First High-End SFF Gaming System, which GPU???

[8009]

Hello, i am building a power sff system for gaming mostly and high performance in other tasks, and i am looking for advice specifically on what graphics card to choose. I have no experience on high end graphic cards or high end systems for that matter. I m using a Dell Studio 1737 the past three years. I have more or less decided on the parts, i have already ordered the case, a Lian Li 351 (i ll put a heavy duty black chest handle on top to carry it around). I am getting either the Asrock or the MSI x79 matx motherboard (the Asus is much more expensive, but has the SupremeFX III so i am thinking about it, because i also create music), the i7 3820, and some 120gb SSD drive and a plain dvd drive. I am still looking for what PSU to choose, a 750w modular one or semi-modular perhaps (i m still a little confused with how i find those).
Now, for the graphics card, i am checking performance, i don't want to go over 300-350 euros/dollars. The Geforce 570 or one of the radeon 7xxx line. I have no idea which manufacturer to choose too. The best cards i ever had are a geforce 7600gt and a mobility radeon HD 3650. I am not going to use multiple monitors, or an sli or crossfire setup, just looking for a single card in the price range i mentioned, with the best performance, the less temperatures and that will fit my case, my current monitor is a Dell 1900x1200. Any suggestions? I am also considering the PCI 3.0 gpu advantages over the PCI 2.0, it seems the 3820 does support PCIe 3.0 unofficially.
Oh and an sff cpu cooler too, with the height limitation of the case (12cm). Any other suggestions or remarks on the PSU, motherboard, ram (thinking of 16gb) cpu cooler also welcome. My budget is 1000-1500 euros.

 

[dragonstongue]

Radeon 7870 pwns the GTX570 handily in most anything, so I would go that route. ASUS DCII, sapphire OC, MSI Twin Frozr III or Gigbyte windforce 3 are all excellent choices, the gigabyte one is the longest of the bunch the sapphire one with the dual fans I believe is slightly shorter then reference based models, the 7870are also very cool running especially using a single monitor and can easily handle pretty much anything you throw at it.

Other good choises would be a 7850 or a GTX 560 448 core. I would not go 7770 or 7750 they are VERY underpowered you can go a 6870 for around thier price and it would be faster overall. hope this helps some.

For power supplies, I personally will never go back to a standard power supply. Modular/semi-modular meaning ALL(modular) most of the cables(semi-modular) can be removed as needed. I have a Corsair HX750 and love it, it would technically fall in the semi-modular class.

Other good ones, any seasonic based unit (x-760 is a great one or one of thier newer gold units) XFX based unit, Enermax (especially the platimax), as well some of the Rosewill units are ok. I would go for minimum 650w to play it on the safe side, though a 600w might suffice if you get the right numbers crunched to make sure.

Ram 8gb 1600 class speed is the best bet(price/capacity/speed) lots to choose from, I like Gskill personally. If you need more you could always get 2 of the same kit i.e 4x4gb=16gb total memory or a quad channel kit(same thing)

A nice SFF cooler(but pricier) Noctua NH-L12 SFF cooler very space concerned and an excellent cooler.

PCI-e 3.0 vs 2.0 no hardware takes advantage of it currently, so I wouldn`t worry so much about that.

 

[8009]

Radeon 7870 pwns the GTX570 handily in most anything, so I would go that route.

Are you sure about that? Thats not what the passmark cpu chart shows. Is there a more accurate/reliable website for gpu benchmark results? Passmark is not reliable? Also, the 570 seems to cost a lot less than the 7870.

ASUS DCII, sapphire OC, MSI Twin Frozr III or Gigbyte windforce 3 are all excellent choices, the gigabyte one is the longest of the bunch the sapphire one with the dual fans I believe is slightly shorter then reference based models, the 7870are also very cool running especially using a single monitor and can easily handle pretty much anything you throw at it.

I was told that in general Radeons are less hot that Nvidia cards. Is that true in general?

Other good choises would be a 7850 or a GTX 560 448 core. I would not go 7770 or 7750 they are VERY
underpowered you can go a 6870 for around thier price and it would be faster overall. hope this helps some.

What exactly do you mean underpowered?

For power supplies, I personally will never go back to a standard power supply. Modular/semi-modular meaning ALL(modular) most of the cables(semi-modular) can be removed as needed. I have a Corsair HX750 and love it, it would technically fall in the semi-modular class.
Other good ones, any seasonic based unit (x-760 is a great one or one of thier newer gold units) XFX based unit, Enermax (especially the platimax), as well some of the Rosewill units are ok. I would go for minimum 650w to play it on the safe side, though a 600w might suffice if you get the right numbers crunched to make sure.

Never used one, i am just reading around and since the matx case needs as much good airflow as possible, i am thinking of the removal of extra cables. But i also read about the connections possible issues of the modular ones, that's why i am thinking of the semi-modulars. I ll check out the Corsairs for starters, i hope the prices are not astronomical, i think i ll go with a 750 to be on the definitely safe side.

Ram 8gb 1600 class speed is the best bet(price/capacity/speed) lots to choose from, I like Gskill personally. If you need more you could always get 2 of the same kit i.e 4x4gb=16gb total memory or a quad channel kit(same thing)

That's what i was thinking, but should i consider any other higher speeds as well? Where would they make the difference?

PCI-e 3.0 vs 2.0 no hardware takes advantage of it currently, so I wouldn`t worry so much about that.

Are you sure about that? The three motherboards i am checking out, already have pcie 3.0 slots. Some gpus i see are 3.0. Supposedly it has double the potential for data transfer or something. I was reading that future cpus will support it, but that the 3820 DOES support it, unofficially though. So is it just a future thing? I am just trying to make the most of my investment (which will be the only one i can afford for at least a few years).

 

[dragonstongue]

Benchmarks only tell one side, real world performance is its own beast, always has been.
The side the 7870 has on it, overclocking, the 570 can, but not nearly as much(just saying)
http://www.hwcompare.com/12208/geforce-gtx-570-vs-radeon-hd-7870/
Equivalent at minimum to being quite a bit faster when clocked up(easy to do and alot of extra performance to be gained) the 570 is also older and unlikely to get any faster on driver side, 7870 is new and very likely to get faster then we currently see based on drivers.

Radeons in general used a bit less power historically speaking, they ran a tad cooler for the most part partially due to this.

underpowered being they simply do not have the grunt that the older cards prior to them had, which is sad

Connection issues, yes sometimes, depends on if the maker did thier homework or not. Like anything else if done poorly there can be issues. The 2 I would recommend based on a $ amount would be XFX and Rosewill Capstone series.

Higher speeds then 1600 cost more for sure, generally speaking you see little to no added benefit unless you are tyring to chase overclocking records. 1600 is the sweet spot.

PCI-E 3.0 may offer double the bandwidth, but the graphics cards currently shipping and possibly for the next couple years simply are not taking advantage of it. To my knowledge the boards I have seen use pci-e 3.0 @ x8 speed on the connector this is the same as pci-e 2.0 @ x16 on the connector more or less. so A) they are not using it to its full potential and B) the only place that I have read they had a very slight advantage is in theoreticall benchmarks. SO, I would not base it on this side quite yet. though I understand where you are coming from in the "it has to last for awhile side"

 

[JaguarSKX]

Do not rely on PassMark or 3DMark. Synthetic benchmarks can be very unreliable. The best thing to do is to look at several game benchmarks to determine the overall performance of a video card like the following:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_7870_Direct_Cu_II/6.html

The Radeon HD 7870 basically outperforms the GTX 570 which is the reason why it is priced higher. You can use the charts to help you decide if a lower priced card may suit your performance needs. For example, the Radeon HD 7850 is not as expensive as the cards you mentioned, but the performance is lower. The GTX 480 performs pretty well so it may be an alternative for you.

nVidia cards have traditionally consumed more power than Radeon cards so they would need a larger heat sink to dissipate the heat. That has changed with nVidia's release of the GTX 680 (Kepler), but that is their high end card and is probably more than what you want to spend. They will be releasing more Kepler cards like the GTX 660, but you need to wait for them.

The Radeon HD 7770 and it's nVidia equivalent; the GTX 460 are considered under powered because they simply do not push as many frame rates as more expensive cards. Also, it is assumed that you want to set all graphic settings to the highest as possible. Of course, lowering the graphics settings from high to medium will improve performance because the video card will not have to process as many graphic effects. Of course this means you will lose some "eye candy". See following for Radeon HD 7770 benchmarks (among other cards)...

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/HD_7770_OC/6.html

 

[dragonstongue]

Radeon 7770 and 7750 are more inline with GTX460 768mb then a GTX460 1gb non SE as far as performance is concerned(exception AA performance which does favor the 7770 vs the GTX460, though the 550Ti is on average faster then both where it counts) Generally they are just underpowered, price wise you would be better to get a 6850 or 6870 then a 7750 or 7770. Part of that reason is the bus width. The 7700 series use a 128 bit memory bus, the 6800 series use a 256bit memory bus which makes a world of difference and fianlly the 550Ti uses a 192 bit memory bus(generally the card is not going to struggle as much keeping the shaders filled due to memory bottlenecks)

I like using this site for my comparisons to GPU, its best of type look, but does nail it down some at least in a rough numbers concept. http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=675&card2=633. 460 768 is not a bad card, though it is well known it starts struggling with higher res/eye candy at around the 1680x1050 or higher, if it struggles the 7770 most assuredly would. 6870 on the other hand or even a 7850 is more then happy to play at 1680x1050-1920x1200 or so res(7800 series is better at this for sure)

The rest of Nvidia Kepler line(660/650/640 etc) are supposed to be due out sometime this summer from the may-august time frame or so, but as it stands, the price for what you are given 6850/6870/560Ti/560 448 core/7850/7870. 560 448 core is a 570 on the cheap sort of speak, 7870 is faster 7850 I believe is around the same performance levels as a 560Ti OC/560 448 core, 7850 is faster once overclocked though, 7870 can in quite a few games catch up to the GTX580 once overclocked which is awesome as it is a much lower cost card.

 

[8009]

I got the Gigabyte 670 and i want to comment on the system i set up.

It seems to be working great, stable. I just was not expecting to find it so difficult to put all the stuff inside the Lian Li 351. It took me 5 hours of dedicated work to simply connect all cables inside, having everything on the motherboard and in the box already installed. These damn cables, i was especially frustrated with the modular corsair professional 750w psu. Damn, this thing has the main supply REALLY REALLY long, a massive TENTACLE that can hardly be bent. It took me another 2 days of setting up in different ways the cables until i finally booted the machine for the first time..

I practically had to "invent" a new weird way to insert and store every cable that connected components inside the case and although the case has some supposedly helpful tweaks (holes for cables at some points), it is really worthless since every different component requires 'special' patenting and tweaking in installation and in getting out of the way so that there will be at least some space for air to flow... real frustration but pulled it through with no big issues. Only a few questions, i am using the plain Intel simple cooler for the i7 3820 since i didn't find any other low profile enough for the box and i have idle at 40-45 which i don't think is too bad. The ssd is always showing as a removable drive in the taskbar, i don't know if this is considered a problem? And the first time i run Hard Disc Sentinel, i saw that in the ssd's temp reading it said in maximum temperature ever reached 74C, is this some kind of mistake or should i be worried? The current temperature of the ssd showing was ok.

Also, although the motherboard's sensors monitor showed me CPU temp as 40something, i installed HWmonitor too which gives a certain "CPUTIN" temp reading of the CPU which is at idle 70-85C. I don't know what that is exactly, either... any info?

 

[tiraides]

What are you using as the CPU cooler? How about thermal compound?

Have you tried reseating the processor and the cooler?

 

[dragonstongue]

yeh, the stock heatsinks suck for mounting pressure and can easily not fully seat properly even when you have heard the "click", There is LOTS of small form factor coolers out there, Artic, Xigmatech, Prolimatech, Noctua, Coolermaster, Corsair just to name a few makers, though most of them are more $ then they should be as they are "special" compared to run of the mill tower coolers.

Try reseating the cooler with better thermal paste such as Artic Silver 5 or my new favorite MX4, this may help.

Most SSD do not give a true temperature reading, most dont even have the firmware to allow smart status to be read/polled.

45-50 seems awfull high even for idle temps even with stock cooler, just make sure you`re airflow into the case is slightly higher then going out, and make sure its as smooth as possible/linear with as little in the way as possible.

"CPUTIN is CPU Temperature Input.

Core temperatures are always higher than CPU temperature, which means the tables for your CPU temperature are miscoded in BIOS. You can try flashing your BIOS to the latest release, which will sometimes correct the inaccuracy."

My SSD does not show as removable, maybe its the sata header you put it on, and did you make sure to have it set to AHCI, this can make a performance difference among other things.

Also I personally like openhardware monitor better, but thats just me