new Video Card (and possibly case)

[at0m]

I need a new Video Card, I'm pretty sure the one I have is permanently heat-damaged. I've had it a few years, its an eVGA GeForce 8600 GTS, and I'd like to get something better. I've got an SLI-capable mobo and am leaning towards buying two cheapish cards and slaving them together. Thoughts?

Also, the case that I have (Antec Sonata-II) is a possible contributor to this thing dying on me. I'd like to replace it, preferably with something quiet (or I need to get a Fanbus which is annoying). Thoughts?

[Versus]

budget on the vidya card(s)?

[at0m]

budget on the vidya card(s)?

I'm not a college student any more, so I'm making a decent amount of money, but please keep your recommendations reasonable. I usually buy at the price break, where the jump between models goes from $25-50 to $100-200. I'm tempted to dump a load on a new card like Caff does, but I also don't really feel like spending $600 on a card and not being able to afford a new case (which I think is the root cause, since I've had another card overheat in this case).

[CaffeinePowered]

Now that you actually make money I wouldnt spend less than ~$275 on a card

[at0m]

Now that you actually make money I wouldnt spend less than ~$275 on a card

True but since I haven't shopped for one in a while I have no idea whats good.

Also, thinking about possibly going with an integrated water cooling system for the case, to reduce noise and increase performance of my GPU and CPU. I found this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6811168001

Does anyone use water cooling?

[Blues]

Lawls @ thinking about SLI and having overheating issues.

Ignoring that, SLI is only for e-peen, i.e. buy two brand new cards and SLI them. It's always cheaper, cooler, and more power effecient to simply get a single card, unless you find some massive sale on two lower end cards. Even then, the upped power useage, heat output, and general SLI problems aren't usually worth it.

If you're looking for good budget cards, pick up either an ATI 4830/4850, or a nVidia 9800GT/GTX. Price range is 90$-160$

If you're looking for a slightly better card, pick up a GTX260/275.

Above this, you're probably just going to be bottlenecking on the rest of your comp, so there's no point buying anything better unless you're doing a full system overhaul.

As to a case, Centurion 5/534 has beyond great cooling. My current temps in the 534 with two stock fans and an extra slayer 120mm side + 80mm front are:

Mobo - 32C
CPU core 1+2 - 32C
GPU - 46C
HDDs - ~35C

The Antec 300 is supposedly a good cooling solution as well, but it's more expensive, and I've yet to see anyone matching my temps running a similar setup in one.

[at0m]

Not a complete overhaul, but the rest of the box is no slouch; I don't see the point in upgrading the mobo/cpu/ram for negligible performance gain from those components when the current bottleneck is the broken 8600 GTS.

Considering the current price points, getting a GTX280 or so should work, so that it won't be a bottleneck the next time I do a rebuild. The difference between a GTX275 -> GTX280 is $50, but a GTX280 -> GTX285 is $100+

Good to know about those temperatures, its difficult to find stats on temperatures outside of crazy enthusiast "my e-peen is larger than yours because my case is hotter/colder/shaped more like a vag" threads in random overclocker forums. What was ambient when you took those figures?

I was thinking about the P180 because its a great looking Antec case, but I'm concerned now about airflow because I thought my Sonata-II was good (its got a fresh air duct that sits over the CPU heatsink) but apparently not.

Caff: what beast of a card did they send you, and what brand was it?

Also, this is a beast: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814143182

[CaffeinePowered]

Caff: what beast of a card did they send you, and what brand was it?

Asus GTX280 1 Gig

[Blues]

Not a complete overhaul, but the rest of the box is no slouch; I don't see the point in upgrading the mobo/cpu/ram for negligible performance gain from those components when the current bottleneck is the broken 8600 GTS.

Considering the current price points, getting a GTX280 or so should work, so that it won't be a bottleneck the next time I do a rebuild. The difference between a GTX275 -> GTX280 is $50, but a GTX280 -> GTX285 is $100+

Good to know about those temperatures, its difficult to find stats on temperatures outside of crazy enthusiast "my e-peen is larger than yours because my case is hotter/colder/shaped more like a vag" threads in random overclocker forums. What was ambient when you took those figures?

I was thinking about the P180 because its a great looking Antec case, but I'm concerned now about airflow because I thought my Sonata-II was good (its got a fresh air duct that sits over the CPU heatsink) but apparently not.

Caff: what beast of a card did they send you, and what brand was it?

Also, this is a beast: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814143182

Ambient was like 70. I personally would just go with the 275, small performance difference for 50$ that could go into a case (the Centurion I suggested is only 50$, so that's the whole price of a case saved). If not, stay with the 280, 295 is just a waste of money, as is most top tier tech.

I can't vouch for any of the Antec cases, I've compared my case at cons to a 300 and 900, along with various thermaltakes and randoms, and I generally have lower temps or about equal temps, except with the 900 that had me beat by a few celcius on the GPU and hard drives. Granted, that's a pretty large price jump for a few celcius.

[at0m]

[quote author=at0m link=topic=2711.msg76768#msg76768 date=1239726944]
Caff: what beast of a card did they send you, and what brand was it?

Asus GTX280 1 Gig
[/quote]
Seriously? I could've sworn you said it was BFG or XFX, and thats why they replaced it. How long had you had it before it died? I might try to send mine back to eVGA...

Ambient was like 70. I personally would just go with the 275, small performance difference for 50$ that could go into a case (the Centurion I suggested is only 50$, so that's the whole price of a case saved). If not, stay with the 280, 295 is just a waste of money, as is most top tier tech.

I can't vouch for any of the Antec cases, I've compared my case at cons to a 300 and 900, along with various thermaltakes and randoms, and I generally have lower temps or about equal temps, except with the 900 that had me beat by a few celcius on the GPU and hard drives. Granted, that's a pretty large price jump for a few celcius.

70°F I assume, since 70°C wouldn't make sense even though your temperature stats were in °C . You've got a good point re: the 275 vs the 280, especially in light of me purchasing a new case (and likely power supply if its a cheap case). I agree with the 295 being a waste of cash, but that 295 X2 one is truly an impressive waste of cash.

One of the reasons I was looking into water cooling is actually sound - I have the Sonata because I don't like having a whirling box of doom under my desk, and it worked well ramping up the fan speeds when needed and keeping everything relatively cool for the most part. A water cooled case would let me have a couple of 120mm fans running at low speed blowing on the radiator and thats more or less it, which would be nice. At least, thats what the internets tell me, the guy at SilentPCReview did a pretty good job co-designing the Fusion case I use as my HTPC, and gave solid reviews for the Sonata as well as the P180/2/3. The main things that keep drawing me to the P18x series are the dual chambers to increase airflow across my HDDs, similar drive cages to my Sonata, and muffled case walls.

I personally swear by Antec. Their cases are mostly cold rolled steel, which makes them super sturdy but also super heavy. The thing that I really like is the little extras that they take care of, like making sure there are no pointy bits on the inside of the case, having everything mount on rails, and in the Sonata, having vibration-dampening grommets all over the place. The _really_ nice thing though was the sideways drive cage, which made installing drives and routing cables really easy. The 300 and 900 both have too much mesh on them for my taste, since I guess I'm the only gamer who doesn't really want a _glowing_ whirling box of doom. I will check out the Centurion though, I wish I had a Fry's near me where I could go check it out in person instead of just reading specs and crap on NewEgg.

[Blues]

[quote author=Caffeine link=topic=2711.msg76771#msg76771 date=1239729045]
[quote author=at0m link=topic=2711.msg76768#msg76768 date=1239726944]
Caff: what beast of a card did they send you, and what brand was it?

Asus GTX280 1 Gig
[/quote]
Seriously? I could've sworn you said it was BFG or XFX, and thats why they replaced it. How long had you had it before it died? I might try to send mine back to eVGA...

Ambient was like 70. I personally would just go with the 275, small performance difference for 50$ that could go into a case (the Centurion I suggested is only 50$, so that's the whole price of a case saved). If not, stay with the 280, 295 is just a waste of money, as is most top tier tech.

I can't vouch for any of the Antec cases, I've compared my case at cons to a 300 and 900, along with various thermaltakes and randoms, and I generally have lower temps or about equal temps, except with the 900 that had me beat by a few celcius on the GPU and hard drives. Granted, that's a pretty large price jump for a few celcius.

70°F I assume, since 70°C wouldn't make sense even though your temperature stats were in °C . You've got a good point re: the 275 vs the 280, especially in light of me purchasing a new case (and likely power supply if its a cheap case). I agree with the 295 being a waste of cash, but that 295 X2 one is truly an impressive waste of cash.

One of the reasons I was looking into water cooling is actually sound - I have the Sonata because I don't like having a whirling box of doom under my desk, and it worked well ramping up the fan speeds when needed and keeping everything relatively cool for the most part. A water cooled case would let me have a couple of 120mm fans running at low speed blowing on the radiator and thats more or less it, which would be nice. At least, thats what the internets tell me, the guy at SilentPCReview did a pretty good job co-designing the Fusion case I use as my HTPC, and gave solid reviews for the Sonata as well as the P180/2/3. The main things that keep drawing me to the P18x series are the dual chambers to increase airflow across my HDDs, similar drive cages to my Sonata, and muffled case walls.

I personally swear by Antec. Their cases are mostly cold rolled steel, which makes them super sturdy but also super heavy. The thing that I really like is the little extras that they take care of, like making sure there are no pointy bits on the inside of the case, having everything mount on rails, and in the Sonata, having vibration-dampening grommets all over the place. The _really_ nice thing though was the sideways drive cage, which made installing drives and routing cables really easy. The 300 and 900 both have too much mesh on them for my taste, since I guess I'm the only gamer who doesn't really want a _glowing_ whirling box of doom. I will check out the Centurion though, I wish I had a Fry's near me where I could go check it out in person instead of just reading specs and crap on NewEgg.


[/quote]
The 534 has the side facing hdd tray, which I refuse to NOT have in a case anymore after using. CoolerMaster prides themselves on the same type of quality as Antec for the most part. I am currently using 3x 120mm Slayers and 1x 80mm front and the case is pretty damned quiet. I refuse to give water cooling and validity unless you're running a monster SLI/Tri/quad SLI system overclocked all to hell, and they're generally sub-par at cooling unless you spend a lot more than it would cost to get some good, quiet fans.

[CaffeinePowered]

[quote author=Caffeine link=topic=2711.msg76771#msg76771 date=1239729045]
[quote author=at0m link=topic=2711.msg76768#msg76768 date=1239726944]
Caff: what beast of a card did they send you, and what brand was it?

Asus GTX280 1 Gig
[/quote]
Seriously? I could've sworn you said it was BFG or XFX, and thats why they replaced it. How long had you had it before it died? I might try to send mine back to eVGA..

[/quote]


Asus = 3 year warranty, I had to wait 2 weeks for a complete turn around from sending it in to having the new card in my box