Which Graphics card?

Ok I've decided on a 4870 1gb card (for those of you who know my situation, I have been kindly helped out so I can sort my dying pc out)

I'm looking at either the Sapphire or the Asus

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121290

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801

Could someone please enlighten me as to the main differences between the 2?
Specs are pretty much identicle, I know sapphire and trust them and I like Asus mobo's but have never had an Asus G/card.

Or any other suggestions for cards in this price range would be nice, I'm more after actual hands on opinions than spec reading, I've read the specs etc but that doesn't always mean it's good right?

@2BG...when you read this (cos I know you will lol) I'm gonna get the PSU you suggested if they get it in stock quick enough or I may have to go with the 700w.....the 600w wouldn't be enough would it?

 

Also, what are HIS and XFX like?

 

Dammit I missed the edit deadline lol

Ok I also need some input on PSU since the one I was going to get will not be available for about a month.

My needs:

AMD x2 6000 3.1
Asus M2A-vm
4870 1gb graphics
3gb ddr2 667
1 IDE HDD
1 External usb HDD
5 USB perfiferals
3 120mm fans

 

So this is your PC this time? lol

Well as far as Sapphire go they are the best for ATI cards, XFX are the best nVidia cards, closely followed by GIGABYTE. The thing is the GPU is the but the PCB it's set into is all up to the card manufacturer, you can get a 5-10FPS differance aparently between some companys.

As for the PSU, I have the 650W Extreme power (Duo) though no website (not even CoolerMaster's) actually say Duo :-D but the box does :confused

As long as it has similar specs the 600W PSU should be fine as with the 700W.

There maybe a slight hitch with your setup I noticed, I had the AMD Athlon 6000+ 3.1GHz with the 1GB 4870 (Sapphire) and an ASUS mobo, it didn't seem all that good, I never figured out what the problem was I simply put it down to the CPU bottlenecking the GPU's potential. Once I got my 9750 Pheom quad core it all worked alot better. I suppose it all depends on what you will be playing :-D

But as for you later post, i'd wait the month for the PSU, to get the one you need. Obviously it's a good PSU if they run out of them LOL

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

So you're saying the x2 6000 will hinder the 1gb 4870? Would I be better getting a 512 instead?
As for games I'll be playing, I'm a gamer, I play a whole host of games, Total wars, Dooms, FEARs, COD's, Jerico, GTA's etc etc, you name it, I play it so I want something thats gonna run these games well, I don't expect to run the latest FEAR at full spec and get 60fps but I don't want to go for another half arsed upgrade only to NEED to upgrade it for again for games released in 6 months time, been doing that for years. I'm gonna have about $500 to spend , I want another gig of ram to take it upto 3gb, thats only $15, so that leaves me basically $500 for graphics and PSU so about $400 "on page price (have to add sales tax and shipping)

And waiting a month for that PSU to be in stock.....I don't think my PC is gonna hold out that long lol, done some work on it today and it's getting pretty unstable and glitchy.

Basically I want the best card I can get perfomance wise for about $300 and a PSU that will run it, even if it's a PSU that might not last a year, I will be able to get a better PSU in a couple of months and then keep the one I buy now for a backup. So I need to know what kind of rails and wattage I need to run the above.....you've already given me that info but I'm stuck on brand names.

Something like this maybe?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817342014

Or this?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182088

 

Hey I found a new site lol

Hows this

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=14080BD8093

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11130AC9794

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11130AC7628 x2

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11230BD9653 (ordering this ram because I already have 2 gb of it and don't like mixing ram)

$433.46 including shipping and tax.

 

When you say "It didn't seem all that good" in what way do you mean? actual problems or it just wasn't running how you expected it to?
Could it possibly be that the board only had PCIE x16 when the card requires PCIE 2.0 x16? It is my understanding that a PCIE x16 running a 2.0 x16 will result the same as running it on a 2.0 x8. Maybe thats where it bottlenecks, on the mobo , not the chip?

 

Well I would still not go with anything else that can put you whole PC at risk, the thing is any said PSU thats not well known could last a day, a month or a year but it may just blow as sson as you play your first game or as soon as it's powered on.

You can use crappy PSU's with non gaming PC's just fine, but as soon as you put in a highdrain GPU such as the 4870 you need a gaming PSU. I found an Antec PSU here 85% efficency It's actually better than the CoolerMaster I suggested with 3 12V rails : http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371001

Hhm as for RAM, if it's fdor gaming i'd go with this:

I have the 1066MHz ver of these Kingston Hypers & they are very good: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104029

It basically with GTA IV in the graphics setup when I had the AMD 6000+ the max I could get was Medium texture detail, as soon as I got the Phenom 9750 I had the option of high textures, if you don't wanna upgrade too often i'd go quad right now, lots of games are starting to support faster & faster dual cores, so going quad will keep you ahead of the game. I am gonna be going for the Phenom II 940 as soon as I can afford to

I seem to have this habbit:

1st CPU: 2.4GHz Single Core
2nd CPU: 3.0Ghz Single Core
3rd CPU : 2.4GHz Dual Core
4th CPU: 3.0GHz Dual Core
5th CPU : 2.4GHz Quad Core (Current)
6th CPU : 3.0GHz Quad Core (Next)

I have managed to stay ahead of games doing so

As far as my mobo bottlenecking my power it's actually doing that to my quad core atm 5200MT/s mobo, 5400MT/s CPU :-D, But PCI-E 16 is PCI-E 2.0.

This is my current mobo: http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=149&l3=592&l4=0&model=1934&modelmenu=1

It's ok and I got it with the intent of getting a quad core, so it has fulfilled it's purpose & it's time to get a new one.

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

Nice little PSU: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3247721&Sku=P227-1003

And it is a nice shiny red! Red makes stuff faster and more better! :-D I don't pretend to understand why, but this has a single 12 volt line, and I have been told by some overclocking masters on another site, that 1 12V line is better than several.

 

Thanks fred but Tiger direct is expensive, I found the other parts I want elsewhere and if I order from TD the shipping will be like $500 lol
As for the single 12 rail, I dunno about that, I've never heard a single being better than multi's simply due to there being less power.

Thanks anyway though.

 

My old PSU had 1 12V rail and could not handle my 4870, my new PSU has 2 12V rails and I have no problems anymore.

Of course the brand has alot to do with the equation, cheap parts come with cheap PSU's, my new one is a nice mid range CoolerMaster 650W.

Edit: Jesus christ 4 PCI-E connectors with only 1 rail, either that is questionably stable or I still have alot to learn LOL

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

60 amps on the 12v rail so yeah 4 pci-e connectors got the same psu in black. HEAVY and stable as a rock

 

Man I must have floated over your above post, ok the deal with the ram, I already have 2gb of the 667 so (to my knowledge) it's pointless putting in 1 stick of 800 as it will only run as fast as the slowest stick correct?

The psu, I've pretty much decided on the coolermaster 600pcar, I'm confident it has enough to do what I need it to, I'm not gonna be chucking anything else in this puter for a while, I have other more important things to spend money on unfortunately. But I've been given a break by my mums boyfriend (still seems weird to call him that when I'm 32 years old and they are in thier 60s lol) and he's basically giving me money to by the upgrades, he already gave me the mobo and x2 6000 and 2gb of ram and he said he gives me the money instead of the parts cos thier cheaper here, and I'm not allowed to spend the money on bills etc.......sounds good to me lol

So anyway, I've pretty much settled on the stuff in the links a few posts up, saved some money searching around, read 4 billion reviews on each product and with the info and advice you have given me I've pretty much got it.

The problems you said you were having with the x2 and 4870 seem to be minor and since the CPU will most likely be the next upgrade I figure go with the 4870. If I'm wrong I wont blame you lol

I'll keep you posted, if you don't hear from me for a week or 2, take it as red I was wrong and it all went tits up lol

 

The 1GB DDR2 800MHz Kingston Hyper X is good stuff as a gaming solution, I didn't mean just get one replace your 2GB 667MHz stuff with the kinston in dual channel mode & your sorted. Mind you some specs are reaching 2GB atm.

FYI mine is the 1GB Sapphire 4870 like yours, same setup except the mobo & RAM brand :-D

Good luck to you sir LOL

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

As for one rail being better . Say you have 2 cards that need 20 amps each and the rest needs 10 , You have 3 rails at 18amps , 2 will overheat in time due to excessive demand and the 3rd rail stays underutilized and cant give its extra available amps to where its needed in essence trapping it. The other thing is pc power and cooling rates their psu's at sustained wattage(what it can run at continuously) where as most rate them at peak(what it can run for a few minutes but not continuous) Read up on pc power and cooling at various oc forums and you'll see what I mean
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/451/1/
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/psus/2007/09/18/pc_power_and_cooling_750w_psus/1

 

Not sure if I like the giggling smilie :confused

lol my setup is the same as yours except the mobo, cpu, ram. PSU, case, fans.......so really........we will have the same graphics card and nothing else lol :-D

 

The giggling smile is lol in Caps.

Power is power unless it doesn't work, my RAM was 667MHz (differant brand most likely), Case doesn't make a differance neither do fans, I had the AMD 6000+ X2 3.1GHz & the 1GB 4870. So the core componants are the very similar.

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

Ohhhh you were talking about your old rig, sorry I thought you meant your Phenom etc

 

Yeah, it was a good setup with the 9600GT but it would not have been so good without the addition of my 4870 1GB, unfortunately it was too powerful for te PSU & what not :-D

:major2-Bit-Geek:major