System tradoffs - Subjective opinion requested

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GeminiCool

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Jan 11, 2005
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I thought I'd ask this question. Let me preface it by saying I really don't have a bios although I'd like to see AMD do better to lower i7 prices. :)

It's somewhat 'easy' to build an uber high end PC, just hard to pay for. What I find difficult is building the best value PC for a low budget. With this in mind, i'd like to seed this discussion with a few thoughts...

Is there any real world game performance impact with the 8x PCIe when running SLI or Xfire on boards like the P55? If there is an 8x limit, what level GPU is required to push that limit? If you have the GPU to hit the limit and step up to the X58 or AMD FX chipset, will the 6MB Phenom II hit the limit?

Is there a real world tradeoff to be considered to allow for the purchase of an SSD? If a person uses a PC for games as well as other, should a tradeoff be considered to allow for this upgrade?

Let’s face it, the X58 + i7 920 is the #1 platform, it also costs the most. The P55 platform is as fast or faster than every AMD and comes with a slight price premium. The AMD platforms that compete with the P55 on price tend to be more feature rich. It seems you can build a very cost effective AMD platform that comes very close to the P55 experience with money left over. Now if you stick that money left over into a SSD upgrade, how do the two systems feel next to one another?

Has anyone here had a chance to actually play with these types of systems?
 
They are all great platforms and I doubt you would notice a huge difference in day to day use in any of the platforms. The biggest difference you would notice is from the SSD for a system drive. The tradeoff is that the ssds are pretty small. Most people are using a second regular hard drive for storage and apps. As far as maxing out the pcie bus, anand touches on this in his lynnfield review you should read over that to get your answer. My understanding is it is not much of an issue as long as you are not planning on going crossfire x (quad) or possibly two of the highest end cards such as the 5870 (anand didn't test these cards but they perform on par with the 4870x2. I am reserving judgement for kyle's review of this issue.

The are some questions in the stickies. If you answer those, people may be able to help make your platform decision.
 
As a disclaimer, I personally don't have an AMD-based build or an SSD. But I've seen some variants of the questions that you're asking a few times in the past.

The limitations of using PCI-E 2.0 x8 CF/SLI are really only seen from high visual settings plus AA/AF at large resolutions (of at least 1920x1200). How much of a limit varies to some degree by games being played as well as the cards being used in CF/SLI... but there are plenty of reviews and benchmarks available that can help you answer that question. Though I know that the new Lynnfield (Core i5/i7/Intel P55) processors have integrated the PCI Express controller, I haven't been able to look at enough benchmarks to tell you whether or not the P55's performance would be limited because of this fact.

Another thing to note is that the Core i7/X58 combination shines in high resolution gaming due to the faster (comparative) processors and the dual PCI-E 2.0 x16 lanes. (For the purposes of this "argument," I'm ignoring the fact that many X58 motherboards are capable of tri- or quad-SLI or CF.)

What I can tell you is that all other factors being similar (since you can't have "the same" comparing an Intel P55 system to an AMD AM3 7xx system), the SSD would help improve the system's overall performance. But SSDs, to the average user, are still very price prohibitive. The best SSDs in the market belong to the Intel X25-M series, but they're also very expensive. You could use other SSDs, but many of them use the Indilinx logic board and are best used in a dual-SSD RAID 0 configuration... which also costs quite a bit of money. For those with rather limited budgets (for example, under $1000, with taxes and shipping charges included within the budget), we normally wouldn't recommend a multi-card (or dual-GPU) setup or SSDs -- but I've never been a "high performance at any cost" type of guy.

To answer your question, an AMD-based CF/SLI-capable system with an SSD (or two, in RAID 0) would be a very capable gaming system. But, oftentimes, the people who would consider a multi-card/multi-GPU gaming setup would oftentimes go for the Core i7/X58 system to take advantage of that platform's comparatively greater performance.
 
Sorry guys... Maybe I should have stated this in the beginning, I'm a high level tech guy. I'm not building this system…yet. I'm asking for subjective opinions because I simply don't have the money to go buy each system and build them.

If a system is used for 'light gaming' or even heavy gaming but only a few games, the 80GB Intel SSD for $249 is not so far out of budget, even if the budget is "only" 1k.

To me the question looks like this:
1) Is SSD really that big a deal? If yes, how much compromise is needed on the CPU/MB end to purchase the SSD and is it worth it.
2) Are GPUs able to max out the 8x PCIe? If yes, how much GPU is needed? (I’d say the sweet spot for res is 1920x1200)

Like I said, the X58 w/ multiple lanes of 16x PCIe, tri channel memory, and easier OCing is superior, period. But... if 8x is enough then the P55 with 16x today and the prospect of SLI tomorrow, becomes a better value... but... if SSD makes a huge impact then the AMD becomes a stronger value.

I was hoping some people had experience on each of the above type systems and could give a real world feel to the question.
 
1) In my opinion, no. The high cost is still a sticking point for me to consider one right now. If you have to compromise the processor or the video card to obtain one, I believe that the SSD isn't really worth the money. While one SSD is faster than even the VelociRaptor, to get the most out of them, you either need the Intel X25-M or two Indilinx-based SSDs in RAID 0.

2) I can't answer that. The benchmarks that I've seen for the x8-versus-x16 debate involved the HD4850 and HD4870... I haven't seen very many benchmarks for the GTX 275/285 in dual x8 SLI or the HD4890 in dual x8 CF, let alone any for the new HD58xx cards.
 
1) To some people, yes. No compromise is needed if you can afford one. If you can't afford one, don't get one. Should you compromise your other parts simply to include an SSD? No. Why not? because they are at a price premium right now, and will depreciate rather quickly once they're more mainstream. Its like asking if you should fit an HD5870 into your build right now even if you can't really afford it. If you don't need its performance boost, then don't buy it -- GPUs are the fastest depreciating components of a gaming system. SSDs' performance boost is very noticeable, but they're still a luxury... not yet a necessity on gaming desktops. Now, for high performance laptops, an Intel SSD is nearly a necessity. Mechanical drives using 333GB-platters are fast enough for the moment to keep SSDs in the luxury range, IMO.

For netbooks, an Indilinx based SSD is good enough if you want that extra umph... but it'll cost nearly as much as the damn netbook itself, lol, so to most people it isn't worth it... again, still a luxury.

2) A single GPU that will saturate the bandwidth of an 8x PCIe2.0 slot??? (same bandwidth as a 16x PCIe1.1 slot, btw).... It doesn't look like it.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/1.html
gpureview.com has more links to more reviews, including CF w/ the new GPUs... check 'em out.
 
Thanks for the feedback so far...

enginurd - thanks for the link, that's exactly what I was asking about.

does anyone own an SSD yet?

I mean, I can bearly imagine listening to someone in TS say, I have to reboot quick... counting to 5 then... hey guys I'm back! That's insaine and no HDD can match that, period. Opening multiple windows, click and done. Moving around, click and done.

I own and use an X2 3800+, X2 5200+, E6750, and Q6600. The only thing I wait for on any of these systems is program load. The 5200+ and 6750 both have 8800GT cards. The Q6600 has a 4870. The Q6600 is my gaming rig w/ a 26" LCD @1920x1200. None of the games I play are compromised on this system. So, as I 'coach' friends, knowing the Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz is more than enough and a HD4890 is sweet what will give them the best experience?

Does that make sence? I'd really love to hear some comments from someone who owns a good SSD (by good I mean one's that don't suffer from the used write issues). Does anyone here actually use an SSD?

Thanks.
 
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1) Not a big deal unless you can afford it. While yes the hard drive have always been the slowest part of the PC, the current prices of SSDs makes them more of a high-end luxury enthusiast product akin to Crossfire and SLI IMO. In the case of a $1000 build, it's not worth the compromise in CPU, GPU, PSU, mobo, etc just to fit in a fast SSD considering that there are fast enough mechanical drives out there.

Yes there is a noticeable real world difference between SSD and HDD but that difference is rarely worth the extra $70 to $150 for a good majority of people out there. For a gamer, that extra $70 to $150 can be better spent on a better video card or CPU. For a heavy video/photoshop user, that extra cash can be used towards a faster CPU, more RAM and more storage. For the average general user, thats $70 to $150 in savings.

2) Mostly in multi-GPU situations is where you'll begin to see the limitations of PCI-E x8 slots. Even then, difference is small:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2009/09/14/lynnfield-pci-express-gaming-performance/1

Enginurd, the poster above you, owns and is currently using SSDs. Probably chime in later.

What do you mean by coaching friends? Give them the best experience of what exactly? Sorry, not much sense to me.
 
Personally, going from a 'cuda.10 to a Raptor Gen2 was nothing to get excited about. Even going from a Caviar Black to a VRaptor was rather useless, IMO. The performance difference was never enough to warrant such high price premium. And the story didn't change for me when I went from my VRaptor to a single OCZ Vertex. It wasn't until I grabbed two and threw them in RAID0 did I actually get excited about the performance increase... however, again, the price premium is stiff -- but at least you get much more of a performance increase than you do with the raptors, lol. :p

http://www.alphaq.org/enginurd/hdd/ocz_vertex.html

I've actually sold my Vertex drives, though. Since the 120GB versions are slightly faster, I'll be picking those up unless I can get a nice discount on the X25-M.
 
Danny Bui said:
1)
What do you mean by coaching friends? Give them the best experience of what exactly? Sorry, not much sense to me.
Click to expand...

Really? I'm a dad... of 5. My house becomes the hangout for gaming. I love Supreme Commander. So the kids come, play a bit, then go home. They buy Supcom, then go to install it on mom & dad's 'gaming dell pc' which they picked up 2 years ago for $600.

Easy fix, right? Tell the kids to tell their parents, you need to spend 2k. That means a $250 x58 MB, a $280 i7, DDR3 2000, Raptor, HD4870 X2... not gonna happen.

Some off the shelf PCs have 2Gigs of memory and maybe even a dual core proc. You can put, say a 9600GT into that PC and play Supcom well. The PC still feels very slow. I wager that a $150 to $200 upgrade SSD hard drive makes that old PC feel FAST. yes no?

Based on feedback I'd say people here would put the extra $150 bucks into something else... I just hoped to hear from someone who put an SSD into an otherwise dull PC and transformed it into a responsive family PC...
 
GeminiCool said:
... I wager that a $150 to $200 upgrade SSD hard drive makes that old PC feel FAST. yes no?

Based on feedback I'd say people here would put the extra $150 bucks into something else... I just hoped to hear from someone who put an SSD into an otherwise dull PC and transformed it into a responsive family PC...
Click to expand...

somewhat... but still not the best upgrade for an aging budget system.
 
Well, if Enginurd's experience is anything to go by, if an enthusiast like himself can barely justify the costs of a SSD, a typical family would not be able to justify either. So I'd have to say no to a SSD for a family PC. Maybe a faster hard drive like WD 640GB Blue/Black drives but certainly not an SSD.

Supcom is not good of an example as it is both GPU and CPU demanding. Not so much HDD. Played that game for a few months so I think I have a good idea of it. A faster hard drive will not help that much for a game thats always been CPU and GPU demanding. Maybe RAM too.

Hmmm. gonna go install Supcom as soon as I'm done recovering data from my broken drive. Would be nice to see how SupCom runs on a 64bit system with 6GB of RAM :)
 
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