RJK said:
Advice on graphics card please ?
Due to age and time, and an addled brain !!! ...I can't keep up, and having
seen mention, (in motherboard booklet I think), of some sort of integration,
or SLI relationship/interface between Nvidia onboard graphics chip and an
add-in "SLI" card that one could fit into a PCI-e x16 slot, ....I haven't a
clue as to which graphics card to select !
The innards I recently fitted into my 2nd pride and joy is Asus M3N78 |
Athlon 64 x2 6000 Windsor cpu | 2 x 1gb Crucial 4-4-4-12, plus trimmings.
...Antec 430 watt psu btw,
and it's currently using the onboard graphics chip ...8200 I think. So
hopefully fitting a PCI-e x16 gpu card will take some heat off of that
motherboard chip, should Idecide to spend a few minutes on FarCry !
any tips, and enlightenment on graphics SLI, ...in a sentence PLZ
...would be gratefully accepted.
regards, Richard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface
To start with, there are three motherboard models involving
M3N78 in the name. Each of the motherboards has one
decent video card slot (PCI Express x16). Which means
conventional SLI would not be available.
Regular SLI involves two Nvidia brand video cards. At least
initially, the cards had to match when SLI was introduced,
and the cards would do things like Alternate Frame Rendering,
to increase graphics rendering power. One monitor connection
displays the resulting rendered frames - the other connectors
are disabled in SLI. SLI does not imply perfect scaling, and
for the price of two graphics cards, does not guarantee twice
the graphics rendering power.
Your motherboard advertises
Hybrid SLI Support (for Windows Vista only)
The implication there, is the chipset graphics (Geforce 8300 logic
block inside the Northbridge), will have its graphics power
combined with a low end Nvidia card. It allows a moderate boost,
by combining the weak chipset graohics, with a weak graphics
card in the PCI Express x16 slot. (i.e. a waste of money)
Notice that they say it is limited to Windows Vista. Another
nail in its coffin. The above Wikipedia article says that
Microsoft Windows 7 will not support hybrid solutions either.
What you want, is to buy a single graphics card, one suitable
for the graphics power you need (high end graphics cards help
when driving very large displays, like 1920x1200 or larger).
Ignore the call for SLI (or Crossfire for that matter), and
if you pick the right card, you'll be satisfied with a single
card graphics solution.
Your motherboard can take an ATI or an Nvidia graphics card.
Just because the chipset is made by Nvidia, does not mean
you are restricted to Nvidia video cards. Select a card
based on its price, and check how the card behaves with
your game of choice. Nvidia and ATI cards excel at different
things, and the internal balance of resources are not the
same. This is why getting benchmark data (frame rates perhaps),
should be used to help ensure you're getting the right product.
(A minimum frame rate of 30 FPS in a game, is considered enough
power for gaming. It isn't the peak frame rate you care about,
but how a card behaves when heavily loaded. There are some
games, that no matter how many video cards you SLI or Crossfire
together, the game still drops below 30 FPS.)
So now your task is much simpler. You're shopping for a single
graphics card. You're not doing SLI or Crossfire. You're searching
for a card which is known to do a good job with your game of
choice.
(FarCry 2 results here are DX10, which is Vista...)
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3463&p=3
Some reviews of video cards.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814161265
"Powerful Card
I get an average of 55 FPS on FarCry 2 with everything maxed at
1920x1200. As far as cooling goes, I don't see any problems with it.
I haven't seen it go above 50C at load and it idles at around 38C."
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814150329
"Great card!!
Plays FAR CRY 2 maxxed out at 1080P on my 22" ASUS. Plays COD:WaW
maxxed out at 1080P as well. Haven't tried anything else yet, but
here are plenty of reviews out there. You'll be able to do 1680*1050
on anything, and 1920*1080 on mostly everything."
If purchasing a high end graphics card, make sure your power
supply has the necessary 2x3 or 2x4 PCI Express power connectors.
There are power connector(s) on the end of the video card,
that need to be connected for the card to work.
Some comments on system power here, in a comparison article.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd4870-1024_8.html#sect0
In this article, Xbitlabs measures the power of the video card itself.
The 4870 is 130W or 12V @ 11A. The 11 amps will come from the 12V1 rail
of your power supply, the same rail that is used for hard drives, fans,
CDROM, etc. The GTX 260 Core 216 should be in the same ballpark. Check
the label on the side of the power supply, to see if enough amps are
available. This article differs from the other one, in that this one
lists the video card power by itself. They got lazy in the article
above, and only measured the more useless "system power".
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/force3d-hd-4870_5.html
If the label on your power supply looked like this...
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/17-371-006-04.jpg
then you have 30 amps (360/12) total to work with. 12 amps are for your processor,
3 amps for basic HDD/ODD/fans, then 11 amps for video. 26 amps of
30 amps total. It would work, but if there is any instability
noted, you would suspect a power supply upgrade is needed.
High end cards are physically large, and the card can bump into the
hard drive rack. Some people have to use a Dremel and cut away their
drive rack, to make room for the video card. "Measure twice, cut once"
as they say...
HTH,
Paul
