[LiveBrianD]

The limit was 5.9 in vista, though a, say, 4.3 under vista is still a 4.3 under win7 (unless drivers and OS optimizations make that different). It's amazing how stuff changes over time - I know a guy with a pentium 4 CPU, 512MB RAM, a geforce tnt2 gpu, and some 10K SCSI HDs, and at the time, a decade ago, it was all the range. Now, of course, a low-end machine can easily beat that! Oddly, the 2.5" 7200RPM 320GB Hitachi in my laptop gets a 6 something on WEI, so I'm not sure what's up with that. Both the desktop and laptop use AHCI.

[myloginname]

LiveBrianD, on 06 December 2011 - 06:42 PM, said:

The limit was 5.9 in vista, though a, say, 4.3 under vista is still a 4.3 under win7 (unless drivers and OS optimizations make that different). It's amazing how stuff changes over time - I know a guy with a pentium 4 CPU, 512MB RAM, a geforce tnt2 gpu, and some 10K SCSI HDs, and at the time, a decade ago, it was all the range. Now, of course, a low-end machine can easily beat that! Oddly, the 2.5" 7200RPM 320GB Hitachi in my laptop gets a 6 something on WEI, so I'm not sure what's up with that. Both the desktop and laptop use AHCI.

Hmm. That doesn't really make sense, but at the same time, the WEI doesn't really mean anything in the first place. It tests using Windows Aero, and that isn't the greatest for testing...

[GetsugaSSJ]

LiveBrianD, on 06 December 2011 - 06:30 PM, said:

GetsugaSSJ, on 06 December 2011 - 06:16 PM, said:

SORT OF, lol. Only 3 monitors, lmao. I would love a dual GPU card, but they all offer only 3gb of shared vram between the two onboard dies. You would think that the Mars II would have 3gb per card for 1500 but I guess not, lmao.

What resolution? You know, the odd thing is, nvidia cards can only run TWO monitors. It doesn't matter if they're 2560x1600 or 640x480, you only get two (per card I think). I'm looking into 1920x1080 LED 24" or so ones myself; I have 2 CCFL 1280x1024 19" ones, 5 and 7 years old, and am considering replacing them. The higher res should help in games, and most of the time I leave the second one off anyway because I don't have a use for it.

@myloginname I remember back in 2007 and 2008 when my friends bragged about their WEI scores. lol, and you can hack it to say 9.9 everywhere (even though the scoring only goes up to 7.9 in w7). Even though this is a 2 year old mid-range machine, it gets scores in the 7s there. CPU: 7.3 (i5 750 @ 2.8GHz), RAM: 7.5 (4x2GB 1333MHz 9-9-9-24), GPU 7.3 (evga geforce 550ti @ stock speed), gaming GPU 7.3, HDD 5.9 (WD Caviar Black, I guess it doesn't matter whether I set the sata controller to AHCI or IDE mode as it's still 5.9).

3240x1920. running in portrait mode, so all monitors are vertical. And yes it is only two per card. I'm sure it's because Nvidia wanted to compete with the far superior Eyefinity from AMD so they just kinda rushed it out, which would explain the measly 1.5gb on their flagship card.

[LiveBrianD]

GetsugaSSJ, on 06 December 2011 - 07:08 PM, said:

3240x1920. running in portrait mode, so all monitors are vertical. And yes it is only two per card. I'm sure it's because Nvidia wanted to compete with the far superior Eyefinity from AMD so they just kinda rushed it out, which would explain the measly 1.5gb on their flagship card.

ati drivers don't seem to be as good as nvidia ones, from what I've seen, but multi-monitor gaming is one thing that, from what I've heard, ati excels at. What kinds of games do you have that support 3 monitors? Say, what sizes (physically) are the monitors? 23" seems a little small for me from the ones I've seen, but I'm wondering if 24" is enough (I sit about 2 feet from the monitor and find a 19" 1280x1024 screen to have big enough text for me, similar to a 25" 1080p one in dpi).

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 06 December 2011 - 07:10 PM

[myloginname]

it seems like the only thing ATI has going for them is Eyefinity and the high-end cards. Nvidia has take control of the mid-end cards, which really, is what most consumers buy. Not too many people have the money to spend $500 on a GPU.

[GetsugaSSJ]

LiveBrianD, on 06 December 2011 - 07:09 PM, said:

GetsugaSSJ, on 06 December 2011 - 07:08 PM, said:

3240x1920. running in portrait mode, so all monitors are vertical. And yes it is only two per card. I'm sure it's because Nvidia wanted to compete with the far superior Eyefinity from AMD so they just kinda rushed it out, which would explain the measly 1.5gb on their flagship card.

ati drivers don't seem to be as good as nvidia ones, from what I've seen, but multi-monitor gaming is one thing that, from what I've heard, ati excels at. What kinds of games do you have that support 3 monitors? Say, what sizes (physically) are the monitors? 23" seems a little small for me from the ones I've seen, but I'm wondering if 24" is enough (I sit about 2 feet from the monitor and find a 19" 1280x1024 screen to have big enough text for me, similar to a 25" 1080p one in dpi).

Their drivers are terrible, lmao. Which sucks, since I want a few of those upcoming 7xxx series cards. Most games I play support three monitors, except for the witcher 2, which only supports landscape mode. Currently, my monitors are only 21.5 but with three that's quite a bit, lol. In the future I'd like to upgrade to 40-50 inch led televisions since the prices are dropping like rocks, but I doubt they'd support portrait mode.

[waldojim]

GetsugaSSJ, on 06 December 2011 - 07:08 PM, said:

3240x1920. running in portrait mode, so all monitors are vertical. And yes it is only two per card. I'm sure it's because Nvidia wanted to compete with the far superior Eyefinity from AMD so they just kinda rushed it out, which would explain the measly 1.5gb on their flagship card.

Nvidia dual output has been around for many many years. This is nothing new. The only change so far has been driver level, allowing multiple cards to handle displays. The reasoning is actually far less complex. Nvidia cards only have enough clock generators to drive two displays. ATI cards are a bit different in that they use more advanced features of the display port to make up for that limitation, and then use two clock generators for the other two displays.

[waldojim]

GetsugaSSJ, on 06 December 2011 - 07:20 PM, said:

Their drivers are terrible, lmao. Which sucks, since I want a few of those upcoming 7xxx series cards. Most games I play support three monitors, except for the witcher 2, which only supports landscape mode. Currently, my monitors are only 21.5 but with three that's quite a bit, lol. In the future I'd like to upgrade to 40-50 inch led televisions since the prices are dropping like rocks, but I doubt they'd support portrait mode.

The portrait VS landscape mode is being done at the driver level - the monitor should never see a difference in the signal. Are you suggesting you would get 3 40+" TV's? Why not a few higher end monitors that would also support higher resolutions? Details are just as important as size I should think.

[LiveBrianD]

myloginname, on 06 December 2011 - 07:14 PM, said:

it seems like the only thing ATI has going for them is Eyefinity and the high-end cards. Nvidia has take control of the mid-end cards, which really, is what most consumers buy. Not too many people have the money to spend $500 on a GPU.

I think nvidia's high end cards are better than ati's highest end ones. However, ati is still a good, fairly competitive, gpu maker. I thought about getting an ati 5770, but went for the 550ti because nvidia's drivers tend to work better and a game I play (simcity 4) is known to have issues with ati cards (in my experience it is true, I have a laptop with an AMD APU/CPU/GPU), plus the evga nvidia 550ti has all the ram covered by the heatsink while the 5770 cards don't seem to, which would mean more hassle for me.

[GetsugaSSJ]

waldojim, on 06 December 2011 - 07:31 PM, said:

GetsugaSSJ, on 06 December 2011 - 07:20 PM, said:

Their drivers are terrible, lmao. Which sucks, since I want a few of those upcoming 7xxx series cards. Most games I play support three monitors, except for the witcher 2, which only supports landscape mode. Currently, my monitors are only 21.5 but with three that's quite a bit, lol. In the future I'd like to upgrade to 40-50 inch led televisions since the prices are dropping like rocks, but I doubt they'd support portrait mode.

The portrait VS landscape mode is being done at the driver level - the monitor should never see a difference in the signal. Are you suggesting you would get 3 40+" TV's? Why not a few higher end monitors that would also support higher resolutions? Details are just as important as size I should think.

those 1600p monitors generally go for 1000 bucks+ and I would have to sacrifice detail in order to support those insane resolutions, but with televisions, they drop in price so fast I salivate just thinking about it, I was able to find Samsung LED 40' for about 400 on Black friday. the 3240x1080 is just enough that low levels of AA seem to smooth everything out to my liking, except with Skyrim, which is just a poor console port. Boggles my mind how I can run a game like Battlefield 3 at my current resolution with all details maxed and over 60 frames per second, but with Skyrim it dances around the high 20 mid 30 area.

[LiveBrianD]

I kinda wonder though, with 3 portrait 1920x1080 monitors, how much can you actually pick out the detail on them? I'd think you're better off with one 2560x1440 one instead, and at least there aren't screen bezels in the way (this is why I'm considering switching from my dual 1280x1024 setup, 2560x1024 total, to just one 1920x1080 - no bezels in the way, and 1080 is still plenty big and will likely end up going to better use).

edit: Also, I don't know if this is always the case, but with some TVs there's a bit of delay it seems - not noticeable with movies, but it is if I connect a laptop to the TV and move the cursor around. I notice this on my dad's 46" LED Sony.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 06 December 2011 - 08:53 PM

[myloginname]

Wow, you guys have some really nice monitors...I have a very old Samsung Syncmaster Flat screen LCD. This is very old, probably 5 years. I'm not even sure how large it is, I believe 18". The specs just say it's model number, the SyncMaster 920Nx

Personally, I don't think this is that bad. Even if you guys have all these dual-screen setups and 1080p, when I compare it to my TV, this would be like comparing an iPhone with an old motorola flip phone. The 42" CRT is just terrible. It's huge, space-consuming, and has weasly max resolution of 480i. no, not 480p, 480i! Thank god my vision is decent, I can sit on the couch and see fine when I am gaming, but when friends come over, they have to sit on the ground literally right in front of the TV.

So while you guys are considering getting 3D LED multi-screen setups, I'm still working on this old flat screen. Oh, did I mention it only has one VGA port?

[LiveBrianD]

To be fair, my Samsung Syncmaster 914V (from 2006 I think, 1280x1024, 19", CCFL, TN) only has one vga port too. Your samsung is 19". Personally I think for games 1080p would be better (and I like LED color better than CCFL, plus it doesn't cost much more and it's better for the enviornment), so that's why I'm upgrading.

[GetsugaSSJ]

I would love to see some of the rigs you guys have, lmao. I think there's only three so far XD

Here is my previous computer:





Not quite as neat as my new one, but the case is gorgeous, IMO. I've got that case (silverstone Raven) in my garage and I'm going to start some SERIOUS modding on it this weekend.

[waldojim]

Meh, nothing fancy, but here goes:
My main PC:




2x 23" LCD montiors, Akai AA-A25 Amp, Polk T-15's, and then of course, the PC itself (see sig for details.
The extra crap comes from living in a tiny apartment, and getting ready to move in a couple months.

Test bed:




About 50% of this machine or so is the machine I built back in 2001~2002. AMD Athlon-XP 2800+, Abit motherboard, 3 hard drives, one of them a newer 500GB sata drive, Nakamichi CD player (only works right in Linux or Windows 95/98 due to the changer aspect). The lights on the ram are partly for decoration, and partly for function. They have temp LEDs that are useful, and activity lights that are annoying after the first 30 seconds. The video card is original - PNY 5700LE Optima - though I had to recap it. the CPU cooling, case cooling, ram, and cd player are all original. This sucker houses 4 fans btw, and only because I am cheating. Otherwise it houses 7 case fans. All of them normally 80mm. For its time, it was fairly impressive... now it is lucky to be running. Though Linux loves this machine.

Interestingly, so does Windows 7.

EDIT: That HP CD burner BTW - is actually about 2 years older than everything else in that machine. To this day, it is still my best CD reader. Damn thing will read anything, even the crap my Plextors get hung up on.

This post has been edited by waldojim: 09 December 2011 - 01:16 AM

[coastie65]

GetsugaSSJ, on 06 December 2011 - 07:51 PM, said:

waldojim, on 06 December 2011 - 07:31 PM, said:

GetsugaSSJ, on 06 December 2011 - 07:20 PM, said:

Their drivers are terrible, lmao. Which sucks, since I want a few of those upcoming 7xxx series cards. Most games I play support three monitors, except for the witcher 2, which only supports landscape mode. Currently, my monitors are only 21.5 but with three that's quite a bit, lol. In the future I'd like to upgrade to 40-50 inch led televisions since the prices are dropping like rocks, but I doubt they'd support portrait mode.

The portrait VS landscape mode is being done at the driver level - the monitor should never see a difference in the signal. Are you suggesting you would get 3 40+" TV's? Why not a few higher end monitors that would also support higher resolutions? Details are just as important as size I should think.

those 1600p monitors generally go for 1000 bucks+ and I would have to sacrifice detail in order to support those insane resolutions, but with televisions, they drop in price so fast I salivate just thinking about it, I was able to find Samsung LED 40" for about 400 on Black friday. the 3240x1080 is just enough that low levels of AA seem to smooth everything out to my liking, except with Skyrim, which is just a poor console port. Boggles my mind how I can run a game like Battlefield 3 at my current resolution with all details maxed and over 60 frames per second, but with Skyrim it dances around the high 20 mid 30 area.

I'm getting a good solid FPS in Skyrim, but then again my Samsung monitor only supports a max of 1650x1050. KInda got limited on the size of monitor I can use with this desk as the 22" barely fit in. The Witcher 2 could use some resources as well. I wasn't real happy that it looked like a console port that was released to the PC ( unlike the first one ). I have noticed some things in Skyrim as far as the landscaping goes ( mountains and large rocks priimarily ) that don't look right ( a lot of fractals instead of good clean lines ). I usually set AA somewhere between performance and quality. May have to play with that some more and see what happens.

[compnovo]

My case is WAY too conservative for bragging rights, the only reason I'm posting images is because I just finished installing the new Corsair H80 H20 cooler and I wanted to show it off. I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but if my case (Sonata III 500) had been any smaller I wouldn't have been able to get it in. The H80 has two fans and a cooler, and they're a LOT bigger than they look on Newegg.

Right now my core temp (according to Speedfan) is idling at 29C; after playing Batman: Arkum Asylum for a while it was at 33C. I have it on the lowest (quietest) setting and haven't stress-tested it to see how it handles a real load --- any suggestions for an app that can do that? I think it's interesting that my tower is quieter now with the two fans that replaced the Antec fan the case came with --- I always kept it at the middle setting.

Attached File(s)

•  Office2.jpg (72.03K)
  Number of downloads: 25
•  Tower2.jpg (82.96K)
  Number of downloads: 23

[compnovo]

The tower shot was too small to see detail so I'm posting a larger image.

Attached File(s)

•  Tower.jpg (690.12K)
  Number of downloads: 33

[OpSec39]

Some really nice case's in here, makes mine look a bit sparse, no glowing lights, no water cooling.

Mine is a little like yours being that the only thing mine has going for it is the three dirty big fans I fitted keeping it cool.

Core0 Temp: +24.0°C

One up front of the HDD's, one up the back by the rear vent and one directly over the CPU.

I like that SSD @ compnovo, I was looking on eBay yesterday at USB to SATA controllers pondering how I could fit more hard-disks. I've got 4 so far and ones not even fitted, it's is playing merry hell with my mounting options as it cant decide which IDE channel it wants to stick with so I've had to leave the PATA disks unmounted and mount them by hand as an when I need them. I need another SATA cable as I lent one of mine to a friend. Dont you just love friends, "you haven't got a spare one of these have you!" erm spare no, why? "Mines got eaten by the dog!" great here you go! "your a life saver, thanks bro!"

Also looking out for a cheap blue-tooth dongle to fit to the USB2.0 PCI Bus, those USB2.0 PCI's always have a spare USB slot inside the PC, handy for removable password store or bluetooth dongle.

Got my brothers christmas present sorted, Sapphire2 1GB ATI Radeon AGP graphics card. Total cost at computer fair £5.00 probably cost the geezer nearer the oner mark brand new, do I know how to haggle or do I know how to haggle!

I saw one of those types of cases whilst I was there with the Glowing tubes and see through parts and the guy only wanted £20 but I just didn't feel like making a PC that glows in the dark also I side with coastie and steer clear of water cooling as I just don't trust water and electricity.

This post has been edited by OpSec39: 13 December 2011 - 12:53 AM

[compnovo]

OpSec39, on 13 December 2011 - 12:03 AM, said:

I was looking on eBay yesterday at USB to SATA controllers pondering how I could fit more hard-disks.

One of the features I like about the Sonata case is the hard drive storage, which I under-utilize. I've had as many as three drives in there, I tend to move them around a lot. That's why I have the connectors facing out rather than in as designed, it's easier to swap things around or disconnect one drive when I playing with the other (and don't want to accidentally hose the wrong drive ).
Thought I'd include an image of the case with the door open. Again, pretty conservative. I'm not much into bling...

Attached File(s)

•  IMG_0005.JPG (76.99K)
  Number of downloads: 24