[MLStrand56]

A buddy of mine built a Super-puter & is using Dual ($400 ea.) 1Gig vid. cards. What kind of video improvement does this give? He's a "Gamer" so I imagine it'll make his vid. games faster or higher def, or something like that. Would it make MS Hearts (included with Win7) look better?

Is this multiple vid. card thing for HD graphics? I run a single slot, 1Gig vid card, which does everything I could ever ask it do (There is no HDTV where I live, so I can't evaluate that).

So what's the big deal all about?

MLStrand56

[LiveBrianD]

What specific video cards is he using? The amount of video ram you have doesn't matter too much, unless you're playing games at a high resolution. MS Hearts is likely not all that hardware intense, I'd think. A better video card can allow you to have more detail in games, as well as make the game run smoother (to a point).

[MLStrand56]

LiveBrianD, on 21 January 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

What specific video cards is he using?

I don't remember the brand, but I'm pretty sure he said they are 6970 something or other. Yeah, I think he trying to play his games at Max resolution on his 55" HDTV.

That's gotta be higher than the 4670 1Gig AGP card I ordered for my 32bit video editor. I needed a new AGP card, so I might as well get one with 1Gig RAM, VGA, DVI, & HDMI. That pretty much ensures that I can hook up Any monitor.

MLStrand56

This post has been edited by MLStrand56: 21 January 2012 - 12:00 PM

[LiveBrianD]

AGP? How old is your PC? Does it have a Pentium 4 or something? If so, that'll likely bottleneck a lot of things, thus making a higher-end GPU useless. You only need a 5770/6770 to play most games fairly well at 1920x1080, not 2 6970s. lol...

[MLStrand56]

LiveBrianD, on 21 January 2012 - 12:38 PM, said:

AGP? How old is your PC? Does it have a Pentium 4 or something? If so, that'll likely bottleneck a lot of things, thus making a higher-end GPU useless. You only need a 5770/6770 to play most games fairly well at 1920x1080, not 2 6970s. lol...

1st. I'm Not the one running 2x 6970's. That's my friend. He's the Gamer, not me.
2nd. I have a bunch of PC's. My 64bit video editor has an Asus P5GC w/E8600. My 32bit Editor is an Asus K8V-X w/fastest CPU. I also have an Asus A6V700 w/fastest CPU. I like all 3 of those because they have Lots of PCI slots for my expansion cards. Then there are the older computers that I inherited. I forget what's in those, but they're maxed out too. Then there's the Gigabyte GA-M61SME-S2 that I'm rebuilding for my baby sister, the Civil Engineer. Oh Yeah, and the old Dell laptop that my wife uses for her E-mail/Chat/Facebook.

What slows me down is Not CPU speed or vid. card. format, it's my 220Kbs DSL service!!!

All of my puters are higher tech than the average custom computer here, which has 128-256Meg RAM, 80Gig HD, a CD (not DVD) burner, & onboard audio/video. Filipinos laugh at me because I put 2 DVD burners in all my puters & they can't figure out why. By their logic a Model-T & a Ferrari are equal, because both have 4 tires & a steering wheel!!!!

MLStrand56

This post has been edited by MLStrand56: 21 January 2012 - 01:36 PM

[LiveBrianD]

I must have a supercomputer by their standards then. i5 750 (quad-core), 8GB RAM (DDR3), 640GB HD and 500GB HD, DVD burner AND a DVD-ROM drive, Nvidia Geforce 550ti, onboard audio and networking, and Windows 7 64-bit. And my machine isn't all that unusual compared to other peoples around here.

[MLStrand56]

LiveBrianD, on 21 January 2012 - 02:00 PM, said:

I must have a supercomputer by their standards then. i5 750 (quad-core), 8GB RAM (DDR3), 640GB HD and 500GB HD, DVD burner AND a DVD-ROM drive, Nvidia Geforce 550ti, onboard audio and networking, and Windows 7 64-bit. And my machine isn't all that unusual compared to other peoples around here.

You Americans get ALL the good stuff!!! Yes, yours would be considered a SuperPuter here. It's even hard to find a True Multi-burner here. Most of what are called Multi-burners here, won't actually burn Any (non Blu-ray) optical media & they're Real Slow. Philippines has a 100% import tax on ALL electronics, so all we get is old OR 2nd Quality S#!7. That's why my friends 55" Samsung 3D HDTV cost 300,000 Peso ($7,200).

I buy most of my puter parts in USA & have friends or family ship them to me (most USA online stores won't ship to Philippines).

MLStrand56

[SnyperTodd]

Well, from what you're describing, he's not going to get any real increase in performance or quality from having the second video card. His TV has a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080, which isn't all that demanding for a single HD6970. Basically, the second HD6970 was mostly wasted money at this point. If he was running games across multiple higher-res monitors, it would be a different story. It is good for bragging rights, though. And no, it's not going to do anything for MSHearts.

[LiveBrianD]

Yep... I just tried it and had around... umm... 3% GPU usage. What I've found is that a single 550ti works pretty well on a 1920x1080 monitor, and a 6770 is pretty similar in performance, so yeah, I figured that even ONE 6970 wouldn't go to much use.

[waldojim]

MLStrand56, on 21 January 2012 - 11:59 AM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 21 January 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

What specific video cards is he using?

I don't remember the brand, but I'm pretty sure he said they are 6970 something or other. Yeah, I think he trying to play his games at Max resolution on his 55" HDTV.

That's gotta be higher than the 4670 1Gig AGP card I ordered for my 32bit video editor. I needed a new AGP card, so I might as well get one with 1Gig RAM, VGA, DVI, & HDMI. That pretty much ensures that I can hook up Any monitor.

MLStrand56

That 4670 is just about the single fastest AGP card ever made. Enjoy it.

[waldojim]

Oh and Snyper is right, that second card isn't going to do a lick of good for your friend. Tell him to enjoy the added cost on his electric bill though.

[MLStrand56]

Holy Christ, waldojim, What kind of internet connection do you have? I'd straight-up screwdriver-kill an old lady to get that kind of speed. My Philippine DSL is 220Kbs Down & 290Kbs Up. That's a Private DSL connection, meaning that I'm the ONLY user. "Regular" DSL here is like the old Party-Line phones in USA. There is ONE DSL line & everybody (including all the internet cafes) gets a tiny bit of the pipe. I had that kind of DSL when I first came to Phils. Every school day I always knew when school let out, because all the school kids would hit the internet cafes to play World of Warcraft. When that happened my data rate went straight to 10BITs/sec (.010Kbs). At that speed Every webpage took 60-90 minutes to DL.

There is 3Mbs (512Kbs Guaranteed) DSL avail. here, but it's 3,000 Peso ($72)/month!!! My 220Kbs DSL is only 995 Peso ($24)/month.

MLStrand56

[anthonydagostino]

Time to clear the air here. My friend MLStand is talking about ME. This is what I have.....so there is no confusion.

Coolermaster HAF-X with 3x200mm,1x230mm and 2x120mm fans
Coolermaster V8 cooling tower
Asus P8Z68 V-PRO mobo
i7 2600 (they k was not worth the extra 100 dollars, Philippines money)
16GB Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz XMP Ram (running in XMP mode)
2x2GB Sapphire 6970 HD Radeon vid cards in crossfire
1TB caviar black HOTSWAP running OS7Ultimate 64bit C:
2x2TB RAID 1 caviar green D:movies
2x1TB RAID 1 caviar green E:music/data
1 500GB caviar black HOT SWAP running OS8 C:
ASUS DL DVD-RW
ASUS BD-RW DL
On a Courgar 1050w 80gold

All this will be hooked up to a Samsung 55inch LED 3D TV, passing through a Yamaha HD 7.1 receiver with Onkyo 7.1 speakers.

And I did NOT pay 7000 for the TV, I got the 55inch, with a blu-ray 3d player, shrek 3d starter kit w/2 glasses, qwerty samsung keyboard for use with the internet TV (sucks ass), a stupid skype cam, and a free 32inch samsung LCD TV, all for the price of 143,ooo pesos. When I bought it, the dollar was exchanged at 44 pesos to the dollar. So, I spent, in total $3,250 dollars. No where near 7500.........And for those who think that I won't see an increase in quality, you may be right, but I will be pushing the system a lot less than I would otherwise, using only one card. And there is a chance, if I configure it to do so, I may use the 32inch for maps and chat, while the main screen will be for the games.

This post has been edited by anthonydagostino: 22 January 2012 - 12:53 AM

[MLStrand56]

anthonydagostino, on 22 January 2012 - 12:47 AM, said:

Time to clear the air here. My friend MLStand is talking about ME. This is what I have.....so there is no confusion.

Public Apologies to Anthony. My memory doesn't work so good & I messed up his vid. card specs & I apologize for that.

Getting Old is a BITCH, I don't recommend it to Anybody!!!

MLStrand56

This post has been edited by MLStrand56: 22 January 2012 - 03:53 AM

[MLStrand56]

My correction. One of my old USA mobo's is Asus A7V600. Great older mobo with Lots of Expanability.

MLStrand56

[anthonydagostino]

waldojim, on 21 January 2012 - 06:24 PM, said:

Oh and Snyper is right, that second card isn't going to do a lick of good for your friend. Tell him to enjoy the added cost on his electric bill though.

This is Anthony, the owner of the system that MLstrand is talking about. If you read my first post, just a few above this one, you will see the FULL system specs. And I will have you know, that with my system running, and the big screen, plus all the other things running in my house, my electric bill averages about 1,500 pesos a month. That is about 35 dollars a month, and I certainly am not going to cry about that. And I won't be pushing my system at all. Better to have overkill, than underkill, and try pushing it. I won't have to overclock anything, and it will do exactly what I want it to do for the next 5 or more years, if the parts are reliable.

Now cross that with the electrical rates in the US, I could have 5 of these systems running before I came close to touching what I was paying in electricity in Reston Virginia, before I made the wise decision to move to the Philippines.

So, I will in fact run both cards, WITH A GIANT SMILE ON MY FACE.........

And, when the time comes, I can take out this mobo, use it in another machine, with one of these cards, buy another identical mobo, and processor, put in the other card, split the ram, so it is 8 and 8, put in a few more parts, and sell them for big dollars (pesos) to someone here that wants a real system, not some shoddy run of the mill, onboard video pile of dung, and build a new machine for myself.

Hard to tell on these sites when someone is being condescending, or just making a joke. I am doing a little of both I guess. I may be new to this site, but this certainly is not my first build. I am not an overclocker, not trying to win any pissing contests with benchmarks, I just want the best system I can put together, on my limited budget, that money can buy. And, two of these cards, cost less, and out perform the 6990. And, unlike SLI, crossfire can use different brands, and different model cards, and still function. SLI is dead to me, but I will continue to buy intel processors over AMD, the 4 cores out perform the AMD 6 cores at the consumer price level. I don't bother even looking at the 1000 dollar plus processors, they are a complete waste of time and money, no programs can utilize them, I don't have a multicore board, running a server with 100000000 hits per day. This is an at home entertainment system, running problem free on my home wifi network, allowing everyone to access the data at home, from any computer. And since the Samsung TV talks directly to the computer, I can watch all my HD movies on either TV, via the wireless network. Does not get any better (for me) than what I got.

But thanks for your time and input to the discussion.

[anthonydagostino]

LiveBrianD, on 21 January 2012 - 04:44 PM, said:

Yep... I just tried it and had around... umm... 3% GPU usage. What I've found is that a single 550ti works pretty well on a 1920x1080 monitor, and a 6770 is pretty similar in performance, so yeah, I figured that even ONE 6970 wouldn't go to much use.

The 550ti is just a 480, overclocked. At least that is what I found out when I bought two of them, to run SLI in my machine (see full specs in my first post in this thread) After I bought the two cards, I could not get them to run SLI, both were ASUS, and the bridge(s) are all new. I could not get them to communicate. They were a good price, but when I started reading more about them, I found out they are 480's overclocked. That may not be the case with all makers of the 550, but it certainly was for the ASUS. And I was surprised, and disappointed that the ASUS mobo had trouble picking up their own cards. In the end, I was much happier going with the Radeon cards, and learned that in crossfire, you can have two different model cards, where in SLI, it must be the exact same model, or you get a no go.

I am sure that the card, by itself, does the job that you want, and in the end, that is all that matters. Being in the Philippines, where high end computer parts are very hard to find, and you pay a premium for them, I was surprised to find the card, mobo, processor, V8 cooler, and PSU in the same store, at prices that matched or beat US pricing at the time. Everything else, including the HAF942, or HAF-X as it is known, I had to buy in the states, via tigerdirect. Sadly, the best ram they sell here, in every store I went too, was kingston value ram, ddr3 1333mhz. That just would not do, I went with the Corsair, from tigerdirect, because I know from experience living in the Philippines, that I can RMA it straight to Taiwan if I have a problem, and they will send it right back to me in the Philippines. I don't have to worry about DOA with Corsair. My previous Corsair that I had on my EVGA 680i, went to crap. That was PC-8500 1066mhz ram, and it was a known issue with Corsair. They offered to replace it, free of charge of course, and give me 4gig of 800mhz, to replace my 2 gig of 1066. But since I did a total system build, I did not bother to send the old ram in, I would have no use for ddr2 ram anyway.

Bit of info on the HAF942, or HAF-X, what ever you want to call it. Coolermaster screwed the pooch with this one. It is their flagship case, and it has many faults. BUT, if you are nice to them, and make a parts request, they will send you extra parts, to make the build more complete. For instance, the case description is not very clear, and when you buy the case, it only comes with 1 top mount 200mm fan, but has space for 2. I thought that was an insult, and the fans they put in there, are not exactly expensive (14 bucks online), it should have been included. Second, the hole on the back plate is too small, and not aligned properly for the i series chipset. And you can NOT install the cooler, with the board mounted in the case. I have used a uni-bit to drill out holes, to allow the fitting of the cooler while mounted. Third, they claim that the two bottom bays, on the front side are hot swappable. And they are, but since you have to use screws to mount drives in them, and you only get two of these bays, it does not make it very friendly to swap drives. Last, they have no case lock, nothing, no point to put a padlock on it, which is just crazy to me.

Anyway, long story short, I contacted them by email, and vie parts request, and they are sending me, to the Philippines, an extra front bay, and a 200mm fan, all at no cost to me. So I give them an A+ for customer service. And so far, the V8 cooler has been fantastic, 30c at idle, and 35 running just the OS. Since it is a new build, I have not installed any games yet, and will monitor my temps. The only flaw that I have found, is the fan speed controller. Takes up a slot on the back of the case, unless you drill your own hole (which I have), and with ASUS at least, the fans are all controlled in the BIOS anyway.

Anyway, thanks for being a part of this thread, I am no spring chicken, nor am I some PC guru. I come to these forums to learn more, and do it with humility and gracious for those that take the time to help out another. Too many people here are condescending (all forums) and have crappy attitudes. These forum are the most basic forms of human kindness, just people helping people, if for no other reason than personal wish to do good and share in their knowledge. I wish the moderators would find those the belittle others, or condescend, and add nothing of value to the discussion, and give them a kick were the sun don't shine.

Lastly, I am guessing the the 3% usage was in regard to MLstrand asking about MShearts? Thanks........Anthony

[SnyperTodd]

Anthony, welcome to the PCWorld forums! That's a nice rig you've got going there. I'm not sure where you got the information that the GTX 550Ti is an overclocked GTX 480, but that's not true. The GTX 480 is considerably more powerful than the GTX 550Ti, even though it's an older generation. Also, SLI works just fine with different brand and even different spec'd cards. I'm not sure what issue you were having, but it should have worked for you. If you have any other issues or questions, we're here to help!

[anthonydagostino]

SnyperTodd, on 22 January 2012 - 09:02 AM, said:

Anthony, welcome to the PCWorld forums! That's a nice rig you've got going there. I'm not sure where you got the information that the GTX 550Ti is an overclocked GTX 480, but that's not true. The GTX 480 is considerably more powerful than the GTX 550Ti, even though it's an older generation. Also, SLI works just fine with different brand and even different spec'd cards. I'm not sure what issue you were having, but it should have worked for you. If you have any other issues or questions, we're here to help!

Well thanks for the added info, I am new to this forum, but have been on overclockers, and several others for some time. I read about the SLI needing matched cards years ago, and if that has changed, that is new to me. I know you can have different brands, but they have to be the same series....i.e. 480, 260, or going back 8800's. You would have to buy two 8800's, brand not important, to run them in SLI. Is this not true?

As for the 550, I was not talking about the GTX version, the one's I bought were ASUS 550ti-cu models, not a g anywhere in the name. They are making things very confusing these days, and impossible to understand with all the model numbers, prefixes and suffixes. You have to do a lot of research to know exactly what you are getting. The info on the 550ti came from tom's hardware I believe....but I might be mistaken on that.

Thanks for the compliment, I have been wanting to build this for a long time. I would of loved to have gone with the "k" processor, but could not justify it, since I don't plan to overclock, and really see no need. Also, would have preferred a board with 6 or even 8 memory slots, but again, more overkill. 16gig of ram is plenty, since I do run 64bit, and a lot of 64bit programs, it does help. I just hope they start making more 64bit games, but being in the Philippines, games are impossible to find, that are not counterfeit, and most of those contain viruses. So the ups and downs of living in the Philippines are many, but the ups win, over and over again.

PS, I wanted to use my military call sign for my user ID, but the system won't allow me to change it. I tried signing up using my call sign, and could not get past the register screen. So I finally used my gmail account to sign up/in. Can you see if stalker6recon is an active account? That would be mine, and I only created it today, I would like to merge or delete it, so I can change my user name to stalker6recon on this profile. Thanks in advance, Anthony.

[waldojim]

MLStrand56, on 21 January 2012 - 10:45 PM, said:

Holy Christ, waldojim, What kind of internet connection do you have? I'd straight-up screwdriver-kill an old lady to get that kind of speed. My Philippine DSL is 220Kbs Down & 290Kbs Up. That's a Private DSL connection, meaning that I'm the ONLY user. "Regular" DSL here is like the old Party-Line phones in USA. There is ONE DSL line & everybody (including all the internet cafes) gets a tiny bit of the pipe. I had that kind of DSL when I first came to Phils. Every school day I always knew when school let out, because all the school kids would hit the internet cafes to play World of Warcraft. When that happened my data rate went straight to 10BITs/sec (.010Kbs). At that speed Every webpage took 60-90 minutes to DL.

There is 3Mbs (512Kbs Guaranteed) DSL avail. here, but it's 3,000 Peso ($72)/month!!! My 220Kbs DSL is only 995 Peso ($24)/month.

MLStrand56

That internet connection in my sig is an LTE modem. Yes, LTE is really that fast. Hence the reason I put it there. The connection is freaking insane.