I'm thoroughly happy with it too. I don't do any folding, so that's not a concern for me. I hear the scaling on the 500 series cards is supposed to be a big improvement. Since my AMD platform doesn't seem to be holding me back like I thought it would, I might stick another 580 in there next month and see what happens and leave Sandybridge for later in the year. I guess it all depends how demanding games get this year.
Welcome to the 580 club! Have rep! Try running Dead Space! I saw 700FPS+ with my old 480s . I'd probably get a Sandybridge CPU first - with any luck you can pick up another 580 in two months time with a price drop. However, from your rig pics, it looks as though you have a 30" monitor. In which case, I reckon your CPU isn't holding you as far back as you think it is.
Cheers This is what I'm thinking too. IMO I think I'd see more benefit on a 30" monitor from a pair of 580's than I would from a single 580 coupled with Sandybridge (as appealling as Sanybridge might be). I know the 955 isn't the best CPU by any stretch, but at 3.9 Ghz, It can't be that slow, surely? And I think for gaming it's far less important than if I was doing other more CPU intesive tasks. Though I am aware that some games rely quite heavily on the CPU.
http://www.geforce.com/#/Optimize/OPS/BattlefieldBadCompany2-OPS-GeForce-GTX-580 shouldn't matter im running 1920 x 1200 on the newer driver and getting much higher average than shown. But also my system spec's are different.
53 FPS average isn't what i consider ideal... Unless I'm running above 60FPS, I'm not happy. There's little hiccups that will drop average to less than playable. If you start off with 'barely' playable, then the hiccups become bad enough to get you killed. Besides, there's not a huge difference past 4xAA, as I posted in his other thread.
Agreed, but the drivers from the posted link the are dated, as a said i'm getting above what they post as average (well above) and if the op is running 4x he shouldn't have any issues with the GPU being able to handle the game Also the given frame rates are given with a i7 940 cpu
I can't notice any difference in picture quality above 4xAA on my monitor during gameplay. I think AA is more important on lower resolutions such as yours. All it does is eat into my framerates.
http://www.geforce.com/#/Optimize/Guides/AA-AF-guide If anything if makes a greater difference at high resolutions, such as yours as you can see a much greater amount of detail on the screen (also the reason you only truly benefit from HD on tv's over 50" (again also open to debate)) A thread covering the differences http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=79858 And there is a good bit on wikipedia covering it.
Well all I can say is that it makes no visual difference as far as I can see. And the performance sacrifices far outweigh the visual benefits.
Fair enough, just earlier you were talking about SLI, if your not to worried about visual benefits just turn all the bells and whistles off and you'll have no need. Me i love all the extras thats why i upgraded
I dont understand how HD can look better on TV's above 50" ?? Reason being compared to a 32" at 1080p the 50" should look worse due to the pixels being the size of house bricks adding further jagged edges into the picture! I agree that there is very little visual difference adding more than 4xAA at resolutions above 1920x1080.
Well no doubt if i do run SLI then I will turn the less necessary features up. But with a single 580 on a 30" monitor the results in demanding games are not desirable. It is also a form of future proofing, as I believe the games that are to be released over the next year or so will be significantly more graphically intense. If I was running the same res as you then I would have the AA at max settings.
No mate you don't benefit from it unless the tv is over 50", ie the lower the size the better the picture(unless you have a **** picture to start with.....) BFBC 2 isn't demanding just been checking the frame rates and am getting 100 ish fps at 16 and 16q. And until consoles get a refresh i don't think the PC is gona have much issues except for bad coding and even worse ports. All my responses were to your first post My CPU barely touches 30% in the CPU monitor and i'm not sure if its even using all the cores. but if your making the move how you do it doesn't matter.
the TV size thing is relative to viewing distance, you cannot say a certain size as if you sit at 2 feet from the 30inch TV, you'll want monitor kind of resolution. this is why 2560x1600 30inch monitors vs 46inch 720p TV's. you can even get away with 480p 50 inch if you are very far away from the TV.