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I've been looking into a upgrade, I would be more comfortable with advice. My gpu needs are: 450w needed or below No power cables needed, just the PCI-E slot Under $80/90 So far, I've been looking into a used Asus 6670. My questions are, does that fit my criteria, and is there any better value I'm missing? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 1, 2013 23:35
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What is the reason for buying it?
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Feb 1, 2013 23:51
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William Bear posted:I've been looking into a upgrade, I would be more comfortable with advice. Those are some pretty strict criteria - are you currently running an integrated GPU? Because a GPU that meets all the criteria listed isn't going to be much of an upgrade in general, unless you're currently using something awful like a GMA 950. Like Don Lapre said, what are you hoping to do with this that you can't already do? Anyway, give the Radeon 7750 a look. It fits the bill in every category except price, I think it goes for around $100 or $110, but it'll be noticeably (albeit not dramatically) better than the 6670.
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Feb 2, 2013 02:46
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incoherent posted:My 2 260s used to keep my room warm in the winter (unbearable in the summer). Sometimes I wonder if my 670 is even on. Is the 670 actually a quiet card? I feel that my 7850 is too loud.
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Feb 3, 2013 05:53
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A custom-cooled one like the Asus DirectCU II models are pretty drat quiet, yeah. If you're really insane, you can mount custom closed-loop liquid cooling to a reference card for $170 and a metric ton of blood, sweat and tears. That thing will be less than 30 dB, below the noise floor of most noise meters.
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Feb 3, 2013 06:14
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If you're less-insane, you can also get aftermarket air-coolers that perform the same functions as the DirectCU models, which is what I did when I ended up with an unlockable 6950 and the reference cooler was terrible. Although most of them have gone up in price recently, so it's better just to get a card with a half-decent cooler if you're buying new.
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Feb 3, 2013 08:06
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William Bear posted:I've been looking into a upgrade, I would be more comfortable with advice.
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Feb 3, 2013 08:08
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Tab8715 posted:Is the 670 actually a quiet card? The quietness of all cards depends on the cooling system attached, not the model family.
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Feb 3, 2013 09:00
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Longinus00 posted:The quietness of all cards depends on the cooling system attached, not the model family. Well, there are certainly other factors that influence that. The newer generation of cards are a lot more energy-efficient, and that helps keep temps down and in turn requires less aggressive cooling.
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Feb 3, 2013 10:04
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That may be true but not in this case. The 7850 is a no-frills kinda thing so nearly all of them ever produced have that ATi reference single-fan leafblower. The Asus DirectCU and the Gigabyte OC models were the best rated for cooling perfomance and sound levels when every site was doing their 670 roundups, iirc. I can personally attest that Gigabyte's is totally legit (never hear it, got a fan curve that never breaks 60C at 1250/1870)
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Feb 3, 2013 14:29
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On the other hand, I found the Gigabyte cooler kind of loud at stock and super loud after overclocking. I swapped out the fans with a pair of quiet 120mm ones and it's much better now. The mechanical hard drives are now the loudest part of my computer.
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Feb 3, 2013 16:12
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I apologize for my previous post, which violated the thread's rules. Let me just ask a question about GPU classification of its power requirements: is there a word for a card that just requires the insertion into a PCI-E slot? Is there a way to tell, looking at the specs of a card, that it requires additional plugs? I see language on AMD's website about "two 150W 8-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended." Is that, in my case, what I should avoid?
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Feb 3, 2013 18:34
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William Bear posted:I apologize for my previous post, which violated the thread's rules. Let me just ask a question about GPU classification of its power requirements: is there a word for a card that just requires the insertion into a PCI-E slot? Yes. Cards that draw power only from the slot are commonly called "bus-powered" cards or just "cards that don't need a PCIe power connector." The most powerful bus-powered card available is the AMD Radeon HD 7750. I can be had for ~$90 or ~$110 for a low-profile version. The next best bang for your buck is the older Radeon HD 6670, but the 7750 is a significantly better performer.
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Feb 3, 2013 18:49
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TheRationalRedditor posted:The 7850 is a no-frills kinda thing so nearly all of them ever produced have that ATi reference single-fan leafblower. What? No. The good brands will put their own cooling solution on them, even if they're "no frills" cards. Manufacturers are aware that noise levels are an increasing concern, and that there will be a demand for a quieter version of any model. I have two of the above, and both of them running at max load is still more quiet than the XFX 5870 I upgraded from (because it was so loving noisy). That said, I could never find some decent aftermarket coolers as mentioned by Factory Factory and grumperfish. I initially wanted to get one of those for my 5870, but it turned out it was not nearly as simple, cheap and convenient as an aftermarket cooler for a CPU.
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Feb 3, 2013 21:24
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Wish they'd just start putting 1 or 2 120mm fans and then enclose the whole thing in a shroud like the reference coolers are so it exhausts out the back.
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Feb 3, 2013 21:27
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uhhhhahhhhohahhh posted:Wish they'd just start putting 1 or 2 120mm fans and then enclose the whole thing in a shroud like the reference coolers are so it exhausts out the back.
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Feb 3, 2013 21:29
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Jan posted:That said, I could never find some decent aftermarket coolers as mentioned by Factory Factory and grumperfish. I initially wanted to get one of those for my 5870, but it turned out it was not nearly as simple, cheap and convenient as an aftermarket cooler for a CPU. With regards to rear-exhaust vs. open-airflow coolers, I'd rather have a non-blower version since open-air coolers barely add to internal case temperatures with modern cards assuming you have half-decent airflow. Blowers are usually preferable on smaller cases though. future ghost fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Feb 3, 2013 |
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Feb 3, 2013 21:40
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Here's the closed-loop liquid one I was referring to (Radeon 7970/7950 version), plus the AnandTech review. The non-7970 version seems to have gotten a significant price cut.
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Feb 3, 2013 21:52
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craig588 posted:On the other hand, I found the Gigabyte cooler kind of loud at stock and super loud after overclocking. I swapped out the fans with a pair of quiet 120mm ones and it's much better now. The mechanical hard drives are now the loudest part of my computer. Jan posted:What? No. The good brands will put their own cooling solution on them, even if they're "no frills" cards. Manufacturers are aware that noise levels are an increasing concern, and that there will be a demand for a quieter version of any model. TheRationalRedditor posted:nearly all of them TheRationalRedditor fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Feb 3, 2013 |
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Feb 3, 2013 23:03
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Not to get too into a semantic argument, but looks about 50/50 to me.  Sapphire dual-fan 7850 owner chiming in here, it is really quiet in general and also very cool, I don't think I've ever seen it go over 58 degrees under load. Dual-fan setups are increasingly common (especially among the higher quality brands), you pretty much have to go 7770/650 or below to get to 'nearly all' models being single-fan solutions.
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Feb 3, 2013 23:37
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Admittedly I'm judging from when they were hot off the press and picked up mine (Powercolor, lol) days after it showed up on my retailer. I'm pleasantly surprised to see it got picked up by so many vendors over time to allow for such fiddling, it was in a really meaty segment of the price/performance curve before that last big GPU market price drop.
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Feb 3, 2013 23:45
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Yeah, since the only reason I wanted to upgrade at the time was for noise levels, I waited patiently until MSI released their 7850. Which took forever but was worth it. Still would rather they'd use 120mm fans but it's still a pretty good cooler.
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Feb 3, 2013 23:50
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TheRationalRedditor posted:I'm talking about the OC model, which is the "Windforce 3x". I have no problem believing anything with fewer, possibly smaller fans has issues. Yep that's the one I had. Gigabytes whole line of cards is sort of disappointing. They look great but perform poorly relative to competitors cards. Maybe they'll get it right next generation. I remember a time when Asus had terrible videocards, it seems like it's different every year. Gigabyte also does semi shady things with the bioses on some of their cards to make them quieter and cooler but perform worse. That's a pretty good reason to stay away from them too. craig588 fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Feb 4, 2013 |
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Feb 3, 2013 23:55
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craig588 posted:Yep that's the one I had. Gigabytes whole line of cards is sort of disappointing. They look great but perform poorly relative to competitors cards. Maybe they'll get it right next generation. I remember a time when Asus had terrible videocards, it seems like it's different every year. Then take matters into your own hands and mod the bios Seriously though, I had to. Gigabyte voltage locked my 7950. When the whole point of me buying a 7950 over a GeForce was the insane OC-ability of the 7900 cards. Ugh.
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Feb 4, 2013 00:27
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:Then take matters into your own hands and mod the bios Yeah, I had to do that with my personal 670 because it was limited to something like 140 watts. No one has made an easy tool for it yet so I needed to read a whole bunch of forums to get offsets to edit and figure out how to update the checksum manually. I wouldn't want to recommend someone else do it or even risk doing it for someone else because of potential long term problems. Because Gigabyte uses lots of custom PCBs maybe there's a good reason they have low current limits and one day a FET will blow off my card? craig588 fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Feb 4, 2013 |
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Feb 4, 2013 00:40
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With new consoles having or rumored to have ATI gpus - would it be a good idea to purchase an ATI-Card over a nVidia card?
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Feb 4, 2013 00:46
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Don't buy based on promise. For pretty much everything, really. The origial Xbox has an Nvidia GPU and there were little to no benefits of using an Nvidia card for console ports then. Get whatever is best for the games you play right now.
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Feb 4, 2013 00:50
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craig588 posted:Yep that's the one I had. Gigabytes whole line of cards is sort of disappointing. They look great but perform poorly relative to competitors cards. Maybe they'll get it right next generation. I remember a time when Asus had terrible videocards, it seems like it's different every year. We went over the negatives of Gigabyte earlier in the thread and I think the consensus was "caution, YMMV". My card has been nothing but great so far though but I totally believe that people have had them blow up or aggravating QA issues.
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Feb 4, 2013 00:50
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Tab8715 posted:Is the 670 actually a quiet card? I'm running a 660Ti with a factory overclock and it's quiet. This has a few conditions though. When I'm running 3 screens in desktop there's very little load and with the power efficiency of this series of cards there's little reason for it to be noisy. It does get noisy on some games just running on a single screen but this is only noticeable when the game sounds/music are quiet (and I have the gpu exhausting behind my main monitor). I think that it'd be a little bit quieter if the exhaust vent wasn't so small but then there is limited space for all the monitor connections.
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Feb 4, 2013 00:52
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Tab8715 posted:With new consoles having or rumored to have ATI gpus - would it be a good idea to purchase an ATI-Card over a nVidia card? No matter what GPU the next generation has, it very likely will also have unified memory. This one detail changes everything about how engines are designed and optimised, so until PCs also have unified memory, console specific optimisations don't meant anything.
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Feb 4, 2013 00:53
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TheRationalRedditor posted:pair of quiet 120s. 120MM fans are quite a bit bigger than the stock ones (I think those are 80MM?). If I wanted to fit 3 fans on it I probably could by letting the 2 on the edges hang off a whole lot, but I'm not wasting much of the heatsink as it is. TheRationalRedditor posted:has always been stealthy To be fair I also think a Corsair H100 is incredibly loud, well beyond even the loudest the Gigabyte cooler got to and I know a lot of people who feel the H100 is quiet. I have 140mm fans on a fan controller and 200mm fans on their lowest setting. I want to hardly be aware of a computer making noise. Jan posted:No matter what GPU the next generation has, it very likely will also have unified memory. This one detail changes everything about how engines are designed and optimised, so until PCs also have unified memory, console specific optimisations don't meant anything. craig588 fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Feb 4, 2013 |
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Feb 4, 2013 01:02
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360 has 512 unified, PS3 does a 256 even split, although developers have been known to use the video side for non-video stuff.
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Feb 4, 2013 01:18
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I could see it being hard for PCs for a while if consoles end up with 8GB of unified memory and some scenes use up 6 or 7GB of video memory without a second thought on a console. Since any worthwhile videocard has more than 512MB of memory now it's not really an issue for 360 ports, but when it was new the 360 was ridiculously powerful. If it becomes an important feature I'm sure videocard manufacturers will start offering 8GB cards.
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Feb 4, 2013 01:36
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Chasiubao posted:360 has 512 unified, PS3 does a 256 even split, although developers have been known to use the video side for non-video stuff. Correct. But the OS also takes a bunch more memory for itself, so the effective available memory on 360 is closer to 325MB. Don't remember off-hand on PS3. As for video RAM vs. regular RAM on PC, remember that the most memory consuming resources (textures, non-streamed sounds) don't live in VRAM. While unified memory makes some PC mechanisms unnecessary like texture caching, I doubt any next gen title is going to use up 6+GBs worth of attribute data, especially not if tessellation is available to reduce bandwidth usage. With textures, sure, but PC already makes use of bigger memory addressing by using bigger textures. I think the bigger challenge, video RAM-wise, is going to stem from render buffers. Pretty much every single modern engine is migrating towards full deferred shading, which is incredibly easier to work with and more efficient... But requires quite a bit of memory to store a bunch of render targets, some of which have to be in sRGB space and take up 4 times more memory. While the 360 had 300+MB available memory, that memory was rather slow for rendering to, so they added some embedded RAM that is tremendously faster. But it was only 10MB. Most render targets in 720p won't fit in 10MB, let alone 1080p render targets. Most games cheated by using 640p rendertargets and upscaling, or they used tiling, which is a chore. If the new consoles also have an eDRAM mechanism (and I can't see how they wouldn't), I'm hoping it'll be more than 10MB. It'd be awesome to have our more important geometry buffers all reside in fast RAM without having to manage copies/resolves between each deferred pass.
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Feb 4, 2013 02:28
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Jan posted:Correct. Erm, that's not correct. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xboxteam/archive/2007/11/30/december-2007-system-update.aspx Chasiubao fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Feb 4, 2013 |
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Feb 4, 2013 03:53
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Chasiubao posted:Where on Earth did you get your numbers? I haven't actually looked up the official documentation to see how memory is allocated. There are probably some managed resources and system memory used by Direct3D itself. But I do know that the biggest block we could allocate to our memory manager without running out of memory was around 350MB at best.
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Feb 4, 2013 04:06
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Oh never mind, don't even need to break NDA, it's public:
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Anyone dealt with coil whine before? My GTX 570 is producing a lot when rendering high frame rates. Is there anything that can be done aside from enabling VSync?
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Feb 11, 2013 02:07
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TheRationalRedditor posted:That may be true but not in this case. The 7850 is a no-frills kinda thing so nearly all of them ever produced have that ATi reference single-fan leafblower. Nah, I've bought two 7850s (Sapphire and MSI) and they both had their own custom coolers. They weren't some special amazing expensive edition cards or anything either. Both extremely quiet even under load. (Although the Sapphire had godawful coil whine, but that's a different issue).
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Feb 11, 2013 18:08
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I keep seeing people talk about coil whine on their graphics cards. What's the difference between that and the fan just being loud because it's moving a lot of air? Edit: I found this wikipedia article about it. I'd it really that loud/so prevalent that it's a big deal? I don't think I've ever noticed any sort of coil noise, just the fan being loud as gently caress on my 570 HD.
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Feb 11, 2013 18:39
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dog nougat posted:I keep seeing people talk about coil whine on their graphics cards. What's the difference between that and the fan just being loud because it's moving a lot of air? One is a noise coming from the video card, one is a noise coming from the fan.
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Feb 11, 2013 18:57
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