Drunkard's Walk Forums

My bank account has taken a nosedive... but it was worth it!

My PC (3Ghz Athlon dual-core, 4GB DDR2-800), has had the same graphics cards since I got it... a pair of Geforce 6600 GTs- 128MB cards.

I have just ordered a Geforce GTX 280. I already have the Lian Li full tower case (which is a work of art- seriously, it's a black monolith of brushed
aluminum) and the dedicated graphics power supply.

By Friday, I will be making Mass Effect, Oblivion, and UT3 beg for mercy. My days of envying others' PCs are at an end.

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

OOOOOOOoooooooo

how much did that bad mammajamma run you?
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

The case is $200-ish (but worth every penny), the power supply cost $70, and my precious... I mean the card is $650. The card is so good, it comes with a copy
of Assassin's Creed.

The other stuff ran about another $600 in total, but that was a while ago.

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

only 650?

Excellent! I'm about 5-9 months out from getting one, then, I'll set my price point at ...$450!
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

The GTX 280 is roughly equivalent to the 9800 GX2 right now, beating it in some ways, but not others. Some of it is that the drivers for the 280 aren't
optimized yet, but the rest is that it's a single card, while the GX2 is a dual card. Which one is best is a matter of choice right now.

If you're looking for something future-proof, go with the 280. If you just want enough brute force to make today's games beg for mercy, the 9800 GX2
will do that, and for $470-$500 as of right now.

Just thought I'd mention that, in case you don't want to wait for the price to drop that much.

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

the problem with the GX2 is that it's an SLI setup - and that's always been a no-no for me.

Yeah, I know, it works, but I'm just not interested.

the 280 is going to be the way of the walk for me.

Edit: Upgrading from a GeForce 8800gts/640mb (the old core). Going to see some, but not massive, performance increases.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

Got it completed. The case is brilliant- the fans are very quiet, especially compared to the dull roar of my old ones, and keep the GPU cool easily. It was
55 degrees Celsius after playing Mass Effect with all settings near-maxed on 1280x1024 for 45 minutes.

The GTX 280 was running Mass Effect with all settings near-maxed on 1280x1024, and the only issues I saw were occasional graphical artifacting, which I credit
to the newness of the drivers, and the occasional (once every minute or so) hitch in framerate. Both will be fixed with a driver update (the current version
is slightly past mine, but I'm waiting for the one after that).

Unreal Tournament 3 is even better looking, and ran smoother to boot on maxed settings. I'm fairly sure that the artifacts I was seeing in Mass Effect
were driver/game incompatibility, because this one looks good.

I played Crysis for an hour on Medium settings (High textures/models, 2x AA added) without a hitch. It looks beautiful, and plays just as well. I'm
fairly sure I could crank a few more settings to high as well, and will experiment on my next session. The GTX 280 is well cooled- it was 66 degrees C by the
end, and cooled down to 49 within two minutes of leaving the game. My 6600 GTs idled around 60 and generally played games in the 70s, so this is very good
news. In game, the card started emitting a high-pitched whining noise, presumably from its fan going at high speed. This was fairly easily noticeable over my
case fans, but far quieter than my old fans at normal speed.

Assassin's Creed also got an hour of play, and kept to the same standards of everything else. I played it on near-maxed settings with no problems for
about an hour, but then got some intermittent minor artifacting in the upper-left corner of my view. Quitting allowed me to check my temp, which was the same
66 degrees that Crysis generated. Odd. The game plays quite well for a port of a console game, especially if you have a 5-button mouse. After about 20
minutes, the controls just click, and everything makes sense- mind you, I was happy for the tutorial during those 20 minutes... which is just about the length
of the introduction/tutorial.

I'll update soon with impressions on World In Conflict, Oblivion, and HL2. This is my weekend, so I have plenty of time to mess with this.

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.