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Soo.. I'm gonna build one Serious Games machine!!! And you can forget the recession!

UltraNEO* said:
Jesus... I'm Gob smacked! Those newly announced Sapphire Atomic 4870x2 comes in at a hair-rising £570 (approx $780 USD) EACH!!! :eek::eek: Though they do come in a lovely but useless metal box! How much discount could I get if I told the sell the to keep the packaging? :D
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I'm confused, you said you wanted a 4870x2 x2?

UltraNEO* said:
Take Crysis for example.
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Or rather not. Crysis was a terrible game. Instead of gameplay it just throw loads of options at the player which didn't achieve what they wanted and made the plot difficult to follow (open world game design gone rotten). There were so many things wrong with that game.
Btw my iMacs x1600 card plays at least 1 hours worth of Team Fortress 2 a day. Be that game (or any other decent game) at low resolution with low quality textures its still as fun as hell. This appreciation of fun gaming is what many self-acclaimed hardcore gamers miss out on.

Out of curiosity- how old are you?
 
raggedjimmi said:
I'm confused, you said you wanted a 4870x2 x2?



Or rather not. Crysis was a terrible game. Instead of gameplay it just throw loads of options at the player which didn't achieve what they wanted and made the plot difficult to follow (open world game design gone rotten). There were so many things wrong with that game.
Btw my iMacs x1600 card plays at least 1 hours worth of Team Fortress 2 a day. Be that game (or any other decent game) at low resolution with low quality textures its still as fun as hell. This appreciation of fun gaming is what many self-acclaimed hardcore gamers miss out on.

Out of curiosity- how old are you?
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I dunno. I liked Crysis. I didn't think it was anything spectacular (the enemy AI was quite bad) but I liked how they approached the one-man-against-all sort of gameplay style. The suit aspect, ironically, made it a bit more approachable and believable (unlike some games that pit one man somehow holding 80 guns and wearing a tankk top against 100 enemy soldiers). And it was fun sneaking around in cloaked mode. The open-world was also good, except when I managed to destroy my vehicle and then had to trek to my next objective on foot.

Also, I wasn't running it at high settings or anything. My computer could only handle Medium at 1440. It was still fun.

Now Left 4 Dead - THAT'S a fun game, and it doesn't take much to run it at max settings! :D
 
raggedjimmi said:
I'm confused, you said you wanted a 4870x2 x2?
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Yup, that's two ATI 4870x2 boards installed in a single system, aka Quad CrossFire.
I'm thinking about going with the Sapphire Atomic boards cause they're only single-slot wide.
The mainboard i'm seeking (Asus P6PT WS) has supports Quad CrossFireXTM and enough
PCIe slots for further upgrade later. RAID comes to mind... lol

imgp3326fr8.jpg
 
xparaparafreakx said:
A pair of these bad boys will destory a CrossFire 4870x2.

guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-295-preview/
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Undoubtedly so, according to you...
but when will those bad boys it the highstreet? and at what cost? Judging from the preview it's still in
development and it's not technically a new card, more a refinement of existing technology. And looking
at it's make up, it's still not a clean card. Just look at the way it's built. Putting a pair of those in any
system will block of any chance of using the extra slots. Sorry, my money is still on the Atomic Sapphire's..

1229590035scDZaZIrf2_1_4_l.jpg


Preview available here
 
Well im going to stick a GTX 295 in an i7 Mac Pro next year. Don't worry, im only using it for bootcamp. I also figured out the wiring for it.
 
xparaparafreakx said:
Well im going to stick a GTX 295 in an i7 Mac Pro next year. Don't worry, im only using it for bootcamp. I also figured out the wiring for it.
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Do have fun! No doubt by the time the revised MacPro hits the market place, there will be a new GPU out. You seriously wanna invest in old technology?
 
UltraNEO* said:
Do have fun! No doubt by the time the revised MacPro hits the market place, there will be a new GPU out. You seriously wanna invest in old technology?
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Apple never seems to put in good cards anyway. By the time the GTX 295 is out, apple only going to put a ATI 3850 as a base and Nvidia 9800 for bto.

I will not put a GTX 295 if they offer a card like the GTX 260 or higher. In ATI case, 4850 or higher.
 
For the case i would definately say a coolermaster cosmos s, if you dont choose it, with the setup your designing its going to be loud, very loud, and i hate noisy rattling cases! :p

Also water cooling is deffo the way forward, but you really need to review the setups carefully because i had one before the setup i have now that actually did nothing, i mean nothing towards cooling my quad core cpu, my Quad core was running at way over 90C but now when playing Fallout 3 on max settings it rarely gets above 46 -> 48C

:):apple:
 
While the oil wins for bling, its not the most practical solution(dis assembly must be a royal pain).

@Raggedjimmi - Keep your objectivity, he doesn't want your opinion on Crysis, Crysis is just a benchmark really, if your machine can roll Crysis full out, high res, and playable, theres nothing else on the market that is going to challenge your machine.

@OP - If you do plan to watercool your videocards, don't worry about slot size, your watercooled card will only be single slot:). One of the many joys of watercooling.
Its gonna cost though, this would be my choice for the waterblock(EK makes excellent products), I'm not sure if there are any other real options, I know that Danger Den makes one as well, it comes in about $40 cheaper, and if its just a difference of a few degrees, may be worth the saved money. With either of those blocks, your cards would be single slot and could be aligned side by side, with stubby barbs and a very short bit of tubing in between.

For that matter, what is the budget of this machine at any rate?
 
No1451 said:
While the oil wins for bling, its not the most practical solution(dis assembly must be a royal pain).

@Raggedjimmi - Keep your objectivity, he doesn't want your opinion on Crysis, Crysis is just a benchmark really, if your machine can roll Crysis full out, high res, and playable, theres nothing else on the market that is going to challenge your machine.
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Finally, someone who's paying attention in class. Thank you.

No1451 said:
@OP - If you do plan to watercool your videocards, don't worry about slot size, your watercooled card will only be single slot:). One of the many joys of watercooling.
Its gonna cost though, this would be my choice for the waterblock(EK makes excellent products), I'm not sure if there are any other real options, I know that Danger Den makes one as well, it comes in about $40 cheaper, and if its just a difference of a few degrees, may be worth the saved money. With either of those blocks, your cards would be single slot and could be aligned side by side, with stubby barbs and a very short bit of tubing in between.

For that matter, what is the budget of this machine at any rate?
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Yeah, I think your absolutely right there regarding water coolers for GFX, with the exception of the GTX 295 cause it's heat-sink is basically sandwiched between the two cards - a terrible design if you ask me.

I know building a water-cooled system will be an investment in it self, though I'd imagine it's one I can reuse, if and when a system is upgraded. guess it's just a matter of replacing the blocks... though I could be wrong. hehe. Over the past couple of weeks i've found a few local sources to water-cooling components and it seems there are thousands to choose from...

Hmm... don't wanna put a precise figure here, though it's likely to be over £2500 for the base, plus display and water cooler equipment on top.

petermcphee said:
I was just wondering that. Also OP, when do you think it will be done and you'll be able to post pics? I can't wait to see this rig.
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I'll be able to build this rig as soon as I can source the mainboard... Being a workstation board, i doubt many suppliers will carry it. At the moment, they're still really rare. I might have to resort to getting it imported.
 
UltraNEO* said:
I know building a water-cooled system will be an investment in it self, though I'd imagine it's one I can reuse, if and when a system is upgraded. guess it's just a matter of replacing the blocks... though I could be wrong. hehe. Over the past couple of weeks i've found a few local sources to water-cooling components and it seems there are thousands to choose from...
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Yup, just a new block and you're ready to roll, if you were using something like the GTX280, I would recommend a non-full cover block(they can be reused) but I don't think there are any available that will work on the 4870X2.

You are lucky in one regard, as you seem to be across the pond, watercooling is a LOT easier to come by. Thermochill and EK are both EU based(unless my memory is highly faulty). Thermochill is going to be the(likely) easiest to source for radiators, so that would be the ideal imo. http://www.thermochill.com
 
FWIW, a 'standard' Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 or E7300 can be easily overclocked beyond 3GHz, often to 4GHz with proper cooling.

Also, if you have piles of money left over and want the fastest boot volume around, put two Intel X25-M SSDs in a RAID 0 and they'll fly, allegedly.
Bah, n/m, those comparisons are for laptop drives :rolleyes:
 
dolphin842 said:
FWIW, a 'standard' Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 or E7300 can be easily overclocked beyond 3GHz, often to 4GHz with proper cooling.

Also, if you have piles of money left over and want the fastest boot volume around, put two Intel X25-M SSDs in a RAID 0 and they'll fly, allegedly.
Bah, n/m, those comparisons are for laptop drives :rolleyes:
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Ah but those Intel SSD's based on SLC technology really do fly!! But they all come at a cost! And if i'm gonna go SSD, I certainly won't be buying them from here (europe)... They're more than half the cost in Japan...
 
Eidorian said:
UltraNEO* just out of curiosity are you making a gaming machine or something to show off?
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Well, I think the question is how could you *not* show off a flashy expensive gaming machine? :p

But I agree though, unless there's some serious gaming to be hand on this rig, it does seem a tad overkill
 
A tougher benchmark than Crysis might be GTA IV for the PC. It's ridiculous. Bad port on top of ridiculous requirements to play smoothly. Crysis runs better, on ANY hardware.
 
dolphin842 said:
Well, I think the question is how could you *not* show off a flashy expensive gaming machine? :p

But I agree though, unless there's some serious gaming to be hand on this rig, it does seem a tad overkill
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As awesome as Core i7 is, it's sadly not going to give the gains in gaming that are worth the money.
 
Eidorian said:
As awesome as Core i7 is, it's sadly not going to give the gains in gaming that are worth the money.
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That's why I put my vote towards overclocking an E7200 or E7300. With the chip and motherboard savings, the OP could RAID up a fast boot volume for loading those massive games ;).
 
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