Computer Pros Needed (Advise)

RealistSpy

Hi,
Spec: Q9450
p45 motherboard
4gb ram @1600 but x64 os so upgrade to 8gb
850psu


1. Can someone recommend me an Nvidia card better than 4870 512mb. ATI really like pissing me off with their drivers. I don't want something too expensive.

2. I want to get into liquid cooling (gpu, cpu northbridge the lot) I hate noise

BadCharlie

Would need to look for
GTX260 (not sure if this is better then what u have)
GTX275
GTX285
GTX295

Or you could wait another 3 months for their new video cards to be out. And then another 3 months before we will see plenty of them in stock.

Also with water cooling your going to have some noise.

marco_polo

The closest match is probably the GT260 which uis probably slighty less powerful, not great value though your are probably looking at least a 40-50 euro price gap from a quick scan at HWVS. The 275 for silly money is the next one up AFAIK

RealistSpy

update: My resolution is 1920 x 1080

Effluo

The upgrade to 8gigs of ram is not at all necessary if all you'll be doing is gaming. It would make no difference

Also Nvidia don't offer much value for money right now at 1080

What kind of problems are you having with the 4870?
They must be pretty bad if you're considering a change!

Solitaire

If you had driver issues with a HD4870 re temps/noise due to shoddy fan control on non-reference cards a HD57*0 is still a (very) viable alternative. They simply don't jack out enough heat in the first place to allow major fan issues to develop :P

Leman_Russ

Solitaire wrote: »

If you had driver issues with a HD4870 re temps/noise due to shoddy fan control on non-reference cards a HD57*0 is still a (very) viable alternative. They simply don't jack out enough heat in the first place to allow major fan issues to develop :P

Confirming this to be the case. I have a 5770 here overclocked, fan running at 37% Speed and it idles at a whopping 28*C. At load it rarely goes over 50 and that's with the fan only running at 60% Speed.

uberpixie

RealistSpy wrote: »

Hi,
Spec: Q9450
p45 motherboard
4gb ram @1600 but x64 os so upgrade to 8gb
850psu


1. Can someone recommend me an Nvidia card better than 4870 512mb. ATI really like pissing me off with their drivers. I don't want something too expensive.

2. I want to get into liquid cooling (gpu, cpu northbridge the lot) I hate noise

1) what driver issues are you having? (running 4870 512mb myself and it has been fine bar small issues with borderlands which was fixed by renaming the borderlands.exe to bioshock.exe!)

2) 8gig of ram is overkill. 4 gig is fine, running win7 64bit myself and never seem to use up the full 4gig even running games.

3) Before bitting the bullet and going watercooling.... What case, PSU and gfx card cooler do you have? What case fans are you using?

I'm running a an air cooled setup myself which makes very little noise, which took a little work to accomplish, but was much cheaper than water cooling!

Farcear

Leman_Russ wrote: »

Confirming this to be the case. I have a 5770 here overclocked, fan running at 37% Speed and it idles at a whopping 28*C. At load it rarely goes over 50 and that's with the fan only running at 60% Speed.

Stock cooling?

or do you have more case fans?

the_syco

Have a 1GB 4870 myself, using it with Windows7. No driver issues at all.

May I ask what driver issues you are having, and with what games/applications?

PogMoThoin

Zero driver problems here with a 4870x2, i hope You've been using the latest driver, not the one that came on disk with the gpu

RealistSpy

The temperature is high I have the saphire version temp @ 35 idle. Lots of glitiches well its overclocked though.

I do a lot of programming, 3d stuff & gaming. I have zalman 9500 cooler for my processor, my case is antec 300.

Anyways thanks guys

Anti

So it artifacts when overclocked, here's a shocker... you've pushed it too far. And 35c idle, well **** the bed, spank my arse and call me betsy !!

Also running 2 ATI cards atm and the drivers are fooking fantastic, unlike the **** nvidia pump out... 130mb for a driver, nice coding there Nfailia !

Leman_Russ

Farcear wrote: »

Stock cooling?

or do you have more case fans?

Stock cooling...

With two 110 CFM Case Fans blowing on it :pac::pac::pac:

thepieman12345

well if you are not arsed setting up a custom loop for the watercooling a zalman resorator is an option (fanless but quite expensive for a resorator 2) or a corsair h50 (one 120mm fan) but both only cool the cpu i think, if you want to cool everything on water you will need a custom one
and for the video card:
gtx 260, gtx 275, gtx 280, gtx 285, gtx 295

the_syco

RealistSpy wrote: »

Lots of glitiches well its overclocked though.

So the problem is that you've overclocked it too much, and not the drivers? I'm guessing if you got an nVidia card, you'd overclock it, not put sufficent cooling on it, and then wonder why it's also failing? None of my rig is overclocked. If I were to overclock it, I'd probably watercool it. Air can only keep it cool for so long.