# Two different build - same $$, which is better?



## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

Hello guys !

I have a question, I received my money, and I'm ordering the parts tomorrow. But, before that, I saw reviews on the GTX280 (SLi) outperforming the 4870X2. So, I decided to make another build, almost the same price. I'll list the pros and cons.

*What I do on my computer usually*
- Gaming  [70%]
- Chatting on IM & Internet Surfing [20%]
- Servers, encoding, Photoshop, etc. [10%]

I know that in my ATi build, there is no need for a Q9550. But, I just wanted to future-proof it, and if I get the Q9550 I would run servers more.

*NVIDIA + Intel*

Asustek Maximus II Formula L775
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Processors (3.0GHz/1333/6M) - *Going to O/C to 3.8GHz*
XFX GTX280 XXX Xtreme Edition 1GB DDR3 640M - *Same price as the normal GTX280, why not get this? I'm buying 2 of it.*
Team Xtreem Dark PC2 8500 DDR2 1066MHz 4GB Kit CL5 (2*2GB) - *OCZ cost as much as it. This is $199, OCZ Reaper is $259. I do not know what the CL5 stands for, anyone explain?*
Xigmatek HDT-S1238 CPU Cooler - *Tom's Hardware said it was one of the best.*
Seagate 3.5inh SATA-II 500GB 7200RPM 32MB - *RAID 0*
Cooler Master NV-690 NVIDIA Edition - *I was thinking that this was too small for a case with a huge motherboard and graphic card. Would it fit and allow perfect airflow in it? If not, someone recommend.*
OCZ GameXStream 850W Power Supply - *850W should be enough to power 2 GTX280 in SLi.*

blah blah blah with the rest of my stuffs (monitor, speaker, etc) cost = S$3,934SGD.


*ATi + Intel*

ASUS Maximus II Formula L775
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 (2.83GHz/1333/12M) - *Going to overclock to 3.4GHz.*
HIS HD4870X2 2GB GDDR5 - *Cost a $100 more than a single GTX280.*
OCZ Reaper PC2-8500/1066MHz DDR2 - *Cost a few tens more than the Team Xtreem, is it worth it?*
Xigmatek HDT-S1238 CPU Cooler - *Tom's Hardware said it was one of the best.*
Seagate 3.5inh SATA-II 500GB 7200RPM 32MB - *RAID 0*
Antec Twelve Hundred - *Tower casing, for better airflow.*
OCZ 750W Quad CrossFireX PSU - *Certified for Quad CrossFireX.*

blah blah blah and total price is = $3,893SGD.

So, people, what do you think? Which one suits my need more?


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## ShadowFold (Oct 4, 2008)

The second one looks like the best. HD 4870X2 and a Q9550 would make a bad ass rig 

And those OCZ's are worth it because I'm pretty sure they are Micron D9, which clock really well. But I could be wrong.


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

Haha, thanks !

But wouldn't the E8400 outperform the Q9550? I seen it in charts, and even the GTX280 SLi would outperform the 4870X2 ?


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## ShadowFold (Oct 4, 2008)

Why not do E8400 + HD 4870X2/HD 4870 Tri fire?


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

Hey, that's a epic idea. I might man! I'll start a new build first.


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

Okay, this is my whole build now. What do you think?

ASUS Maximus II Formula
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3.0GHz/1333/6M)
HIS HD4870X2 2GB GDDR5
OCZ Reaper PC2-8500/1066MHz DDR2 4GB
Xigmatek HDT-S1238 CPU Cooler
Seagate 3.5inh SATA-II 500GB 7200RPM 32MB - X2 RAID 0
Antec Twelve Hundred 
OCZ 750W Quad CrossFireX PSU

with accessories and so, it's below my budget, $3,576SGD. How's it?


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## ShadowFold (Oct 4, 2008)

Looks awesome. That motherboard should clock like a beast, that is the P45 version right?


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

Yes, that is the P45 version. If I ever need to upgrade, I only have to upgrade the RAM, PSU, graphic card, and processor right?


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## ShadowFold (Oct 4, 2008)

Ram? 4gigs is fine  so is the psu. Should handle tri fire fine. And when i7 has been out for awile, quad 775 prices will go down for sure.


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

I was thinking, since I won't be upgrading to maybe 2010 > 8GBs of RAM, 2 X 4870X2, QX9650 would do good


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## Marcam923 (Oct 4, 2008)

Yes that looks like a very nice rig!  I would say Intel over Nvidia also.


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## niko084 (Oct 4, 2008)

Marcam923 said:


> Yes that looks like a very nice rig!  I would say Intel over Nvidia also.



Intel over Nvidia???

huh...

Anyways I would say go with the quad for sure if you are going to keep it for a bit.


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## phanbuey (Oct 4, 2008)

lol... go for SLi gtx 280's... those would kill a single X2... my Sli 260's kill a single X2.  Ati is good if you go quadfire.

EDIT: now that nvidia CUDA is to support photoshop, a quad is less than useless.


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## Marcam923 (Oct 4, 2008)

niko084 said:


> Intel over Nvidia???
> 
> huh...
> 
> Anyways I would say go with the quad for sure if you are going to keep it for a bit.



Yes intel chipset over nvidia chipset.


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## Marcam923 (Oct 4, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> lol... go for SLi gtx 280's... those would kill a single X2... my Sli 260's kill a single X2.  Ati is good if you go quadfire.
> 
> EDIT: now that nvidia CUDA is to support photoshop, a quad is less than useless.



What are you using to compare SLI 260's killing an X2 in?  I am not a fanboy, so don't get all defensive, just curious.

The X2 is great at high Resolutions.


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## phanbuey (Oct 4, 2008)

Marcam923 said:


> What are you using to compare SLI 260's killing an X2 in?  I am not a fanboy, so don't get all defensive, just curious.
> 
> The X2 is great at high Resolutions.



Im not gonna get defensive man .  Any review will tell you that.  Its actually a bit weird, but since the GT200 series, SLI scales better than Xfire. hold on lemme get some links.


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## niko084 (Oct 4, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> lol... go for SLi gtx 280's... those would kill a single X2... my Sli 260's kill a single X2.  Ati is good if you go quadfire.
> 
> EDIT: now that nvidia CUDA is to support photoshop, a quad is less than useless.



Eh GTX260's hardly "kill" a 4870x2... But they do pretty well especially for the money.

And just because photoshop is going to have native support for nvidia doesn't mean anything about a quad being useless...

Try to keep to something factual at least.


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## phanbuey (Oct 4, 2008)

http://hothardware.com/Articles/ATI-Radeon-HD-4870-X2--AMD-Back-On-Top/?page=5

No its true at stock they won't "kill"... but if you OC even to 700 core (something all GTX 260's will do) then they will kill since the 4870X2 doesn't OC well...

As far as quads being useless... I have a Q at ~3.6 and im regretting not getting an e8500 or e8600 for gaming.  Quads are great, but a super-high clocked dual is better... I used to think the other way until ive read enough benchmarks to realize that an e8500 at 4.5 will beat a Q6600 at 3.8 even in encoding.

If he does photoshop, then GTX280 w/ Cuda will be much faster than a Q.


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## Marcam923 (Oct 4, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> Im not gonna get defensive man .  Any review will tell you that.  Its actually a bit weird, but since the GT200 series, SLI scales better than Xfire. hold on lemme get some links.



Well my 9800GTX's scale really well actually and I love the cards, I am just not fond of this 780i at all...

Had a GTX280 also, but was not impressed very much at all with a single cards performance.  I mean it was good, but I expected better.  2- 9800GTX's perform better and are cheaper.


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## Wile E (Oct 4, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> lol... go for SLi gtx 280's... those would kill a single X2... my Sli 260's kill a single X2.  Ati is good if you go quadfire.
> 
> EDIT: now that nvidia CUDA is to support photoshop, a quad is less than useless.



No, a quad is nowhere near useless. First off, it's not only CUDA that's supporting photoshop. It's all OpenGL capable cards, secondly, if photoshop is anything like encoding video on a video card, it's only faster than a highly clocked quad when you don't use a lot of advanced filters. The filters bring the gpu to it's knees.


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## phanbuey (Oct 4, 2008)

Wile E said:


> No, a quad is nowhere near useless. First off, it's not only CUDA that's supporting photoshop. It's all OpenGL capable cards, secondly, if photoshop is anything like encoding video on a video card, it's only faster than a highly clocked quad when you don't use a lot of advanced filters. The filters bring the gpu to it's knees.



i didnt know that it was all openGL cards... i was referring to this:
http://www.techpowerup.com/72222/Adobe_Creative_Suite_4_Natively_Supports_NVIDIA_GPUs.html


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## Marcam923 (Oct 4, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> http://hothardware.com/Articles/ATI-Radeon-HD-4870-X2--AMD-Back-On-Top/?page=5



Well if you are comparing Vantage scores, that is by far nothing to compare and say one card is better than the others.

Look at the actual in game performance and the x2 single card beats the GTX 260 SLI in most scenarios, or is very close in comparison.

Don't get me wrong the 260's are nice cards especially for the price, but Vantage is not the best benchmark to compare.

I pull over 20K in Vantage with TRI-SLI 9800GTX's, but they aren't much good for anything else.


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## Marcam923 (Oct 4, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> i didnt know that it was all openGL cards... i was referring to this:
> http://www.techpowerup.com/72222/Adobe_Creative_Suite_4_Natively_Supports_NVIDIA_GPUs.html



Nvidia Quadro GPU's are $1000 plus and are not for gaming, but exactly for that, photoediting and video.

It makes very little reference to geforce gpu's and I did not see a reference to Cuda and geforce gpu's.

We need to know what we are comparing before we can say one Pwn's the other.


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## phanbuey (Oct 4, 2008)

Marcam923 said:


> Nvidia Quadro GPU's are $1000 plus and are not for gaming, but exactly for that, photoediting and video.
> 
> It makes very little reference to geforce gpu's and I did not see a reference to Cuda and geforce gpu's.
> 
> We need to know what we are comparing before we can say one Pwn's the other.



yeah tis a moot point anyways, Wile E is right, after effects supports all OpenGL cards... and as far as the SLi 260's; Vantage is a bad mark its true, but GTx 260's beat/match the X2 most of the time..  and they overclock.  Thats what it really comes down to, if st stock they match the X2, imagine what they do at 700+Mhz.  

Too bad about the Tri-Sli tho... must be the framebuffer, never did figure out why they couldnt release a 1gb version of the 9800GTx's when the 8800GTX's were 768MB


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## Marcam923 (Oct 4, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> yeah tis a moot point anyways, Wile E is right, after effects supports all OpenGL cards... and as far as the SLi 260's; Vantage is a bad mark its true, but GTx 260's beat/match the X2 most of the time..  and they overclock.  Thats what it really comes down to, if st stock they match the X2, imagine what they do at 700+Mhz.



Yes I can agree with you 100% there.

Sorry for the hijack Cruvenium  

Yeah TRI-SLI was a big downer.  I am not even sure if I took any pictures before I removed and sold one of the cards...


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

Eh, okay, enough for the arguing. So I should go with the 4870X2, Maximus II Formula & E8400? If not, what else? 

*EDIT:* If you think the rig is not quite right, please build a rig for me at www.videopro.com.sg. Thanks! Budget = $3.6k SGD.


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## skamaster (Oct 4, 2008)

SeconD


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

So are you helping me? Lol.


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## 3870x2 (Oct 4, 2008)

hmm.... you should do 2x4850x2 when it comes out, it will perform on par with 2x4870x2 at a much lower price.


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

I don't really wanna wait, ordering tomorrow


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## BarbaricSoul (Oct 4, 2008)

> So I should go with the 4870X2, Maximus II Formula & E8400?



that would be a awesome rig


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

I changed my mind. Right now I'm going with -

Rampage Formula X48
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz/1333/12M
2 X 4870X2 2GB GDRR5

should I go water-cooling or air-cooling?


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## BarbaricSoul (Oct 4, 2008)

persoanlly, I would go with air at first, then use water as a future upgrade/performance gain


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## Cruvenium (Oct 4, 2008)

Ohkay then. Thank you.


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## DrPepper (Oct 4, 2008)

the q9550 would be better than the 8400.

and I've messed about with my friends 4870X2 and I'd say go for one its pretty much the best card out their apart from crysis.


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