Waiting for Fermi

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princeton

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Hi,

So I'm going to pick up a new video card. I can't decide whether to get the ATI HD 5870 or to wait for Nvidia's Fermi chip. Does anyone have any advice?
 
Wait till the Fermi range is released. Once that happens, you have a wider choice and could also expect the prices of the Radeon HD 5000 series to drop.
 
Wait till the Fermi range is released. Once that happens, you have a wider choice and could also expect the prices of the Radeon HD 5000 series to drop.

also another offtopic thing. I have a choice of cpus. Its either an AMD Phenom II X4 965 or an intel i5-750. On the intel motherboard http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130239 I get SLI and crossfire support on LGA 1156(I know the 1 X16 or X8,X8 thing). But the AMD board also draws my attention. I need to choose between crossfire or SLI on the amd though so I was thinking the intel would be a better choise. Two questions. Is LGA 1156 still alive?( I know about new core i3,i5 ect) or would AM3 still be a better choice.
 
The nVidia Fermi 480 and 470 will be out by end of March beginning of April

Price US dollar for 480 version is 679.99

I don't know the price of the 470 though. Im guessing 499 dollars.. Yall need to sell a liver to buy this card lol
 
...I don't know the price of the 470 though. Im guessing 499 dollars.. Yall need to sell a liver to buy this card lol

and a spare kidney...to pay the psychic to find you the card in retail.

@Princeton
LGA1156 is still a viable platform. AM3 will possibly offer more going forward if you plan on upgrading again in the short-medium term, although this depends upon whether you think going from a four core CPU to a six core is going to be of any tangible benefit, and whether the upgrade is likely to financially viable.
As for the SLI / Crossfire thing....A single GPU card is more than enough for virtually any game at present. Multi-GPU driver support typically lags behind that of single GPU's, which can be infuriating if you've just picked up the latest game. The elephant in the room is however, the likely cost of Crossfire/SLI, unless you plan on buying two mainstream cards to deliver an enthusiast card gaming performance. In reference to Fermi, the chances of most people procuring two cards (outside of a few tech review sites...tho I hope Techspot is in the queue for that) are going to be both extremely rare and hugely expensive.

My advice would be to get the best performing (in the app's you use) system you can for now that is within your budget. Weigh up processor ability (here's a recent review of 131 CPU's -in French, so Google translate.Graphs are self explanatory) with any features you might want the system to incorporate (USB3, SATA 6Gb, connectivity etc.), rather than a possible upgrade path which may, or may not be viable as the time approaches.
 
and a spare kidney...to pay the psychic to find you the card in retail.

@Princeton
LGA1156 is still a viable platform. AM3 will possibly offer more going forward if you plan on upgrading again in the short-medium term, although this depends upon whether you think going from a four core CPU to a six core is going to be of any tangible benefit, and whether the upgrade is likely to financially viable.
As for the SLI / Crossfire thing....A single GPU card is more than enough for virtually any game at present. Multi-GPU driver support typically lags behind that of single GPU's, which can be infuriating if you've just picked up the latest game. The elephant in the room is however, the likely cost of Crossfire/SLI, unless you plan on buying two mainstream cards to deliver an enthusiast card gaming performance. In reference to Fermi, the chances of most people procuring two cards (outside of a few tech review sites...tho I hope Techspot is in the queue for that) are going to be both extremely rare and hugely expensive.

My advice would be to get the best performing (in the app's you use) system you can for now that is within your budget. Weigh up processor ability (here's a recent review of 131 CPU's -in French, so Google translate.Graphs are self explanatory) with any features you might want the system to incorporate (USB3, SATA 6Gb, connectivity etc.), rather than a possible upgrade path which may, or may not be viable as the time approaches.

Thanks ill check that out.
 
If you're looking for a multi GPU setup I would say that ATI seems to scale a bit better than nVidia.

Both the i5 750 and X4 965 are excellent processors. Benchmarks show that the i5 is a lttle superior. My only issue is that Intel tends to change sockets fairly quickly. For now, AMD is fully committed to AM3. Like DBZ said, going forward AMD build might provide better upgrade paths. The MSI GD70 has a lot of features and is a very good board to OC on.

I recently built a system using the i5 750 + MSI GD65 for a friend. It performs very well.
 
If you're looking for a multi GPU setup I would say that ATI seems to scale a bit better than nVidia.

Both the i5 750 and X4 965 are excellent processors. Benchmarks show that the i5 is a lttle superior. My only issue is that Intel tends to change sockets fairly quickly. For now, AMD is fully committed to AM3. Like DBZ said, going forward AMD build might provide better upgrade paths. The MSI GD70 has a lot of features and is a very good board to OC on.

I recently built a system using the i5 750 + MSI GD65 for a friend. It performs very well.
Why does everybody spout off that "Intel chamges sockets fairly quickly"? My 5 year old Emachine is socket 775, as are my four other machines, which I build one of each year to amuse myself.; Socket 775 is still viable, although granted it's on its way out. This AMD AM3, AM3 939 nonsense is BS, Nobody seems to notice that.
 
Indeed LGA775 still has a full tank of gas. It's obviously not going out of style with Intel either judging by the number of new SKU's still making their way into retail, including a new E6700 (3.2GHz, 2Mb L2 (as opposed to the old(ish) E6700 -65nm).
A stable, well matured platform. I'm refurbishing a number of Core 2 Duo/Quad + 965P/P35/P45 systems on a regular basis as these "cast-off" 1-2 year old systems are turned into orphans at the expense of LGA1156/1366/AM3.....My present workbench space-hogger is a Q6700 + P5K Premium, which along with 4Gb DDR2-800 (admittedly all second hand) cost my customer less than a Core i7 920 CPU and is still a potent combination.
 
Indeed LGA775 still has a full tank of gas. It's obviously not going out of style with Intel either judging by the number of new SKU's still making their way into retail, including a new E6700 (3.2GHz, 2Mb L2 (as opposed to the old(ish) E6700 -65nm).
Yes indeed, one of the new "Wolfdales in sheep's (Pentium) clothing". Intel has a new T-4400 Pentium mobile, along with an older T-6600 "C2D", They differ only in cache spec, but still the argument is prosecuted that the T-6600 must be faster because it's called a "Core 2 Duo". I have one of the E6300 "Pentium" (2.8 Ghz) which yields a Windows 7 "experience" rating of 6.2 @ stock speed. It's an LGA 775, and I think they've more than given me my 72 bucks worth.
 
People usually do not analyze their actual computing needs, instead they want something to brash about; frankly I have never built a top of the line system for my self since I started using computers about 22 years ago, because I do not feel the need to spend for something which I will never use to its full potential.

Sometimes I wonder this can be compared with what they say about men with expensive/sports cars i.e. the bigger the engine/more expensive car; the smaller the vegetable thing is ....... hmmm; something to think about captain isn't it :D
 
People usually do not analyze their actual computing needs, instead they want something to brash about; frankly I have never built a top of the line system for my self since I started using computers about 22 years ago, because I do not feel the need to spend for something which I will never use to its full potential.

Sometimes I wonder this can be compared with what they say about men with expensive/sports cars i.e. the bigger the engine/more expensive car; the smaller the vegetable thing is ....... hmmm; something to think about captain isn't it :D
Nor have I built myself such a system. I'm actually quite happy with my old Emachines desktop. It doesn't expedite coding and burning DVDs like my dual core machines, but it's dependable, day in, day out for the web and such.

I laugh sometimes at people who think it's the game box and not the skill of the gamer which dictates the outcome. More or less, "I lost, so it's the computers fault", never taking into account that it may be lack of skill responsible. So, I guess the computer gets to be the whipping boy for the owners ego.

Myself I'm a fan of integrated graphics. I keep trying unsuccessfully to convince myself that I need a whiz bang video card, especially if I'm going to try and run "Scrabble" well. Or perhaps M$ Train Simulator. I just grabbed an i3-530 from Microcenter for 99.95, and I'm hoping that it will run Blu-Ray well. Yup, I passed on the "Extreme Edition i7-9 something or other" again this year. After I build a mainstream cheapo from that, I'm going to kick back and wait for "Avatar" to be released, which will provide the necessary excuse to cop a BD drive.

As to the rest of it, since I can't afford to overcompensate, I dare not give give too much thought to whether I need too or not. :rolleyes: Besides, when you get my age, it's tough to sell your vegetable, whether it's "crisp" or not.
 
who wants extra crispy!?

As to the rest of it, since I can't afford to overcompensate, I dare not give give too much thought to whether I need too or not. Besides, when you get my age, it's tough to sell your vegetable, whether it's "crisp" or not.

maybe line of the year :haha:

I especially like those who proclaim that they "built the machine" the genius is obviously those who came up with the architecture and manufacturing of the components. the rest of us are merely 'assemblers'
 
captaincranky said:
Why does everybody spout off that "Intel chamges sockets fairly quickly"?

My bad Cap. I should have been more specific. I just felt that the LGA 1156 and 1366 can cause (and has caused) some confusion at times. In all probability Intel is going to keep the LGA 1366 socket as its flagship although they have released some excellent CPUs for the 1156. The hexa-core processors are only going to be for the 1366. That's why, when someone is looking to pick a CPU, i becomes a difficult choice if upgrade options are to be considered.

On the other hand the newer AMD CPUs are going to be AM3. Also, the current AM3 CPUs are backward compatible with AM2+.

And yes, the LGA 775 is still very much alive. However some of the better 775 CPUs are more expensive than a Core i5 750.
 
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