Curse

Kyuuba · Jul 20, 2007, 02:40 AM // 02:40

For $50 PSU look Rosewill http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817182016
or the FSP Group
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104935
have fun

Surena · Jul 20, 2007, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrinner

The Requirements for Gwen Shouldn't be that much higher then the current requirements.

They actually are for they're going to exhaust their graphics engine more than ever. It's supposed to be the most beautiful part of GW.

acidic · Jul 20, 2007, 08:57 AM // 08:57

a 7600gt would be fine. I currently run a x800xl which is tad worse than the 7600 and it runs that resolution fine at 50-60fps most of the places, only place it suffers is at the ring of fire. 7900gs would give you an even better boost, but make sure all your other system parts are not bottlenecking first, a well rounded machine is better than one that have a premium engine but crappy tires.

I don't think its a good idea at all to get a mid or low end card just so that its dx10 proof. Anandtech recently did an analysis on current dx10 playbility on these cards and the results were terrible. So I would suggest getting a mid-upper end dx9 card as a stop gap until more dx10 games are out.
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3029&p=3

Dex · Jul 21, 2007, 12:20 AM // 00:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zodiak

You saw the light my friend

lol j/k

But really, ATI seems to be the underdog for some time now. Every attempt they have had at beating or even Matching Nvidia's high end card market have seem futile. (I read alot of reviews) It seems unfortunate but true, ATI just hasnt been able to match Nvidia for some time now.

I liked ATI and Nvidia but I've been playing ball with Nvidia for a long time now, proud owner of two EVGA 8800 Ultra 768mb Video cards that I put in SLI mode. EVGA pushes the envelope when it comes to producing Nvidia video cards and every review I read picks them above others.

EVGA does cost a little bit more, but its very well invested. They make the finest premium products

Depends on what you mean by "some time". The 7XXX series of nVidia cards, while getting good framerates in most games, were all-in-all far inferior to the ATI x19XX series. nVidia managed to top the FPS charts using driver tweaks (eventually), but the 7XXX still couldn't match the x19XX in power and features. Heck the 7XXX series isn't even a full SM3.0 implementation. Since the 8800's were released is the first time in a while that ATI has been behind nVidia, and even then the 8800's have yet to display true FP16 blends (like real HDR) with MSAA at the same time, which is something ATI has been able to do for some time now. Not only that, but the 7XXX series has pitiful pixel shader power compared to the x19XX's, which really shows in games like Oblivion (which nVidia finally driver-tweaked to playability) and Call of Juarez. ATI was running those games great from the get-go because they didn't have to rely on driver tweaks to get speed....they had enough pixel-shader muscle to run them well.

Framerates are great, but ATI has been stomping nVidia in image quality, shader features, and pixel shader power for a while. Yes, the 8800's are great GPUs, but it's only since the GTS's have gone way down in price that I would have recommended one over a x1950xt. Anyway, I'm not brand-loyal (in fact, the way it's looking now my next GPU will probably be nVidia). I just wanted to put a reality-check on your comments about nVidia. Sorry to go off-topic.

BTW - 2 8800's in SLI? What resolution are you running to actually utilize that? Just isn't necessary unless you have a gigantic monitor IMHO...

ChrisCo · Jul 21, 2007, 12:48 AM // 00:48

i have a 7600gt oc running everything maxed 1280x1024 and i prob get a average of 40 fps some places are better than others. max ever was 126fps in doa .... now i cant say anything about gwen cause havent played it =( but for everything i have seen its perfectly fine.

but having had both ati and nvidia i personally like the ati's better(^^ IMO)

hope that helped =)

Zodiak · Jul 21, 2007, 01:36 AM // 01:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dex

BTW - 2 8800's in SLI? What resolution are you running to actually utilize that? Just isn't necessary unless you have a gigantic monitor IMHO...

LG 22" 2000:1 5MS Widescreen LCD
1680x1050
SLI 64xS Anti-Aliasing
16x Anisotropic Filtering
AFR Rendering

I have two words for you sir....

COOKIE PUCKER!

Dex · Jul 21, 2007, 05:04 AM // 05:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zodiak

LG 22" 2000:1 5MS Widescreen LCD
1680x1050
SLI 64xS Anti-Aliasing
16x Anisotropic Filtering
AFR Rendering

I have two words for you sir....

COOKIE PUCKER!

K......matter of opinion I guess. I run a 24" 2407wfp at 1920x1200 with just 4xAA and never get below 60fps with vsync on and the visuals are perfect......any better than that isn't all that useful. Not trying to argue with you, but for my dollar SLI just isn't worth my time. I'm not telling you what to think, though, so no need to get defensive.

I'm not the only tech enthusiast that has owned SLI setups in the past that shares my opinion, BTW. It is my OPINION, however, so spend your money where you wish. I care not.

lordpwn · Jul 21, 2007, 11:16 AM // 11:16

Just don't get a cheap power supply - the really cheap ones often have a very short lifetime if your hardware actually stresses the PSU to anywhere near its maximum capacity, and even at low load any slightly unstable voltages will make the whole system unreliable.

Some of the really bad ones have been known to blow instantly in stress tests.

JAK3US · Jul 22, 2007, 08:55 PM // 20:55

I ended up getting an evga 7600gt and the APEVIA PSU on the other page.
Still hasn't come in yet, can't wait

.

Crossing my fingers and hoping that the PSU will at least last me a year.

Do you think turning AA down to x2 will give me a good FPS boost? At high resolutions, the differences are hard to tell in most places.

moriz · Jul 23, 2007, 08:53 AM // 08:53

my friends Radeon 9800PRO agp can run GW with everything turned up to max at around 60fps. you don't really need to go overboard with the graphics card at all with GW.

btw, the rest of his system is:

intel pentium 4 2.8ghz
1 gb ddr3200 ram
19" Dell LCD monitor, running at 1280x1034 (or something close to that, can't remember)

as for whether turning down AA will effect performance, it really depends on the rest of your system and bottlenecking.

take my friend's computer for example. the greatest bottleneck is his CPU. he can turn everything down, turn everything up, change resolutions, and there will be very little difference in fps, simply because the greatest limitation on his computer is his CPU, and the CPU does not matter in AA and texture quality (at least not much).

for your system, i believe lowering the AA will make a difference, since no matter what, your graphics card will be the greatest bottleneck.

JAK3US · Jul 23, 2007, 11:38 PM // 23:38

The 7600gt will bottleneck the AMD x2 4200? I thought i was pretty much well balanced.

moriz · Jul 23, 2007, 11:58 PM // 23:58

they are well balanced. however, it's most likely that the card will create the bottleneck since much of antialiasing and screen resolution depends on it.

Dex · Jul 24, 2007, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by JAK3US

The 7600gt will bottleneck the AMD x2 4200? I thought i was pretty much well balanced.

Well, most systems have a "bottleneck" somewhere...all that means is that one component in your system is a limiting factor, which is almost always going to be true. The X2 4200+ can certainly back a more powerful GPU than a 7600gt (I have a system with an X2 4200+ and an x1950xtx and the video card is still the limiting factor in most games), but that doesn't mean it demands it. I would worry more about the CPU holding back the video card than the other way around. Most modern games are running at the limits of the GPU for most people. There are a few games out there that really hammer your CPU, but not many.

JAK3US · Jul 24, 2007, 04:04 AM // 04:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dex

Well, most systems have a "bottleneck" somewhere...all that means is that one component in your system is a limiting factor, which is almost always going to be true. The X2 4200+ can certainly back a more powerful GPU than a 7600gt (I have a system with an X2 4200+ and an x1950xtx and the video card is still the limiting factor in most games), but that doesn't mean it demands it. I would worry more about the CPU holding back the video card than the other way around. Most modern games are running at the limits of the GPU for most people. There are a few games out there that really hammer your CPU, but not many.

I get you guys now

.

So Guild wars is more intensive on the video card than on the cpu, so the graphics card will be bottlenecking the cpu. And to think that I almost spent $200 dollars on a newer cpu