The Glade 4.0

So I am looking to upgrade my video card in preparation for Skyrim. I generally be sure to read a ton of user reviews to get a fairly good idea about a card before buying it. I did run across one review on newegg that made me smile.

Pros: Plays minecraft on ultra settings!

Cons: Creepers blow up in real time.....

Other Thoughts: Minecraft runs as if im living in notches basement, the power of 1000 suns could not equal the level of skeletal archer booty I kick with this new card. Creepers however have become much more powerful with a more powerful card.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Look at gpureview.com

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In time, this too shall pass.

Just get a GTX-580... you'll be set for a while.

Or an ATI card. Because nVidia sucks ***.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Not in my house. ATI has always, time and time again, failed more than a one-legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen pond.

Three chances, three strikes. They are outta here.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Care to elaborate regarding the fail? For my new PC (looking at a buy in about 90-120 days right now) I'm looking at an ATI card; based on Taly's opinion I'm most likely going for a single card, either the 6970 or 6990 dual GPU card. I've owned ATI/AMD cards in the past and had decent luck, and the prices seem to be comparable to or better than the nVidia cards.

Once I switched from trying to use nVidia cards and a hex-core Intel CPU and went for an AMD hex-core and a 6970 (the highest available card when I started playing with it; now the question is whether to spring for a 6990, which would add over $400 to the machine) I dropped my expected price from over $3000 for everything, monitor and all to being able to get something with all the bells and whistles I want for $2300-$2500.

I don't have the knowledge to say either brand sucks; just that the nVidia cards strike me as overpriced.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

When ATI cards used to use an additional power connection the connectors and wire guages were too small for the load. I had several like that, but the latter models were just fine.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I will concede the point that ATI cards in the past have had spotty performance. But I've found ATI (actually AMD now) cards to be much, MUCH better since AMD bought out ATI a few years ago. Drivers are better, and much like the AMD/intel CPU battle, you tend to get a lot more bang for your buck with the Radeon cards these days.

My last 2 video cards have been Radeons, and I've had no problems at all. Really enjoying my 6870 so far.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

The more I think about it, the more I don't think I'm going to be able to avoid the temptation of springing for the 6990. I expect it to pretty much demolish any current game, but I want plenty of power in reserve for the future.

I also have to confess a large part of it is that I want, for once, to have the absolute top of the line in some regard. That nVidia 590 card is tempting as well, but I get the impression that the ATI 6970 has very well-balanced performance all around, and since the 6990 is basically 2 6970s but put together in a single card....

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Buying top of the line puts you on a roller coaster you'll possibly regret.

But, it does feel good.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Lots of different things. Games where certain cards were supposed to perform well, they did not. Newer and "better" drivers generally made things worse. I chalked it up to being a fault of just one card's hardware and drivers. But then another different card and model was tried further down the road with similar results. And then I married a person whom I bought another ATI card for, similar results.

Maybe AMD finally has a great product now. I wouldn't know, or care to know. They burned me enough times for me to not glance at them. And it will stay that way until nvidia falls so far behind AMD that it is pathetic.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

To be fair, at least one of those instances was attempting to play a game hard-coded to make itself look worse on ATi hardware during its initial release.

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CoH wasn't the dealbreaker. Thief was.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I'm not planning on trying to stay at the top of the line. I'm planning on 7 years down the road being "below average, but still workable" by buying top of the line now. I'm also thinking of just getting the single 6970 now and down the road putting in a second one when the price drops. It'd be fairly close in performance as far as I can tell. I ahve no idea what the difference is between a single dual-core card and 2x individual Crossfire cards, assuming the basic properties are essentially just doubled from one to the other.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

7 might be pushing it for that goal. It's hard to say, since recent years have been skewed due to consoles and the cross-platform stagnation they've engendered.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

7 years down the road your video card is going to be a steaming pile of ****. I don't care what you buy.

Sorry, DE, but I agree with the others. There is no way you'll be using that Video card, or anything it's attached to in seven years...

Unless of course you are still running exactly the same versions of the same software. :p

I'm sure I'll update the drivers, but we ARE still using the desktop I bought in 2004, and at the time I plan on buying this thing that will make it just a hair over 7 years. Granted, it runs like *** anymore and I mostly use my laptop, but the only reason we have those is that I needed one when I deployed, and then I needed a new one after what deployment did to the old one; otherwise I probably would still be using the old desktop (since without the deployment I couldn't have afforded it).

Still, 7 years could easily be an exaggeration. If I get 4 or 5 years I'll be happy.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Technology will not increase at the same rate between 2011 and 2018 as it did from 2004 to 2011....

I might not be exaggerating if I said that your 2018 smartphone (or whatever) will have more graphics processing ability than your 2011 PC does.

Heh.. perhaps, but it will still have that tiny-ass screen!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

In 7 years an Intel processor with integrated graphics will be as good or better than any dedicated video card you buy now. So by then having a video card that isn't top-end is just a waste of power, and could even hurt performance. There's also lots of unforeseen things that could obsolete your video card in under 7 years. I would plan for 3 or 4 max, unless your 7 year plan includes 4 years of just web browsing.



Actually, if you look at the progression of GPUs then it fits on a nice exponential curve. The skew you see is that games cater towards console hardware.

edit:

Consolidating posts

That's what I meant, Lex. I was talking about his metric of being able to get by, being "below average, but still workable," not commenting on the power relationship between old and new 7 years down the line.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

To be perfectly clear, 7 years is an outside number, pretty much an extreme. I would have preferred to replace this desktop some time ago, but we couldn't afford it, especially with having the laptops which (as I explained) were a necessity. At the time I bought the laptops I really didn't understand that when it was referring to their graphics processing ability it was talking about integrated graphics, and in that regard I rather got boned.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So did you choose one yet, Numbuk?

I am debating the GTX 6990 versus the 6970 in Crossfire.

6990:
A) Is just one (double GPU) card
B) Appears to consume about 100 watts less power
C) Because it consumes less power, allows for a less powerful power supply, thus saving money

2x 6970
A) Offers slightly better graphical performance due to slightly higher clock setting, even with the 6990 set to BIOS 1 which is faster, because the memory is still faster in the 6970
B) Is supposedly quieter
C) Despite costing more if the cards were bought independently, is slightly less expensive when purchased on cyberpower or ibuypower as part of a customized computer

The only thing faster than 2x 6970s would be nVidia 580s in SLI, several triple card combos, or quard-GPU combos using 2x dual GPU cards, and all of those are prohibitively expensive.

I'm also considering going with a single 3GB nVidia 580, which would still be exceedingly powerful, and be less expensive than either the 6990 or the 2x 6970. However, I want the system to be as future-proof as I can possibly afford so this is the solution only if the budget absolutely demands.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

yeah, I decided not to go super high end. went with the superclocked gtx 560

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!