there's no reason to upgrade to Sandy Bridge because there's no performance increase. Only a decrease in power usage and better overclock-ability.

Quote :

"The Sandy Bridge performance chips will not be released untill 4th quarter 2011 along with a new socket motherboard and chipset... these will be the replacement for the X58 performance platform. Intel have also just upgraded their X58 motherboard offerings adding some life to the platform for the meantime DX58SO2 looks good but as yet we have not tested it. Take a close look at the resources on P67 chip motherboards as they are limited by comparison to X58 (pcie lanes/sharing etc)... the P67 is more aimed at the enthusiast rather than high performance. They may very well be suitable for a lot of users, but they are not a replacement in anyway for X58. Thats the reason for Intels newer X58 platform motherboards and a new cpu 990X."

So the performance Sandy Bridge chips won't be released until the end of the year. The current ones are just mid-range replacements.

[Edited on January 31, 2011 at 3:12 PM. Reason : g]

1/31/2011 3:05:49 PM

yeah, I got the 930, but even the performance of the 2600k is very close to a 980x for 1/3 the price. And yes, my reasoning clicked on before I did anything serious. It was but a thought since one of friends was looking to upgrade, but not right now. Could easily pawn the 930 and mobo for what I got them.

1/31/2011 4:25:26 PM

isn't the 2600k only 4 cores and the 980x is 6? You could overclock your 930 and get similar performance clock for clock as the 2600k or 980x.

I'd wait to upgrade until the end of 2011 when the x58 replacements are due out. Or after depending on performance increase.

1/31/2011 4:36:26 PM

yeah, it is. I didn't say it was a good idea to upgrade from i7 to the 2600k.

Shit if I do anything crazy, I'd go with dual xeon's.

1/31/2011 4:40:10 PM

yes we all want dual X5680s.

2/1/2011 9:54:23 AM

Hey guys I need some advice. Im looking to update my computer sometime soon. Is the next few months a good time to do it (after the new intel cpus come out)? Also I would like to get an SSD but the only thing im worried about is I run utorrent 24/7. Would a SSD be a good choice or would I kill it with my constant downloading? I do plan to have the torrent go straight to my other hard drive but Im not sure if that matters or not. Thanks for the help.

2/7/2011 3:42:22 PM

No, so long as the torrent is writing it's temporary files to the hard drive and not the SSD, it won't matter.

2/7/2011 4:07:48 PM

Killing an ssd by torrents? lol the only way is if you are downloading, writing, accessing a shit ton of information for years continuously, specially in a commercial setting. There is a finite level of writing and rewriting on ssd's, but hardly a worrisome thing. That's like saying you are worried about breaking down a new car after driving 100k miles even though you only drive 10k a year.

And yes, wait a few months till the new i7's get matured, plus them to iron out the design flaw.

2/7/2011 5:43:06 PM

Anyone an SLI expert? Lately I've been getting some crashing with my 460's. I have to turn off SLI to resolve the problem. Then I can turn it back on again and it's hard to tell why it happens again.

Error:



The cards aren't overheating and when I stress test them using benchmarking or while gaming they work fine. It's just random things that cause the computer to go haywire like watching a flash video or something. I might try reinstalling various things and narrowing down the problem.

The error is a kernel code and from what I understand it could be anything from a powersupply to a bad driver to ram. Sometimes when it crashes it completely kills the driver and I have to reinstall it. Might try rolling back too.

[Edited on February 7, 2011 at 6:06 PM. Reason : s]

2/7/2011 6:05:32 PM

should check the evga forums or overclockers. I'm sure ppl there would have some insight.

2/7/2011 9:05:35 PM

Yeah been messing around with it. Not the ram or power supply. It works fine when gaming or stressing the GPUS both in SLI and swapping between each individually. I'm pretty sure it's software or driver related.

2/7/2011 9:12:22 PM