Hi guys, It was my birthday today; I've been given some money and I'm thinking of putting it towards a new gaming PC. I don't need advice on how to build it or what is and isn't compatible, I'm just after opinions from people who already own the components I'm thinking of buying. So, here are my questions: I'm budgeting £200-£300 for the GPU. I'd be happy with a GTX560 ti as far as performance is concerned, but I'd like to move to a triple screen setup in the future (primarily for flight sims) so I'm leaning towards a 6950. I do want to keep costs down though and I know I won't be able to afford new screens any time soon, so the 560 seems a more sensible option for my immediate needs. I'm already aware of the shader unlock and 6970 flash for the ATI card, but honestly I'd probably just leave it with its own BIOS and OC it, so no need to tell me that that's an option and no need to stick to reference cards What I'd like is opinions from both camps, and some recommendations for good 6950s (I hear good things about the ASUS DirectCU II, for example). I don't really need anything more powerful because I'll be using a 1920x1080 screen for the time being, so performance at higher resolutions is immaterial. Other than the GPU I also want a small SSD as a boot drive. I don't want to spend much more than £100 and basically just want the best available on that budget. SATA III would be preferable but most of what I've looked at so far is SATA II. I'm leaning towards the 60GB OCZ Vertex 2E, but I've also considered a Corsair Force Series F60. Both of those are SATA II. Scan have a 64GB C300 due in stock with no price shown, and a 64GB Crucial RealSSD M4 in stock at £99.98. Both of those are SATA III but both have significantly slower write speeds than the SATA II drives. Having never used an SSD before I'd appreciate some voices of experience to point me in the right direction, and tell me how noticeable the difference in write speeds would be in the real world. Obviously the primary benefit of an SSD is the increased read speeds for faster booting etc. Finally, I'm not 100% on which motherboard to get. I'm leaning towards an Asus P8P67 Rev3, but any recommendations for alternatives would be welcome. I don't really want to spend more than £150 on the motherboard and a single PCIe x16 slot is enough because I don't intend to use multiple GPUs. Thanks for reading, Paul
unless your consistently writing stuff to an ssd, then write speeds don't matter to much and I would say the 64gb crucial c300 is a VERY VERY good drive, although I have its bigger brother I've tried the smaller one and only notice a slight difference in the write speeds. If you are thinking about getting the gtx 560 then you'll have to remember that nvidia's 3d surround or whatever the hell its called needs two cards, so anything with two 8x pcie slots will surfice, also if your thinking of running 2 or 3 screens the more vram you have the better, hence why maybe consider a gtx 570? or the 6950 you mentioned would also be very good, probably the better bet for you I'm guessing if you want to keep costs down, or unless you don't mind buying another card in the future.
Thanks for your help I'd go with a 560 for single screen gaming because it's cheaper and arguably better, but if I get a 6950 or 6970 it gives me the option to add extra screens further down the line, which is something I'd like to do but can't afford at the moment... I'm torn between what's best now and what's best in the long run, but depending on when I was to get additional displays an upgrade may be better anyway... I don't know. Thanks for the info on the C300. I know those drives have a great reputation. While the read speed is better than everything else I've looked at, the write speed is the lowest, so feedback on real world performance is very helpful; it's good to hear your experience with it was good. I need to call Scan tomorrow to get ETAs for a couple of components, so I'll check the pricing on it then too. I'm only really bothered about price, performance, heat and noise when it comes to the GPU, I'll be using it predominantly for gaming and possibly some rendering; folding performance, for example, is not important. The main cause of my indecision is that I would like to be able to add extra screens later without having to add another card; that means I'd have to go with AMD/ATI. But since I don't know when I'll be able to buy additional displays I'm not sure how sensible it is to let that influence what I buy now. A 2GB 6950 will cost me around £10-£30 more than a 560, so I suppose it comes down to whether I want to pay that to keep my options open, because from what I've read I don't think there's much difference in terms of performance. What I'd like to know is what other people would choose, ideally based on experience using both cards because that's something I don't have. Noise is a factor for me so knowing what's quiet and what isn't would be helpful, as would experience-based opinions on non reference cards. Oh and 3D doesn't really interest me, I'm quit happy with two dimensions for gaming I see stuff in 3D all the time
dont get the 560 unless you simply cannot wait to pull together a few more pennies as I suggest you take a serious look at the Red Team. 3 1080p screens are very affordable now, and will only become more so. Eyefinity works well and stock HD 6950 2GB cards are going for a song right now... <$270 US or <200GBP on scan. Why go AMD? You are buying a premium card which in one easy step you can flash your card vBios (unlocking all 1536 stream processors, bumping voltage, tightening ram timings ) to create a true full-fat 6970 except having a 6 and an 8 pin pci-e connector which is simply a non-issue with a decent PSU. My VisionTek card is running rock solid at 910/1350Mhz. Of course they are dual bios cards, so you can always slide the switch across to return the card to 6950 operation. The only downside with the 6950 is that under torture-testing (read: furmark), the fan will spin up to generate hairdryer noise-levels... the 6950 is the best fit for multiscreen gaming that 2GB of VRAM gives you a nice overhead moving forward for future titles.... and happy birthday(!) sworks
Thanks dude Honestly the more I think about it the more sure I am I want the 6950, for all the reasons you've given. Other than the 560 being that little bit cheaper there's really nothing else to persuade me to choose it. I'm not bothered about folding performance for example. I understand the reference cards are preferable if you want to flash the 6970 BIOS onto them, but what do you think of the non-reference models? Is there anything in particular you'd recommend, reference or otherwise?
Go for the 6950. If it lacks grunt for tripple screen gaming, you can always add another. With the 560 GTX you HAVE to add another just to be able to do tripple screen gaming
Further proving that my middle name should be Indecision instead of Robert, I'm now questioning what monitor I should get.. something I was sure about until today. I'd made my mind up to get the Viewsonic VP2365wb, but it's out of stock in most places with no ETA. Ebuyer have some but I refuse to buy from them after consistently SHlT customer service and cock-ups on previous orders. So, after a brief consultation with The Oracle, I'm thinking I might go for a Dell Ultrasharp U2311H instead. It's actually marginally cheaper if I buy it from Aria, it's in stock, and it has display port (something the Viewsonic lacks) which I'd need if I do go for an eyefinity setup later. However, Viewsonic have a zero pixel-defect warranty which is a nice peace-of-mind when you're spending £200 on a monitor. Has anyone here got either of these screens? Could you tell me pros/cons based on your experience living with them. Does anyone know what Dell are like to deal with in the event of dead pixels or other problems? I know I'm agonising over minute details, but money's tight and spending so much all at once on a luxury item is a very big deal for me: I want to make sure I pick everything carefully before placing any orders. I can read reviews online (and I have) but I value first hand experience and the opinions of the members here, so please bear with me as I bombard you with questions
MONITOR YOU SAY? Thats an easy one http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=bsd&cs=ukbsdt1&sku=421265 and it comes with display port input, whereas I don't think the viewsonic does? And you will need one monitor with display port input if you want to do eyefinity with an amd card
Thanks for the advice Addendum: Joking aside, I've been looking at both and uming and ahing for a while, but I've now decided to go with the Dell. I like its design more than that of the Viewsonic, it has display port and it's in stock. I just need to decide which 6950 to go with now and then I can go back to being broke. Pretty sure I'll go with the aforementioned Asus... Another addition... Now ordered everything so no need for further posts. Thanks to those of you who answered and offered advice.
