..::THE COMMUNITY TECH THREAD No. 94::.. : Othor Games

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:10 pm

Okay, so my 8800 Ultra gets to over 90C on load and I believe that is slowing down gaming performance, as well as giving me BSODs every now and then. I've been looking at PCI coolers to bring down the temperature and I've been looking at a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835888309 that seems to be built alright and can blow out hot air well.

Can anyone give me some help with this? Is this a good cooler for my very hot 8800 Ultra?

I suppose one concern I have about this cooler is that it is a bit short so the fan isn't underneath my GPU fan. Is that a problem?

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:52 am

On two different occasions, first with an 8800, and later with a 9800, I tried those kinds of air circulation fans, and in neither case did I get any real longevity from them. Far better to remove the stock cooling shroud and attach a replacement from a quality maker, such as an Arctic Cooler.

My cards were running above 100 degrees, and the 9800's fan was working normally, but the cooler was just inefficient. I went through two brands with the 8800 before getting it to run cool enough to suit me.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 10:51 am

On two different occasions, first with an 8800, and later with a 9800, I tried those kinds of air circulation fans, and in neither case did I get any real longevity from them. Far better to remove the stock cooling shroud and attach a replacement from a quality maker, such as an Arctic Cooler.

My cards were running above 100 degrees, and the 9800's fan was working normally, but the cooler was just inefficient. I went through two brands with the 8800 before getting it to run cool enough to suit me.

By longevity, do you mean the fans just didn't last long and they died early? Did they work well?

I don't know what a stock cooling shroud is I'm afraid, and I don't want to spend a lot of money just to get my card cooled.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:06 pm

My 8800 would surely have died from being constantly too hot. It was among the early 8800s, so it had the bad fan control firmware, so that was part of the whole problem, of course. 8800s were the only ones that year to get fixes. All the rest of the 8n00 cards had the same bad fan control, but could limp along without totally destroying themselves. Longevity means "long life", so what I said was that the fans didn't last. They had very short lives, and thus, were a very poor value, a waste of money.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 1:15 am

Is there a big difference between 720p and 1080p? cause the tv I'm getting is only 720p.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:19 am

Is there a big difference between 720p and 1080p? cause the tv I'm getting is only 720p.

If the TV is 720p it's going to be the same thing because it's going to have to be downscaled from 1080p to 720p to be displayed on it anyway. But 1080p is a perversion anyway, unless you sat a couple feet in front of the screen you wouldn't notice the difference between 720p and 1080p on a 1080p TV either.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:36 pm

Is there a big difference between 720p and 1080p? cause the tv I'm getting is only 720p.

It depends on how you plan to use it and how big it is. I'm sort of surprised they even bother with 720p TVs anymore though.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:23 pm

Does anyone know the best option for buying an external Graphics card? I know they exist, but there apparently not a very big item, and I do not trust my Googling to find the best thing out there.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1750 with 4 Gigs of RAM, and could run some RPGs reasonably well if I had anything other than standard Intel graphics to work with. It's sad. I'm looking for something that I can plug in, maybe via USB, and play games as if it were a regularly installed internal unit.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:42 am

Does anyone know the best option for buying an external Graphics card? I know they exist, but there apparently not a very big item, and I do not trust my Googling to find the best thing out there.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1750 with 4 Gigs of RAM, and could run some RPGs reasonably well if I had anything other than standard Intel graphics to work with. It's sad. I'm looking for something that I can plug in, maybe via USB, and play games as if it were a regularly installed internal unit.

It's really not a viable option.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:49 am

It's really not a viable option.

Why? There are working external versions of just about everything else (Memory, RAM, Disc Drives, ect.), so why not Graphics cards?

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:23 am

Why? There are working external versions of just about everything else (Memory, RAM, Disc Drives, ect.), so why not Graphics cards?

Disc drives, yes. RAM, no. GPU, no.

GPU bandwidth is measured in GB/s.... USB 2.0 has a transfer rate of hundreds of MB/s. It just doesn't work.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 8:04 am

Hi everyone, I was just wondering if the specs on this PC are good for gaming. I was told that I should upgrade the video card if I do purchase this but I'll get round to that early next year. Would this PC be able to run games such as Mass Effect 2, Fallout: New Vegas and Oblivion?

Here are the specs

Processor AMD Phenom II X2 545 Processor
- 3.0 GHz
- 2.0 GHz HT
- 6MB L3Cache
Operating System Genuine Windows? 7 Home Premium
RAM - 4 GB installed DDR2 RAM
- 4GB maximum RAM capacity
Graphics card ATI Radeon HD 5550
- 512GB dedicated GDDR5 memory
Screen type None
Hard drive 500GB 7200rpm SATA II
Optical disk drive DVD/RW
Memory card reader 25-in-1
USB 8 (4 in front, 4 in rear)
FireWire 1
Modem/Ethernet 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet
Video interface 1 x DVI
1 x VGA
1 x HDMI
Audio interface 3.5mm, SPDIF
TV output VGA, HDMI
Extension card slot 1 x PCIEx1
2 x PCI
Sound 5.1 High Definition Audio

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 1:49 pm

There are external video card solutions. The problem is that USB is a bit slow for gaming solutions.

Look around at www.newegg.com

Good luck

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:39 pm

There are external video card solutions. The problem is that USB is a bit slow for gaming solutions.

Look around at www.newegg.com

Good luck

Thank you, I didn't think of New Egg. What I'm looking for doesn't necessarily have to work via USB, I've got several different kinds of ports, but I can see how that would cause problems.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 8:52 am

Thank you, I didn't think of New Egg. What I'm looking for doesn't necessarily have to work via USB, I've got several different kinds of ports, but I can see how that would cause problems.

You're welcome

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 1:46 pm

Hi everyone, I was just wondering if the specs on this PC are good for gaming. I was told that I should upgrade the video card if I do purchase this but I'll get round to that early next year. Would this PC be able to run games such as Mass Effect 2, Fallout: New Vegas and Oblivion?

Here are the specs

Processor AMD Phenom II X2 545 Processor
- 3.0 GHz
- 2.0 GHz HT
- 6MB L3Cache
Operating System Genuine Windows? 7 Home Premium
RAM - 4 GB installed DDR2 RAM
- 4GB maximum RAM capacity
Graphics card ATI Radeon HD 5550
- 512GB dedicated GDDR5 memory
Screen type None
Hard drive 500GB 7200rpm SATA II
Optical disk drive DVD/RW
Memory card reader 25-in-1
USB 8 (4 in front, 4 in rear)
FireWire 1
Modem/Ethernet 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet
Video interface 1 x DVI
1 x VGA
1 x HDMI
Audio interface 3.5mm, SPDIF
TV output VGA, HDMI
Extension card slot 1 x PCIEx1
2 x PCI
Sound 5.1 High Definition Audio

Well, how much is that costing you. The video card is somewhat on the weak side and the processor is good for a dual-core chip, but again....what is this costing you? You may be able to get better for your money.

Is there a big difference between 720p and 1080p? cause the tv I'm getting is only 720p.

The larger the screen size, the larger the difference. I wouldn't be getting a 50" screen displaying only 720p. I'd keep 720p to 32" and smaller. Based on my own experiences, the difference is pretty apparent to me....but does depend on the eyes too.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:01 am

Why? There are working external versions of just about everything else (Memory, RAM, Disc Drives, ect.), so why not Graphics cards?

I have never heard of external RAM.....that would be dreadfully slow. The fact is USB 2.0 has a bandwidth of 480megabits per second. A standard PCIe x16 is around 8GB of usable bandwidth. Much faster then a USB port. And even if its USB 3.0 thats still only a fraction of the speed of PCIe.

(On the note of external RAM, you can use USB speedboost, but thats still pretty slow and really unnecessary)

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:55 pm

Why? There are working external versions of just about everything else (Memory, RAM, Disc Drives, ect.), so why not Graphics cards?

Because it's extremely expensive for how little performance you get. You need a housing, which includes a PSU, and a card. It will also bottleneck any card you would use.

Housings:
http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=Store

So if you have an express slot, this is a possibility. Just be prepared to spend a lot of money.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 10:05 am

I have never heard of external RAM.....that would be dreadfully slow. The fact is USB 2.0 has a bandwidth of 480megabits per second. A standard PCIe x16 is around 8GB of usable bandwidth. Much faster then a USB port. And even if its USB 3.0 thats still only a fraction of the speed of PCIe.

(On the note of external RAM, you can use USB speedboost, but thats still pretty slow and really unnecessary)

Disks as RAM.... Anyone else remember the days when it was the other way around (We made RAM pretend to be a hard disk...)

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:52 pm

Alright well http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889611010 TV went out of stock the other day, so I found http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Insignia%26%23153%3B+-+32%22+Class+/+720p+/+60Hz+/+LCD+HDTV/1000762.p?id=1218207308821&skuId=1000762 TV, but the Auria TV is back in stock. Which one's better? thanks very much.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 7:54 am

Disks as RAM.... Anyone else remember the days when it was the other way around (We made RAM pretend to be a hard disk...)

People still use RAMdisks.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:25 am

Alright well http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889611010 TV went out of stock the other day, so I found http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Insignia%26%23153%3B+-+32%22+Class+/+720p+/+60Hz+/+LCD+HDTV/1000762.p?id=1218207308821&skuId=1000762 TV, but the Auria TV is back in stock. Which one's better? thanks very much.

The Insignia seems to draw less power, and has a better warranty however I've not heard of either brand which immediately rings alarm bells for me.

With TV's I think the best thing to do is see them in action, or at least comparable screenshots of an image they show so you can determine the picture quality.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:48 pm

The Insignia seems to draw less power, and has a better warranty however I've not heard of either brand which immediately rings alarm bells for me.

With TV's I think the best thing to do is see them in action, or at least comparable screenshots of an image they show so you can determine the picture quality.

The problem with this is that it's almost always just poor calibration. People are drawn to TVs with saturation and contrast turned up to ridiculous levels, and so they're usually set to that. It makes properly calibrated TVs look dull next to them, even if by itself it would look much better.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:03 am

Why? There are working external versions of just about everything else (Memory, RAM, Disc Drives, ect.), so why not Graphics cards?

An external USB Hard drive would go significantly slower than its internal counter-part because of the speed bottleneck of USB 2.0. Now, think of that applying to a graphics card and you could see why a speed bottleneck would make a difference.

» Mon Jan 31, 2011 10:11 am

Why? There are working external versions of just about everything else (Memory, RAM, Disc Drives, ect.), so why not Graphics cards?

If you're desperate, there are external video card solutions, but the external dock do cost a pretty penny:
http://sewelldirect.com/ViDock-4.asp?source=froogle&utm_source=Froogle&utm_medium=cse&cvsfa=1306&cvsfe=2&cvsfhu=53572d3239313033

You will still have to buy a video card as well. Read the reviews there and see what can work with it. I can't imagine the cards not being bottlenecked by the ExpressCard slot limitation though.

Alright well http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889611010 TV went out of stock the other day, so I found http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Insignia%26%23153%3B+-+32%22+Class+/+720p+/+60Hz+/+LCD+HDTV/1000762.p?id=1218207308821&skuId=1000762 TV, but the Auria TV is back in stock. Which one's better? thanks very much.

Do you have a Fry's Electronics nearby? They have better branded 32" 720p LCD HDTVs going for the $299 range. I picked up a LG 32" from them for my grandmother recently for the $299 price. This was the specific model:
http://www.amazon.com/LG-32LD350-32-Inch-720p-HDTV/dp/B0039RNGNY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291532694&sr=8-1

If you don't have a Fry's, Amazon ships free and charges no tax on it. That makes it cheaper than what I paid at Fry's a while back. It's a good TV.