Video game addicts...

Anybody pre-order Dragon Age 2? I think it releases on Steam today?

Seems like you have done your homework. It doesn't really matter what card you choose.

Don't bank on the unlocking option though. You might get lucky, but there is no guarantee. It depends on the yield rate for the 6970. Slightly faulty or slower ones are sold as 6950 (defect parts get disabled), if they can sell more 6950 cards, they just relabel 6970 cards and equip them with a different bios. The last ones might be unlocked.

If you don't really need a card now, maybe wait half a year or so for the 32nm or 28nm cards to come out. This generation was just a necessary bridge because TSMC is way behind their schedule on the new manufacturing process.

Just beat the main campaign in Red Dead Redemption last night. Interesting ending, will have to download Undead Nightmare soon.

I ordered Metal Gear Solid 4 and Uncharted 2 for my free time during spring break next week. I hadn't heard of Uncharted 2 until I had been snooping around online a little...

This brings me to a general video game question. Looking at reviews, it seems like Uncharted 2 is a much better game than Uncharted. Are games like movies, where you want to start from the beginning? So far I don't think they are, but I hope I'm not missing anything

I'm sorta looking into SLI'ing now. For last year the cards to have were the 460, this year it's the 560's. I can get two 460's for under $400 or two 560's for just over $500. From what I've been reading the 560's are the ones to get if I want to be well ahead of the 580. But then there's cost. Do I want to spend $500 on video cards. I was originally looking to spend around $350 but since I don't flip cards like some gamers, so a faster card would pay for itself over the long run.

I did read that all of the GFX companies were behind on their schedules on Maximum PC's site. The other problem I see is that some of the cars are so new, more specifically the 570 and 560 that they haven't made it down the pipeline in large numbers yet.

I think I'm going to stick with Nvidia especially if I go SLI vs. Crossfire as their drivers are always a PITA and it seems it's more so with Crossfire.

I guess I'll wait till PAX East starts and see what is announced. Maybe by then the 560 will be available. Or else I'll just get some 460's and call it good.

I love MGS4. I'd bump up the difficulty level. Maybe not Big Boss Hard but more then Solid Snake Normal or Luquid Snake Normal. I found either Normal too easy. Although I like sneaking around type games.

I could never really master the Nvidia drivers. Different people, different experiences. Ati did many improvements to their drivers, including crossfire. Seems to scale much better with the newer cards. In addition, they don't include the crossfire profile in the driver anymore, but in a seperate file.

I don't like the idea of crossfire or SLI. Just seems wrong to me, especially to buy two cards at the same time. Maybe get a 560 now and add another one in a year or so.
How do the 560 compare with the 6950? Here they are only 10€ apart.

Heck... what am I writing about graphics cards? I have an ATI 4670 in my computer.

I am also patiently waiting for Dragon Age 2...

I find Nvidia drivers easy to install. There is no need for secondary programs. When I was running an ATI (x800 then a 9800LE) back in the day, I had to install the drivers then install .NET because CCC required it to also be installed. Have they changed this? I have no problems installing Nvidia drivers but you still have to play around with different version just like AMD.

What I like about two cards is that you can buy two lesser cards and get top-end performance while usually being cheaper. The downside is the additional trouble shooting you have to do since you're now running two cards and they need to sync up. Not all games support it and you sometimes have to resort to tricking the game to run in SLI/CF.

Honestly, I don't need a new video card right now. My 280SSC GTX is still pretty fast. I have it OD'ed as well. Although it would be a lower mid-range card today I think. Games like Dirt 2 and L4D2 run in the 90-100FSP but they are optimized to take better advantage of the card. ARMA 2 OA on the other had is a beast. On the core maps I get 30-50. On some of the user made maps I get 14-100 depending if I'm in the weeds or out in a snow field. The game isn't very optimized so it's very dependent on hardware.

A 560 runs about $259USD here. A 6950 is $300USD for a XFX with a double lifetime warranty or $275 for a some other brand with a 1 year. A 460 is $195USD.

On the Tom's March 2011 Chart which just came out yesterday, you can see the 280 is 4 slots down from the top which is shared with the 460. From what I've read I believe I could get some nice speeds if I could find another 280. It would be at least as fast as a 480/570. But I don't like buying used cards with an unknown history and no warranty.

Supposedly the 590/595 will run two 570 chips. Or rather that's what people are speculating. I expect both AMD and Nvidia cards to be $600-800 though. Well outside by budget. I couldn't imagine spending that much of a GFX card. People are speculating that the card will be announced at PAX East which is this weekend. I might wait and see if it changes the pricing scheme any then buy something the following week.

www.Hardocp.com has done reviews between the 5xx and 6xxx series of cards. If I remember right, the 69xx series were just beaten by the 5xx cards, but at a much lower price point per card.

Which opens the door to cheaper crossfire.

I've been absolutely thrilled with the performance of my 5870 and my two 5770s in cross.

Undead is pretty fun, I got a card for the game at Game Stop...that way I did not have to buy a bunch of microsoft points I will have a hard time using...at least till Forza 4 comes out.

The Nvidia 580 is $499 while the 6970 is $340-ish (Visiontek) right now. That's a BIG gap in price. The 580's competitor is/was the 5970 Black Edition which was a 2xCPU card but I think the 580 still beat it out but only slightly.

At the high end they're talking 0-15% difference in performance. That might be the difference between 49 and 44 FPS, at the same quality. For $150 that is totally worth it to me. I'm not pushing my rig anywhere near to the bleeding edge anyway. By the time that 15% was gamebreaking to me, I would be well beyond the upgrade point anyway.

*edit, as it is now playing battlefield bad company 2 at 1920x1080 on a 42" monitor, with a 5870, phenomIIx3, and 8 gigs of ram, with all settings as high as they will go I see anywhere from 40-60FPS in a full 32 player server. It will maintain that performance all day and night long.

If I was running an eyefinity setup, or trying to push out 2560x1600 on a 30" monitor I'd probably have to tone down the settings. That's where that 15% lives. On the edge.

I was totally annoyed by that .net thing, too. Tons of programs need it now and it is included in win7 anyways.
ATI improved their drivers quite a lot.

If you are mostly happy with your card, wait until you buy a new monitor, too. Maybe even tone down quality if necessary. The new cards are still expensive as hell and until you go to full HD only 1 game seems to need it.

The 560 runs 222€, the 6950 is 232€ here in Germany (including 19% vat).

I don't usually buy the very best card. It's never cost effective especially when only a hand full of games really need it when the card launches. The second tier is always a good balance between cost and speed if you're looking for a single card solution. Although with SLI/CF coming into maturity, there seems to be even better value with the cheaper cards. I did some searching on the 6850/70 cards and they are similar in speed to the 560 but cost even less. The problem I've been reading about is still with drivers.

If I was going to take my own advice I would just get the 460's.

You would just have bought them, if you'd trust your own advice.

As said, I don't know anyone who has problems with graphics drivers from Nvidia or ATI.

The 68xx are quite nice and very mature, an optimized 5850/5870.

SLI/CF is new territory for me. I'd tried to stay away from them till they were matured a bit. So they matured a bit. Much like water cooling which is used in my latest computer.

I've been out of touch with AMD's cards since they bought ATI and then changed names. I still remember when they were in Canada. Yes, it's been a while. So I thought it would be fare to at least ask the Radeon Camp about them ...before I buy an Nvidia.

Of course looking good is nice but gameplay is still paramount for me. After PSX, many of the games developed put out only graphics as their main forte, leaving gameplay just equal if not mediocre or even worse compared to their earlier editions.

Most present day multi-disc games still leave me unsatisfied with the action/ story while earlier single disc games sufficed. I feel all that memory and hardware were utilized only to give me a good picture.

So long as gameplay is good, I wouldn't care if I got to play it on a GameBoy screen.

This is why Arma 2 OA is popular. The graphics are the best but they're good enough. The game supports mods and is very mod friendly because of it. It's more about those you choose to play with. Also because of it's complexity and the need to match mods with the server, it keeps the kiddy's away.

Saw this in my searching and though I'd pass it along.

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-PCI-Express-Graphics-01G-P3-1366-TR/dp/B004DKWLB4/ref=sr_1_3?

It has a 3 year warranty instead of the lifetime but EVGA is one of the best. There is also a $20 rebate. - $139.99

Pull the trigger Jeffy... I've been running SLI since it came out, and I really havent had any problems with it, that was back in the 7800GTX days.

Currently Im running 2x 280 GTX's in SLI and contimplating an upgrade as well.

I have had 0 driver issues, and 0 game compatability issues. Maybe im just lucky?

I think I've made my choice. I'm gonna go with the EVGA 560 Ti in SLI. It costs more then I wanted to spend but then there's more value in it. I might see if I can sell my EVGA GTX 280 SSC to help or else I'll just keep it and put it in my Nephew's computer.

On a similar note;

Seems AMD couldn't wait and has announced the HD 6990. Reviews are already out as well. No, I won't be buying one. Especially at $699. :eek1 I can't imagine anyone running out to buy two for CF, although I'm sure there will be some. :huh

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http://www.amd.com/us/products/desk...d-6990/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6990-overview.aspx

• PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard
• 750W Watt or greater power supply with two 150W 8-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (1000W and four 8-pin connectors recommended for AMD CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode. 1200W recommended for optimal performance).
• Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products
• Minimum 1GB of system memory
• Installation software requires CD-ROM drive, a keyboard, a mouse, and a display
• DVD playback requires DVD drive and a DVD
• Blu-ray™ playback requires Blu-ray drive and a Blu-ray disc
• For an AMD CrossFireX™ system, a second AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 Graphics card, an AMD CrossFireX™ Ready motherboard and one AMD CrossFireX™ Bridge Interconnect cable is required
• Use of 3 or more displays with AMD Eyefinity technology requires a DisplayPort-capable panel or an AMD Eyefinity validated dongle. See http://www.amd.com/EyefinityDongles for a list of validated DisplayPort dongles.

Specifications

• Default (BIOS1)
  • Up to 830MHz Engine Clock
  • 5.10 TFLOPs Single Precision compute power
  • 1.27 TFLOPs Double Precision Compute Power
• Overclocked (BIOS2)
  • Up to 880MHz Engine Clock
  • 5.40 TFLOPs Single Precision compute power o 1.37 TFLOPs Double Precision Compute Power
• 4GB GDDR5 Memory
• 1250MHz Memory Clock (5.0 Gbps GDDR5)
• 320 GB/s memory bandwidth (maximum)
• TeraScale 3 Unified Processing Architecture
  • 3072 Stream Processors
  • 192 Texture Units
  • 128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
  • 64 Color ROP Units
  • Dual geometry and dual rendering engines
• High Speed 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface