It counts for something with benchmarks. The point is, benchmarks have jack to do with real world gaming. If, in any real world situation, a factory OC card does not allow you to increase detail settings or resolution while maintaining a playable framerate, what the hell does it matter if you get a few hundred extra 3dmarks? What return have you got for your extra money? Absolutely nothing that I can see.

it might seem like a small thing, but it's enough to register on my radar. i mean, i got a windowed case for a reason. i've always thought electronics look cool, but standard PCB green and Gigabyte turquoise don't exactly match. in fact, they clash.

honestly, the artistic side of me is a little annoyed that i can't do more to customize the interior look of my computer. i mean, i can do so much as it is, if i'm really motivated, but i can't do much about the color of PCB or memory, PCI or I/O ports. only a tiny little bit annoyed.

and to be fair, some companies do have some really nice looking boards. Gigabyte isn't one of them. the whole ketchup/mustard look of the RAM slots, paired with every shade of pastel neon possible on their I/O ports, all against the otherwise acceptable turquise blue... not pretty. DFIs look really nice, as do the very high end boards from nVidiophiles like eVGA and XFX (i like that black/alien green scheme they got). asus and abit look okay.

speaking of looks... i've done a little in the way of wire management so far, but only clipping things into place. now this is wire management. i have the same case. my PSU isn't as long, but otherwise is similar.

so i'm looking for a setup i can settle into for a while. i've cut back my usual lifestyle so i could afford to pay for this computer quickly, rather than being in debt for a year or more. but once i get to a point where i'm happy enough, i won't stop putting work into it. that'll be when i start to do stuff like that cable management mod, or the one i linked to a few pages ago: using a slimline DVD drive at the bottom of the case and a 3x120, circuitry-patterned grill on the entire front face of my case.

see a problem with that? well, it takes up the front of my entire case, meaning no room for a manual fan controller or external temp sensor. honestly, i'm thinking about going the do-it-myself route, and mod'ing my top panel--if possible, even modding in a window up there. it really depends on how ambitious i get. but since i'm planning to keep the case for a long time, i'm not in any major rush. one the other hand, i still haven't mentioned any of the ideas i've had regardling lighting in the back of the case

An interesting data point regarding PSUs . . . a test of the new Intel "Skulltrail" platform with a pair of QX9775 quadcores, 2 8800GTXs in SLI, 4 gb of ram, 2 big Zalman coolers and 2 hard drives, drew 589 watts from the wall at 100% system load.


And yet, if you believe the manufacturers' recommendations, you need a 750w psu for a system that's basically half of that. And some people are spending incredible amounts of money of 1000 or 1200w PSUs for single-processor systems that aren't even SLI half the time.

Dumb.

skulltrail... interesting name. but... does anyone really need 8 processing cores? what does that benefit? aren't most applications still single-threaded?

personally, i'd like to see intel do a chipset with support for one PCIe 2.0 slot. an 8800 GTS 512 won't be hampered significantly by signalling at 1.1, but with a dual GPU card like the 3870X2, it would i think. and currently intel only offers the X38 and 48 for 2.0, both of which are a lot more than i need (and rather expensive). nVidia has the, what is it, 680i? but their chipsets seem to have more "issues" than intel's, from what i've been reading.

but on PSUs, it's good not to run your PSU at 100% load all the time, right? i've read an overage of 10% is wise. so 590 + 59 = 649. to be sure, i probably wouldn't ever try that set up on a 650W PSU. is it also true that having more power than you need helps extend the life of your PSU?

i mean, i got a 700W and knew it was way more than i need. but i got a deal on it and paid less than i would've for a similar 500W. it also got pretty strong reviews, and came with modular cabling support.

3d modelling, animation, and video editing apps will use as many cores as you have, often limited not by the app itself but by the license -- although for the workstation this is often done on a per-socket basis, since just considering the number of cpu cores, a dual quadcore machine would require a render farm license in some cases otherwise.

I wouldn't run Skulltrail on a 650W either, but 750 would be more than sufficient I think. I also wouldn't run a psu at 100% load, but also consider than a lot of them don't reach their rated efficiency until they hit 80%. So having a 750W psu in a system that's only pulling 400W isn't just wasting money on the purchase, it's wasting power as well.

I know we can watch temps,.. fan speed and volts

How can you check how many watts you are pulling ???

You can buy a little meter that plugs into the wall socket, you plug your system into it to see the power draw. Your utility company might have them, otherwise you can probably get one at Radio Shack or your local equivalent.

Thanks ris669

I did not think it was as easy as adding software.

Nasty

i've been thinking about SLi and Crossfire. not thinking about doing it, just thinking about the technologies. they're not a bad technologies, they're just not cost effective (especially if you're just gaming). but still, it's there for professionals and for enthusiasts.

but back to the point, wondering about SLi. three 9800's in SLi on a 780i chipset will the the thing to have for nvidiophiles with money to burn. but among those who do have money for SLi, i've noticed cooling can be an issue. three double-wide cards basically only leaves you with one unobstructed expansion slot (typically a PCIe x1 at the top). these configuration also pose, uh, challenges to cooling. it'll be even worse with the 9800s; from what i understand, they're expected to be two GPUs are two separate PCBs smashed together into a double-wide design. as i've said before, i don't consider this nearly as elegant as ATI's solution, two dies on the same PCB, and i agree with Craig that neither is as elegant as the approach being taken with multi-core CPUs.

in either regard, this though occurred to me. if you're going to do triple SLi with 6 GPU cores, wouldn't it be tons easier to cool them all on a single PCB? i'm imaging this thing being parallel to the motherboard, with its three PCI connectors on the underside. i'm sure economics are the reason something like this would never see the light of day. the market for the highest-end graphics card is slim enough; the market for those who'd want to buy 3 of them probably wouldn't justify an integrated triple SLi solution - or even double (perhaps an integrated double SLi could be as simple as putting the GPU, RAM and other FETs on the top/back of the second, lower card and integrating the cooling of both). too bad for the enthusiasts, i guess.

PS: i got to thinking about this because i was browsing VGA cooling... has anyone else seen the Zalman VF1000 and RHS88? doesn't seem like something i couldn't achieve with individual heatsinks and some thermal glue.

also i read an interesting tip in some random forum. if you're looking for some small heatsinks for some random FETs or something, see if you can find a heatsink on an old piece of hardware. they're supposedly not too hard to cut up with a decent saw or dremel. i've got the low profile heatsink on my old Radeon X600 i might try using for this purpose; my MXZ saw should cut through it without issue.

okay, sorry to spam my own thread. as you may or may not know, one of the other threads i've started is a sort of a science chat i've used to help develop ideas for a hard sci fi setting, because i like writing and hope to write some good sci fi.

anyway, i just posted a (rather long) reflection on how i see comupter systems and usage potentially developing. some of my ideas definately lack a firm grasp of computer science, but i think my reflections on computer usage and interface are interesting and plausible at the very least.

here's a link to the most recent page of the thread, if anyone's interested:
bussard ramjets, cryonic stasis, and exoplanetary colonization (page 19)

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by the by, i'm not sure what's different, but Craig, it looks like the care you bought is now available for $209 on the egg: WWW Link. mysteriously, the clock speed spec has disappeared for the more expensive version of the card as well as this one. makes me suspect the model you bought is factory OC'ed, and this one isn't.

Man, you had me going there for a minute. Thought I spent a lot more for no reason. But I took a closer look and the model I bought is GV-NX88T512HP. The cheaper model you mentioned is GV-NX88T256HV. The obvious difference is 512MB vs. 256MB of video memory. Gigabyte doesn't list much detail on their products page so I don't know what other differences there may be. It probably has a lower core frequency as well. The model I bought has been deactivated on NewEgg, but I've seen them deactivate products then re-activate them later. It may just be they're unable to re-stock that particular model right now.

ahhh, there's the difference. man, those products flop around faster than i can keep track of 'em.

i was browsing Gigabytes webpage earlier this morning when i stumbled across and interesting product idea, Gigabyte's i-RAM storage device. here's a link to a review.

basically, it plugs into a PCI slot for power. you plug 4 184-pin RAM modules in, and it presents the memory as a SATA drive. it's got a lithium battery that'll keept he data safe while the computer if off for up to 15 hours. the RAM slots are oriented diagonally, so it'll fit in a standard width PCI slot, though you have to use plain-jane RAM w/o any heatspreaders. it shows improved performance over standard HDDs in the various benchmarks and tests they put it through on hothardware.com. i'd set you back about $130 + $180 for the cost of the memory modules (if you don't have any 1GB modules w/o heatspreaders laying around), but comapred to $700 for SATA SSD's, it's at least worth noting in that respect. it's also worth mentioning that read/write time for SSD storage devices benefit from RAID striping more much significantly than mechanical HDDs, but still... i have to agree with what my friend said. i told him about this thing, and he said it sounds like gigabyte's way of moving old, spare components

if i had the money to eek out slight and occasional performance gains, i think i'd be a little annoyed by what i'd consider a bad design decisions. if i really wanted to create a product designed to replace a standard HDD with RAM sticks, i'd go about it differently. first, i'd design it to fit in a 5" drive bay and (ideally) draw power from a standard SATA connection. the 5" bay should leave just enough clearence to align the RAM sticks perpendicularly (straight up). this could give you room for 6, maybe even 8 sicks on the same component. second, i'd use DDR2, 240-pin RAM. the largest capacity available for 184-pin RAM is 1GB/stick, but for about the same price, you can get 2GB/stick of DDR2, possibly even at 800 speed. i'd also opt for a SATA II connection (especially w/ faster RAM and more of it).

of course, i think it's a little moot with SSD HDD's on their way in. 2.5" SATA SSD's for laptops run in the $700 range for very small drive sizes now, but in the next few years i think we can expect to see them be much more affordable and considerably larger capacities. someone's also bound to come up with one in the 3.5" form factor, which will increase capacity simply by virtue of making more room. the i-RAM is an interesting product in my book, but mostly because i'm guessing it sort of represents an awkward growth phase, or a missing link if you will.

Sounds like a poor value. Spending money to get more hard drive speed has about the lowest bang-for-the-buck imaginable for computer upgrades (IMHO of course). I'd always choose more storage over faster, load times constitute a tiny percentage of my time on the PC.

Although . . . using a solid state drive to play Silent Hunter would probably do a lot to reduce my desire for an asteroid to land on UbiSoft's headquarters

My husband and I would agree with you about Ubisoft.
He has IL2 1946 and it will not run on his Vista machine.
Every ground target he attacks, using my XP machine, he pretends is Ubisoft HQ.

oh yeah poor value for sure. hard drives don't create a bottle neck frequenly enough for me to justify getting anything but a basic drive. i mean, if someone handed me a WD Raptor or something else, of course i'd give it a try. but the cost of faster storage is so high, it's just not worth it. if solid state storage becomes more resonable in coming years, maybe i'll consider it. it would be nice to have a really fast drive for booting windows and keeping games. but it's only a couple seconds here and there, and while i value my time, i don't value it that much.

I think solid state storage is a better technology. The only caveat right now is that hard drives are still much cheaper. I'm using 80GB drives that cost $40 a piece. That's cheap! I added an external SATA connector to my computer and use hard drives for backup media now. It's affordable and most convenient. If solid state drives can come close to competing with that kind of pricing, I would have no problem going that route. As far as external devices like those USB memory sticks, I don't have any need for something like that right now, but I can see how it would be highly convenient for sneaker net.

My 500GB was $99

Yea, hard drives used to be one of the most expensive components in your computer. Now they're about the least expensive. It's just wonderful. I bought 500GB drive for DVR and I think I paid $110 for it. Amazing.

I just scanned a 1997 PC Games article, an early preview of Unreal for my friends in a UT clan. Scroll down to the bottom, I've included a few advertisements to show the state of the art of hardware at the time

WWW Link

I took a look at that article and yea, hehe, things have moved along pretty quick since then. When I played the original Doom in the early 90's, there was no such thing as hardware accelerated 3D graphics. Consoles did little more than Donkey Kong. I remember a few of us gathered around a 14" CRT watching the game for the first time. I thought it was amazing.

I think Crysis refelects the state of the art right now. Things are starting to look pretty real in that game. Though you can still see the polygon effect a little bit. Based on how fast things have moved along, I would bet we'll see movie quality computer graphics in games soon. I think I read somewhere that a current high end system can render about a third the speed required.

OMG that's great. "4 MB of GRAPHICS MEMORY!!!"



for me, it's not a straight cost/GB issue. i like standard HDDs for exactly the reason you mention, they're really damn cheap. i would have bought a couple of those 500GB for a RAID1 array by now, but for now i can't do RAID. really, i can't kick myself enough for buying XP home instead of pro at the last second. c'est la vie, live and learn. april, or possibly may, and i'll probably buy the first drive next month alongside my next graphics card (split up the cost, and hopefully get a unit from a different batch, though i think newegg does that anyway when they ship multiple units).

beyond that, i'll probably just keep my 150 for windows and programs. i like learning about these various technologies, but i don't want more than 3 drives. maybe, maybe i'd put a WD raptor in there, if i got like a xmas present or something, but i don't think it's a big enough priority for me to shell out money for it when i could spend my extra cash on, well, something else. i want to stick to 3 HDDs to help keep heat and wire clutter down, and i can dedicate the top six bays to direct airflow (if and when i move my optical drive to a slimline deal at the bottom of the case).



so then give it about two years. that's moore's law, isn't it? that computing power doubles every 1.5 years. so, 1.5 years to get 2/3 there, and another .75 years to be all the way there. two years and 3 months for high-end systems.

i don't think it's quite that simple, but i do think there's progress being made. i believe i read or heard that nVidia recently aquired Ageia (sp?), makers of that physics processing unit. i'm hoping we'll see them integrate the technology into their VGA products without requiring a separate expansion slot (which would make some sense for nVidia, since they're trying to push triple sli systems on high-end users that only leave a single slot more, if at all, for other expansion cards).

i also read a year or two ago that some company was working on a chip to help process AI behavior in games for things like pathfinding and (one hopes) tactical movement.

we're not only getting closer to movie quality in terms of the way things looks, but also the way they act and react.

Not even close as far as I know. Depending on a the scene and resolution, a high end system would still be many minutes per frame for LOTR level CGI. That's why vfx companies have massive render farms.

if not the movies, then maybe mid-day scifi channel quality... actually, i think it's already moved past that.

Oh well, I guess that's still a long way off then. Let's see, a couple minutes has to drop to 1/30 of a second. So, a system would need to be 3600 times faster. Apply Moore's law to that!


Yea, hehe, some of those Sci-Fi stinkers have pretty cheesy CG effects.