Replacement Gamer

[EspiOne]

I am in the process of rebuilding my gaming PC, I am not going with anything new. I am just simply reusing some parts and replacing mainly the Motherboard and Graphics. I recently had issues with my eVGA 780i board, I am not sure what issue was, but mainly, "Windows" would not load, looked at most options, but I purchased a ASUS replacement and expect to do the rebuild soon. Since this is my third 780i board, I am wondering if the chipsets are on on thier way out. I took this into consideration and decided to get an ASUS X48 board and some ATI cards.

Now, the root of the post...... my current build vs the proposed built.

Asus 780i Striker Extreme II
8GB XMS 6400 Ram
Q9650 (Standard, no OC)
XFX 260GTX in Tri SLI
1000watt RaidMAX

VS

Asus Rampage Formula
8GB XMS 6400 Ram
Q9650 (Standard, no OC)
ATI 5770 in Crossfire or other cards
850 Antec Quatro

I am not looking to move to the I-cores as my quad was expensive and would like to keep it alive for 1 more year.

Currently gaming All Three Modern Warfares. Looking at Crysis II, and anything that comes out this year.

Any comments or recommendations.

My back up system is a eVGA 750i with eVGA 9800GX2/8800GS (PhysX).

If my 9800GX2 dies, would a 260GTX be equally as good??

 

[EspiOne]

Anyone??

 

[Deemo13]

Do you already have all of these parts or do you plan on buying them?

P.S. Physx is not worth it unless you play alot of Physx-optimized games, which there arent really any.

 

[tsnor]

you running three GTX 260s ? "XFX 260GTX in Tri SLI" ... lol, i use one.

"If my 9800GX2 dies, would a 260GTX be equally as good?? " http://www.hwcompare.com/5181/geforce-9800-gx2-vs-geforce-gtx-260/

9800GX2 gives better framerates. But GTX 260 is not that far behind. Should be playable.

Read about 'microstutter' see if you care before buying a couple of 5770s vs one faster card.

 

[EspiOne]

I am sorry that you do not approve of Tri SLI, but I figured I had the board, might as well run the set up, cost was not too much I got them used, I ran 9800GTX in SLI before. Yes, I have all this parts.

But I really need to know which is better set up,

260GTX in TriSLI (not too much room to upgrade)

or

5770s in Crossfire (cards can be upgraded)

with a Q9650

 

[tsnor]

I am sorry that you do not approve of Tri SLI, but I figured I had the board, might as well run the set up, cost was not too much I got them used, I ran 9800GTX in SLI before. Yes, I have all this parts.

But I really need to know which is better set up,

260GTX in TriSLI (not too much room to upgrade)

or

5770s in Crossfire (cards can be upgraded)

with a Q9650

You misread my post. I have no problem with someone running three cards of the same type I run one.

I have two i7 (920 and 860) based systems with hd5770s (kids) and one (mine. i7-920) with gtx260. Frame rates are comparable. I'd guess that the tri-GTX260s would be stronger than the dual HD5770s. But that's a guess from the single card performance being comparable, not from benchmarks.

 

[EspiOne]

No problem, I know that there are people who don't like, I did misread your comment.

I guess, in the long run, the TriSLI would be a better option. The Cross fire set is kinda of a backup set to get the most of my Q9650. Since I would be reusing the RAM and CPU, should my system board die again. Plus, other way to look at this... yes the tri SLI would be better then the 5770s in crossfire. I could alway upgrade the ATI cards in Crossfire. Upgrading the card in TRISLI would be too expensive in with older cards, not to mention trying to find 3 Nvidia cards that are the same brand and speed. I think I will set up both systems and run benchmarks and see which one has been results, given the time. I am waiting on some RAM that was RMAed, which made have been the issue, not the board. I will try and keep this post alive.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[EspiOne]

Update to this post, I never did finish the build and pull out one of my old, old, older build, a eVGA 680i board with 8800GTS in SLI, re-load the OS, since all I need to do was add hard drives.
I have posted on other forum the same and looking to get as much feed back.
I realize the easiest solution would be to build the ATI Crossfire, but it will take me some time to do that.

Default DX11 GPU for old System to play Crysis 3



Okay, so I am considering upgrading my old (not dying, yet) system (s), I have been running the older 775 socket for a while now and DX10 cards, my highest end cards are GTX 260s. So straight to the point.
My current system:

eVGA 680i with Q6600 (Stock)
eVGA 8800GTS (640mb) in SLI
eVGA 8800GTS (320mb) for physX
8GB 800Mhz Ram
Antec 850 TPQ
Antec 900 Case
300 GB Western Digital VelociRapto
1TB WD Black
2- 500 WD Green (Mirrored) - Game Storage
Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit
27 inch ASUS Monitor

I am looking to upgrade my GPUs to DX11 Cards mainly to run Crysis 3, I am running it on my Alienware M14X R2 at low settings, but not optimized.


So... Any recommendations on GPUs, Older one are fine,, I would like to spend at least $100 on each (2) and run them in SLI, so I am looking to get nVidia
Low end (low cost) and High end (high cost) that would run and play well with my Q6600.

OR

1 good card, under $200, either nVidia or ATI, that would run and play well with my Q6600 .

I am also willing to upgrade my CPU, if I need to, highest I can go is E8600 , according to eVGA, but I would say QX6850, the Wolfdale require a Bios update, that may not work.
I do have an X6800, some where, need to find it.

So I am will to spend $300 to $350 to keep this system up and running and the low end, any higher and I should just build a new system, but I say, if it still works, use it.

Any comments would be appreciated.

 

[EspiOne]

Update to previous post, I did optain some 460gtx, but then I found out that they needed 2-6 pin PCI-E each, I I decided to run them only with no physX card, problem was that with all the extra power cables, it was hard to move around in there, so I set it aside and complete the build on the ASUS Ramage. Now, one of the ATI 5770 died, using one 5770 card only. Read other post... I was able to find an QX6700 and then I found an QX6800, so I have installed the QX6800 and working on moving the hard drives to the top racks to have room for the 460GTX cables. But still gonna consider a replace Crossfire set up for the ASUS Rampage as a back up system. I have decided to sell all my 260GTX and 9800GTXs also and looking to build a iCore system by the end of the year, but looking at these simple upgrades as a backup to "not be able to build a iCore system". Any recommendations on this would be appreciated.