New shiney toy =)
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Unfortunately, I'm on a limited budget, which I'm already pretty close to maxing it. I saw a couple of nice nVidia and ATi cards for around $200, but $130 ended up fitting the budget better. Besides, it should push GTA IV pretty well, and that's about the only modern game aside from Sims 3 that will be on it. If money had not been an issue, it would have been a custom built mid-range gaming rig with an SSD boot drive, heh. :-\ Flynn
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As Previously stated I would o for ATI in the graphics area. Also why not build your own computer(s)? Most of the times it's cheaper and better than a Dell or HP or whatever. I don't like paying for the brand so if it's a desktop I build it myself. :)
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Time is money; and the margins for mid level OEM systems are small enough that the savings aren't that great now; to get a big return you have to either overclock your system (generally not possible with OEM BIOSes) or build close to the godbox where margins are still high.
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Hopefully you opened the case to make sure that you can actually put that huge graphics card in there? The huge 2 slot cards are generally as long or longer than an ATX motherboard and frequently a harddrive bay or some other case/motherboard component in Dell systems prevent you from installing them...
at 8.25" instead of 10.5 the 450 is a relatively short card. 2 slot coolers have invaded the midrange cards because 1 slot models leave the GPU thermally bottlenecked and hitting the next performance point is worth more than the extra manufacturing point. 10.5" is the same length as as full size micro/ATX board (IIRC only the ATI 5970 has been longer); and the dell case looks to be full size microATX. The biggest problems are generally the miniATX/flexATX boards that are shorter than standard length, or small form factor cases.
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In ATI land the $130ish card is the 5770. It's half of the topline single GPU 5870, while the 450 is a bit less than half of a 480.
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Time is money; and the margins for mid level OEM systems are small enough that the savings aren't that great now; to get a big return you have to either overclock your system (generally not possible with OEM BIOSes) or build close to the godbox where margins are still high.
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Yeah, but I still feel better buying exactly what I want. That MB, that CPU, that RAM ... And I'm kind of an overclocker(used to be at least). I managed to get my Phenom II X4 BE(3.4 Ghz) to 4.3 using a 30 euro watter based cooler. I know it can't compete for victory with an iCore7 940 or above but, it's close and I paid 220 euros for the CPU+cooler. An iCore7 would start from 350 euros when I got mine. So I still think it's worth it. Yeah for the lower part of the mid level computers it's not worth it. Also, in less than an hour the system is build. So I don't lose that much money(time).
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at 8.25" instead of 10.5 the 450 is a relatively short card. 2 slot coolers have invaded the midrange cards because 1 slot models leave the GPU thermally bottlenecked and hitting the next performance point is worth more than the extra manufacturing point. 10.5" is the same length as as full size micro/ATX board (IIRC only the ATI 5970 has been longer); and the dell case looks to be full size microATX. The biggest problems are generally the miniATX/flexATX boards that are shorter than standard length, or small form factor cases.
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Dan Neely wrote:
10.5" is the same length as as full size micro/ATX board (IIRC only the ATI 5970 has been longer); and the dell case looks to be full size microATX. The biggest problems are generally the miniATX/flexATX boards that are shorter than standard length, or small form factor cases.
One of the biggest reasons I don't look at the small form factor systems even in the case of a media PC. The half-height cards (in my experience) tend to be harder to find and sometimes more expensive. This card isn't much bigger than the GTS 8600 in my current desktop (an Inspiron 531), so it should fit. But we'll be cracking open a case before ordering anything. :-\ Flynn
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I'd suggest this[^] or if you're planning to overclock the card this[^] instead. XFX's warranties are lifetime; so for the cost of ~$10 shipping if it croaks 3 or 4 years down the road you'll get a free current generation low power card for a non-gaming box that will be about as fast as your old one. The only difference between the two XFX cards is that the cheaper on is XFX custom design that doesn't have the higher end VRMs needed for aggressive OCing.
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I'd suggest this[^] or if you're planning to overclock the card this[^] instead. XFX's warranties are lifetime; so for the cost of ~$10 shipping if it croaks 3 or 4 years down the road you'll get a free current generation low power card for a non-gaming box that will be about as fast as your old one. The only difference between the two XFX cards is that the cheaper on is XFX custom design that doesn't have the higher end VRMs needed for aggressive OCing.
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Hmm... the first is within my budget. Not planning to overclock the graphics card or the CPU, so no worries there. Decisions, decisions.... :-\ Flynn
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Hmm... the first is within my budget. Not planning to overclock the graphics card or the CPU, so no worries there. Decisions, decisions.... :-\ Flynn
after rebate and shipping both are cheaper the the gigabyte card; but there's no reason for you to go with the more expensive model if you aren't OCing. PS If you do decide to go nVidia, buy EVGA, again for the warranty.
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after rebate and shipping both are cheaper the the gigabyte card; but there's no reason for you to go with the more expensive model if you aren't OCing. PS If you do decide to go nVidia, buy EVGA, again for the warranty.
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Yeah, I was looking at this[^] one for nVidia as well as the MSI card. Though it does look like the MSI card has a slightly better warranty (3 yr/2 yr MSI vs. 2 yr/2 yr for the EVGA). The EVGA card does edge out the MSI card on features though. Still, hard to beat a double lifetime warranty for the XFX card. Especially for the same price as the EVGA card. Edit: Thanks for the links. I'll have some research to do tonight. :) Flynn
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Yeah, I was looking at this[^] one for nVidia as well as the MSI card. Though it does look like the MSI card has a slightly better warranty (3 yr/2 yr MSI vs. 2 yr/2 yr for the EVGA). The EVGA card does edge out the MSI card on features though. Still, hard to beat a double lifetime warranty for the XFX card. Especially for the same price as the EVGA card. Edit: Thanks for the links. I'll have some research to do tonight. :) Flynn
Apparently EVGA's started cheapening out on the waranty, lifetime only goes down to the 465 now. You don't want the 465 even if it was in your budget, it's a poorly performing power pig because it was cut down too far from the full size chip.
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Apparently EVGA's started cheapening out on the waranty, lifetime only goes down to the 465 now. You don't want the 465 even if it was in your budget, it's a poorly performing power pig because it was cut down too far from the full size chip.
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That was one of the reasons I skipped the GTX 220. The reviews were about the same - terrible performance for the power consumption. The reviews I've found so far give a slight performance edge to the GTS 450 vs. the HD 5770, but only marginal. SLI seems to scale better than Crossfire, but I'm not running dual cards, so that's not a factor. I'm really edging toward the XFX card. Flynn
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Apparently EVGA's started cheapening out on the waranty, lifetime only goes down to the 465 now. You don't want the 465 even if it was in your budget, it's a poorly performing power pig because it was cut down too far from the full size chip.
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After a little research I went with the EVGA GTS 450. Overall it had a slight edge on performance, cooling and technology. Thanks for all your help, Dan. :) Flynn