Graphic card choice...

[Josh]

OK guys, so i have specked up a PC on the build your own desktop and i am happy with the rest of the components just need some help on the graphics cards. I am wondering whether to get 2 1GB ATI RAEDON HD 5870s, or just get 1 4GB ATI RAEDON HD 6990. I want it to be the most powerful at running top games on top settings with no problem. If anyone could help out it would be much appreciated.

P.S. If anyone knows of a better graphics card combo i would love to hear it

 

[Gorman]

If you are determined to get a dual gpu setup you may as well go for the 6990 as its not much more than two seperate 5870's.

As far as better combo's go i would say SLI 570's.

http://www.tested.com/news/radeon-6990-vs-radeon-6970-crossfire-vs-gtx-570-sli/1985/

As good as a 6990, cheaper and you get drivers that work, PhysX and Cuda support. I would only recommend the 6990 if you want to use lots of screens.

 

[Josh]

I was only planning on a single monitor setup. So did you suggest that i use 2 Radeon 6970s in crossfire?

 

[LFFPicard]

To be honest I would just got for a single GTX580 and drop another one in next year or something.
The 580 will run all current games with ease and will be far far cheaper than a 6990.

 

[Josh]

That's the thing, I was building it up to be a top spec for future games, hoping it would last for a long time.. Until i start earning enough anyway. So i just tweaked my spec and it now looks like this

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 912 PLUS MID TOWER GAMING CASE

Overclocked CPU
OVERCLOCKED AMD PHENOM II X6 1090T (3.20GHz @ MAX 3.80GHz)

OC Settings
AI OVERCLOCK TUNER: MANUAL
CPU RATIO: 19.0
AMD TURBO CORE/HT LINK: DISABLED
CPU BUS FREQ: 200
PCIE FREQ: 100
DRAM FREQ: 1333
CPU VOLTAGE: 1.4000
COOL N QUIET: DISABLED
C1E SUPPORT: DISABLED

Motherboard
ASUS® M4A89TD PRO/USB3 : DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, CrossFireX

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD6970 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable

2nd Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD6970 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NONE

Memory Card Reader
NONE

Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W PRO SERIES GOLD (AX1200) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£206)

Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£49)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
Bigfoot Killer 2100 PCI-E Gigabit LAN Card - Max Performance Online Gaming (£67)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Comes out at around £1600

 

[LFFPicard]

If you want top spec for gaming and something that will last a while then Intel is a better choice

Sorry I am Team Intel.

Also if your throwing all that at it and you don't have a SSD? Blasphemy!

 

[Josh]

Im a bit of a newbie and have no idea what the difference between a HDD and an SSD would do for my system...

 

[LFFPicard]

The difference is for example...

Bad Company 2 map loading on a HDD = about 30-45seconds.
Bad Company 2 map loading on a SSD = 10-20 seconds. Maybe less.

The top of the line SSD can read data at a massive 500mb a second. a standard HDD can achieve less than half of this if memory serves.
Unfortunatley SSD's are pricey, but they are lightning fast! The cheapest models are the OCZ Vortex drives about £10-20 cheaper and faster than the same level Intel drives. The new Intel drives though are the super duper fast drives with a big price tag on them.

OCZ Vortex drives will still be a hell of a lot faster than a standard hard drive.

 

[Josh]

Ah i changed it for this:
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 510 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 450MB/sR | 210MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5002AALX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200rpm)

Would i need RAID for this?Also how is SATA 6GBS superior to SATA 3GBS?

 

[LFFPicard]

Very very good choice, that Intel 510 is the fasted drive on the market! Windows will load super fast and you got room for a few of your fav games on there too.

As for 6GB/s and 3GB/s it's all about bandwidth, most likely you will notice a difference in transfer speeds and copy/paste of large files etc.

 

[russellg]

With the latest SSD's (including the Intel 510) you need a SATA 6 connection to get the full potential.