I would like to know since I am buying a new computer and I mainly play Sins so I want to know if SLI is worth it a long with Dual Core. Here are the specs of the new computer:OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 64bitPSU: Corsair HX520W (520 Watt)CPU: E8400 Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0ghzGPU: Dual Nvidia 512mb 9800GT's (EVGA SuperClocked)RAM: Corsair XMS2 4GB (2x2GB)MOBO: Nvida Nforce 680i SLI (EVGA)HD: Western Digital 250GB
If you notice anything wrong as well since this is the first computer I'm building please let me know.
SLI=Yes, (I think, anyways). I believe SLI is on the GPU side of stuff...
Dual/Tri/Quad...UPTO 2.
Limited in using the other core ONLY for textures.
Most of the stuff is on the first core.
Make sure you get a fast cpu, or tell your BIOS to present it as one logical cpu (with lots of speed).
EDIT: That's a nice system, but in reality, I never build mine (past a certain point anymore) because of how cheap a decent computer can be (750USD for a hp with quad core (AMD), 9500gt(low end, but good enough (for me...)), 4gb of ram, 500gb hd, Blu-Ray reader, DVD/CD/Litescribe uberdrive.)
And I mostly use laptops...
Good luck!!
I would suggest a higher power psu as 520 watt would be running at 95-100% of total power available ie each video card 140w,cpu 50-100w,mb 50-100w,hdd 10-30w each dvd 10-30w each, and I believe that the psu's degrade about 30% in the first year due to the heat being dissapated in the psu ie between 10-50% of the power rating EXTRA power to supply the output due to the power factors in psu's at high percentage of max power output
I agree with harpo. You should never run a PSU near its limit. I would recommend a 700+ watt PSU (may seem overboard, but when you take into account a PSUs efficiency and degradation overtime, it starts to make sense to get a powerful PSU). Oh, and don't go for a non-namebrand cheap PSU. A corsair should be fine though. Hope that helps.
you don't need a bigger PSU!
in fact, anything above 500W is way overpowered unless you're going for SLI / high-OC quad core and/or lots of 3,5" hard drives.
don't go for higher wattage on your PSU, instead go for higher efficiency, go for 350-400W with 80-85% and you're good.
e.g. the enermax pro 82+ (385W) or enermax modu 82+ (425W) would be more than enough here.
SLI won't help you much with sins as it's not very heavy on graphics load, instead get a better CPU or try overclocking yours.
the higher the clocks the better you're sins experience will be.
sins can be run with any medium card (e.g. HD3870 / HD4670 / 9600GT) on maximum settings with 1650x1050 and full AA.
how do i know that? because I have all 3 cards and tested it
Exactly sirphoenix, there are a few things in a PSU you should watch, and that is the 12V-rails (amperage), if you're going for a high-end card, as some low-end PSUs don't have enough 'oomph' in those. (Get a Corsair 850W, it has a single, massive 70A 12V rail - that's A LOT ^^ watch the heat buildup though, good ventilation is always important.)And just as mentioned, high efficiency is damn much more important than the numbers the manufacturer put there. (*cough* Q-Tec *cough* - just an example, some of you know what I mean ^^)Look for the "80plus" rating, then you know you've got a decent one.
Also, use a power meter (plugged in between your computers power cable and the wall outlet) to see how much your PC really is consuming. My rig;
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit build 7000PSU: Corsair TX750WCPU: E8600 Intel Core 2 Duo 3.3ghzGPU: Gainward GeForce GTX 280RAM: Corsair XMS2 Dominator PC8500 4GB (2x2GB)MOBO: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS5 (Intel P45)HD: 1x Samsung F1 500gb, 2x Samsung F1 1tb
Consumes just around 100-150W idle, (depends a lot on power savings settings and active devices) and up to 350-400W peak, thats far below the 750W (even with the .80 rating = 600W) the PSU can handle.And yes, PSUs can degrade a little (up to 30%, though far from all do this) over the years, but as seen you don't need as much as you might think.
Also, a PSU is quite a lot more effective if you live in a country with 230VAC, compared to 110-115VAC (see http://www.corsair.com/_images/charts/tx750w_efficiency.jpg), so... yeah, move to one
There is one thing I don't agree with sirphoenix on though; "the higher the clocks the better you're sins experience will be." - The way modern processors work this is not the case, overclocking may increase the performance of a CPU, but you will never reach the theoretical increase in power you would expect. (i.e. an E8400 @ 3ghz clocked to 4ghz will NOT perform 33% faster, due to how a CPU and data transfer between it and the Northbridge is handled - the effect depends on how you clock aswell, using multiplier, bus or both.)
I'd say, go for a fast dual-core instead for a quad-core at the same price, as nearly all applications today are optimized for one, in some cases two, cores. Yes there are exceptions, but if you do not know whether you need a quad core CPU, you probably don't. Just get a quad core if you can add 50% of the money you'd have spent on a dual core.
Oh, and to the OP:I'd say your system is definately well as it is, and I would advise not to change anything. (Remember that overclocking may damage your components, and you'll never in hell see your warranty if your components have been clocked - other than from factory. Same thing goes if you change your graphics card cooler (better cooling for clocking) for example, warranty void in nearly all cases.)
Just a random tip as well, make sure your memory modules get the voltage they should have (around 1.9-2.0V on the XMS2, check your memory specs.), instead of the DDR2 default at 1.8V, to ensure maximum system stability and performance.
Actually it's not the wattage directly that's even all that important, but rather how much amperage is available on the 12v rails. IIRC nVidia's current crop advises at least 30-50A for SLI (you'd need to check the individual card's specs). If the PSU has split rails it gets tricky to figure out what the actual maximum amperage is across them all simultaneously (often 2/3 to 3/4 of the sum *at best*).
Especially note that the "SLI Certified" bit does not actually tell you *what* cards it was certified to run in SLI, as the power draw has been steadily growing on each new generation. An early or low-end SLI PSU might only have been certified for 7000 series cards.
Also something to be aware of (don't know if they fixed it in the newer runs, but it was true a year ago): Corsair's PSUs don't get along well with 8800-series cards (of which the 9800s are only a minor upgrade). Something about the power regulation doesn't work quite right and the card thinks it's not getting enough power to run.
I am running a similar set up although not SLi:
OS: XP soon to be windows 7 beta to test out
PSU: 500w (forget namebrand, was not corsair but earth something.)
GPU: Geforce 8800 oc
RAM: OCZ gold 4gig DDR2
HD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB
MB: ASUS P5Q Pro
CPU: Same as yours, the wolfdale
Runs everything at highest at 1680x1050 (22 inch monitor) with all effects enabled. I picked that HD because it uses less platters then the other HD's I looked up, increased its loading speeds, write etc, and is dead silent.
I would GREATLY suggest buying an after market cooler for your GPU's, mine was hitting 90c full load, now with the Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev 2 Passive VGA Cooler its 40c full load playing crysis etc.
I would also suggest using a 600-700w PSU, as you are running SLi, those video cards need the power, or your computer just won't boot. I would buy a better single card, dual shows very little improvements, and are only really for the insane hardcore and rich in my personal opinion!
Not that it makes it less freakin awesome. Just not cost effective vs. the performance you get.
Not actually that necessary, just grab the control utility from nVidia and turn up the fan speed (removing factory sinks is certainly something not to be advised for the average user). They default them to 25% on the 8800s to keep them quiet, but I've had no issues with temperature on mine after turning it up to 40-50%.
on what don't you agree here?
i never said how much it helps, just that higher clocks mean smoother gameplay because in sinse the bottleneck is usually the cpu unless your gfx really sucks
i have my E8400 OCed to 3.6 GHz (400x9 with RAM at 1:1) and that helps quite a lot in really large battles where the game would drop down to ~15-16 FPS on standard clock and go up to 19-20 FPS overclocked which matches the 20% increase quite well.
of course depending on your system (amd / intel) and the way you will overclock (fsb / multi) you will get more ore less speedup but better performance none the less.
and the only thing i wanted to say was you better get a higher clocked dual-core then triple or quad.
so you in fact don't disagree
I disagree, this comes from experience of my 8800 GT, I have 2 case fans and one CPU fan, and don't mistake my opinion for having issues with temperature, I did not have alarms go off or my card crash, I just don't like the idea of a GPU running at that temperature.
Even with that utility, with the fans set at 100% it was 90c with crysis full load at max options, before I installed the heatsink, so for me, it was necessary.
Do you use a utility to tell your temps? Try SpeedFan, its free... take a look at them, you might be surprised. The cards are designed to take some heat but I'd rather not have it that way.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
As for removing the factory heatsink, this was my first time doing so with the card to install my cooler... just needed to be careful, overall it was a good experience. But looking at my temps going from 90c to 40c full load... well worth the 20 bucks for the heatsink, and not to mention the fact its passive, no noise. If you overclock just zapstrap a 120mm on it.
in fact I've one 3-way SLI of GTX285 here running on vista 64bits.
Unfortunaltely, Sins of a solar empire is unstable on 3-way SLI, but it's not a big mess as only ONE GTX285 is enough to max every graphical settings to highest and AA x16Q and AFx16..
My advice is to take the biggest GPU card with no sli : GTX285.
One last advice : with 1 GTX285+core i7 920@4GHz my system needs 400W on charge (I've one HX-1000)..thus HX-520 is largely enough for one GPU+one CPU.
Good game to you!
Yes, I ran a number of tests (including looping Crysis timedemos) when I built this machine and did the burn-in. My EVGA 8800GT idles around 54C (25C room temp). With default fan settings it levels off around 72C at full load. With the fan fixed at 50% it drops to ~64C, which is plenty cool enough. This is in a Lian-Li B25 (aluminum) with two 120mm intakes, and a 120mm exhaust directly behind the CPU cooler (PSU also has a 120mm fan). Since it uses all low-RPM fans, it's reasonably quiet as well, but I'm not so picky about noise levels.
I've got a custom HSF on the CPU since the intel ones are complete junk, but the video card does well enough with the fan tweak that it's not really worth bothering with. If yours is running that hot even at 100% fan, then you've got some sort of problem--that's not normal at all for a G92.
You may also want to check this out--apparently Speedfan reads several degrees high on G92s.
Oh like I said, I am sure the card was fine, though I wanted the option to overclock when I get a game I can't run at full specs. I have not tried DX10 yet, so I am sure with crysis I would run into some stutter, but with DX9 full it was a decent 40FPS.
Regardless, a 50% cooler card running at 40c full load for 20 bucks is cheap insurance, and reduces overall temps in the case itself. I was kind of picky with noise as I sleep near my computer, so all my fans are low RPM. I only have 2 case fans, one intake and one exhaust.
What temp program do you use to show your tempratures? I'd like to give it a test to see if speedfan really still does this.
Minor side note: that speedfan temp post you have was made a year ago, 7th feb 2008, I'm not sure if the latest speedfan (that I am using) would suffer from the same problem, I'm sure they've found a work around by now, but if I check out your program, maybe I'll swap to it.
I use sensorview 3 on my machines except for w7 & vs***a with geforce cards, which has an ability to set a correction factor to the temerature readings, but I have found it fairly accurate
harpo
I use ATITool (despite the name, it can be used with either brand). The temperatures it reports are consistent with those given in nTune.
I'm actually going to use two 120mm fans for case cooling. One at the front and one at the back, the cpu cooling is 120mm as well for a total of 3 120mm fans. Would a 600 or 650W be ok for the system I'm getting, it will also be a corsair PSU. The system will only cost me about $1000 to build, but as for the reccomendation of a gtx 285/295 I don't like those cards lol. The reason is because they are double slot cards and I really NEED a single slot solution which is why I decided to get the best single slot solution card and sli it.
Edit here is a link to all the components I will be buying.Case:http://www.xoxide.com/xoxide-alien-x-case.html120mm Fans: (Buying two)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999122
CPU Fan:http://www.xoxide.com/thermaltake-blue-orb-ii-cpu-cooler.html
PSU: (650W Version)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005&Tpk=corsair%20650w
PSU: (750W Version)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006
For the power supplies let me know which one will be better, if the 650W will handle this PC than please say the 650W will be just fine since I don't want to blow money if I don't have to.
Motherboard:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188038&Tpk=nforce%20680i
CPU:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037
GPU: (Buying two and using SLI)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130450
RAM: (Getting 4gb (2x2gb) but may buy 2x2gb more in the future for a total of 8gb ram)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184
Hard Drive:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136113
Fan Controller: (Buying one since as far as I know the mobo only has one 3 pin connector and I will be using that for the CPU fan)http://www.xoxide.com/aerocool-gatewatch-black.html
Hope the links helped, this is my first computer I am building so any help will be appreciated. Anyways thanks for all the comments so far.
most of the 9800gt's are doubleslot .
for power supply capacity I would suggest atleast 750w for SLI for single card 600-650w
the singleslot cards that I have seen are the 7,8,9600gt and lower but all mbs available give a 2 slot width for the 16x pciex slots even the sli & trisli boards
Ah, well I just uninstalled it... speedfan was reading the same temps, so it seems the temps are fixed.
Not sure why mine was reading so high, but I have a silent PC set up, very quiet so that might be why. Anyway, cooler is better I always say, since its a good investment for overclocking your card when you hit a game that needs that little extra juice.
regarding the powersupply the 650w only has 2 pcix 6/8pin plugs and EACH geforce9800gt card requires 2 plugs so you NEED the 750w supply, but in sins sli does not help and can cause difficulties from all of the troubleshooting treads in the forum. the actual power requirements calulate at less that 650w but the power connectors is critical, and the spare headroom in the psu is a VERY GOOD IDEA.
hope this helps
Never, ever, ever chince on a PSU. (Corsair is a great brand) 750w or better (even with one graphics card, 750w is the way to go, more overhead power means quieter fans). I have the same750w corsair PSU your linking to. Have had no issues with it. If y ou're going to SLi, then I'd say that 750w is a minimum...
IMO you're better off spending your $ on one excellent graphics card, than on two lesser ones...you dont get much more out of your second card, so its a waste unless you have extra $ for the system.
This one is $239 after MIR, and will smoke your two 9800s...you save $30....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130444
I just built this system (i7 920, Monsoon HSF, Asus p6T mb, 6gb corsair memory, 750w corsair PSU, 260GTX Geforce) and am very happy with it.
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