Hardware PC Hardware Buyer's Guide November 2010

From the i5-760 review:

Has this been solved?

 

Just tested this in a Game Cube (H55N-USB3, i5 760 @3.6GHz 200x18, 4GB DDR3 @1600MHz 9-9-9-24-2)

Vantage PhysX Disabled:
GTX460 @ 825/1650/1900 GPU-15655
HD 6870 @ 975/1150 GPU-16817
HD6850 @ 850/1200 GPU-13342

So yeah, get a GTX460 and OC it rather than a 6850.

 

Thanks man, have you tried oc'ing the 68xx's yet? i'd be interested to know if overclocking a 6850 would beat the 460. That 460's pretty close to the 6870 too!

 

That's quite a tame OC for the 460 too. Check out my sig It gets a Vantage GPU (P) score of 18080 (that was with PhysX on, not tested without, will do tonight to compare).

 

945 core! i take it that's with w/cooling? yeah i reckon that'll beat the 6870 never mind 6850, anyone find anyhting to do with overclocking the 68xx's? why didn't Bit-tech do an overclock on them? i'm beginning to think they just don't overclock at all well.

 

Just ran a test with and without GPU PhysX with the 260.99 drivers using the OC in my sig:

GPU PhysX: P22043 (GPU score 18284) (CPU score 57522)
CPU PhysX: P19251 (GPU score 18146) (CPU score 23556)

The GPU scores are close enough to suggest that it doesn't matter for Vantage if you use your GPU for PhysX as each time I run Vantage my scores can differ a couple of hundred even doing 2 tests in a row.

The CPU score however drastically improves using an Nvidia card for PhysX but this we already knew.

Anyone care to post Vantage scores of their overclocked 6 series cards please?

 

is that watercooled gpu mr. bens? I can only get 906 without artifacts and that's pushing the voltage to 1.137v

got around 17k graphics score with older driver in the trial vantage.. need to find my key.. satisfied with my card though- I mean it oc's well but not 940 well.. it'll go there but not without artifacts

the cooler on the zotac is pretty limited though.. could be it- have to keep it under 80c at 906 so it's pretty noisy running 88% fan

I played through mafia 2 with physx on maxed at 906, 2130 mem.. was pretty smooth but not perfect.. it's a pretty good card- dead rising 2 full up and fallout new vegas full up with a dll cheat.. those run fine at 845

course older games like guildwars and street fighter 4.. 32x aa 16x af 8x supersampled =]

still have to try out the new driver.. hopefully they fixed some of the faults in their old beta like not applying the desktop colors at logon.. you have to open up the panel and apply them manually everytime.. swear sometimes I think the guys writing these drivers are smoking crack- how can you mess up a basic thing like that between driver versions

 

Yeah it's a Zotac with EK waterblock @ 1.087v.

Did you have to flash a hacked BIOS to raise your voltage that high as Afterburner has a limit of 1.087v? I didn't fancy risking it.

Even with my overclocked CPU in the same loop the GPU temps usually stay below 40C while gaming.

 

Thanks for this months guide, I have managed to sort my gaming rig out based on your spec for about 760. I can reuse my current hard drive and dvd drive so saved a few pennnies there.
I also oped to go for the silverstone case because it does look great.

This is what I have gone for

1 x Intel Core i5 760 2.8GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) Processor - Retail @ 135.11GBP
1 x Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard @ 89.99GBP
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) @ 58.74GBP
1 x Arianet GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card @ 199.63GBP
1 x Thermaltake Frio CPU Cooler @ 38.76GBP
1 x Silverstone Raven RV02B-W Black Mid Tower Case @ 139.81GBP
1 x Antec TruePower New Series 650W Modular Power Supply @ 82.84GBP

And I am sure I can manage windows 7 aswell

 

All fine apart from the 470, may as well save yourself £30 to spend on a game:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-135-OK&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1810

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4002/amd-radeon-hd-6850-overclocking-roundup-asus-xfx-msi/8

Benchmarks for overclocked 6850's, basically they get the same frame rates as an overclocked gtx 460 1gb in battlefield bad co 2 when no AA is enabled but start to lose more and more as you up the AA. I'd still say that the gtx 460 is the better card as i like to have the maximum AA on.

 

ah that's why.. yeah it's a modded bios from a guy with the fermi bios editor lite.. guess he donated to get it from orb and he was being cool taking requests.. some reason the mvktech one is ass- least when I was looking it didn't work

can crank up the voltage to 1.2v and fan goes to 100%.. he'll set the clocks you want on the guru3d forum, names beta

 

Not bad. Saw this cartoon though, just had to post

 

well I think it's just a cut and paste and view a few discounts, as seen in the fact
September instead of November, also think that each package has misaligned the cpu vs gpu
that is why I will comment on what should be the guide November:
1) CPU; AMD ATHLON II X2 250 REGOR 3.0GHZ
BOARD;MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD MOTHERBOARD (2 PCI EXPRESS)
MEMORY;WINTEC AMPX 4GB (2 X 2GB) 240-PIN DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) EXELENT PRICE
GPU; XFX HD-577A-ZNFC RADEON HD 5770 (JUNIPER XT) 1GB LIFETIME
POWER SUPPLY; ANTEC NEO ECO 400C 400W CONTINUOUS POWER ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS CERTIFIED ACTIVE PFC
CPU COOLER;ARCTIC COOLING FREEZER 64 PRO 92MM CERAMIC
COMPUTER CASE;ANTEC THREE HUNDRED ILLUSION BLACK STEEL ATX MID TOWER
CD/DVD BURNER ;SONY OPTIARC BLACK SATA MODEL AD-7261S-0B LIGHTSCRIBE
HARD DRIVE ;WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR BLUE WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB CACHE SATA 3.0GB/S 3.5"

 

hola revision de memorias

 

it's been copy paste for the past 6 months basically, with very few changes. pretty lame honestly.

 

Good idea Randis, you can pick up the MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD MOTHERBOARD (2 PCI EXPRESS) from Ebuyer;

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/241003

Seems to be one of only a few AM3s of that era without some integrated Nvidia stuff on it.

 

Is the MSI 770-C45 out of production? Non of my usual suppliers have any stock or an eta on new stock ...

 

When is the December one coming out?

 

HD6850 is a better choice over the GTX460, overclocking should never be a consideration.