Hi OC3D Community :-)

[smeghedd]

hello from an expat Brit living & working down-under ...

found Tom's video's while researching for a complete new build now that Sandy Bridge is here ... love the video's and can't wait to see more on the Sandy Bridge stuff especially motherboard selection for the 1155 socket, was leaning towards the ASUS 1155 p867 deluxe or perhaps the maximus IV but after seeing the gigabyte p67 UD7 review I am not so sure ... hmmm.

Also in a quandary on the graphic card options, favouring the radeon 6000 series - perhaps crossfire 6970's but may wait for the 6990 which is apparently due out sometime in Q1 2011.

its been a while (2004) since I put my last system together (P4 based) and I am looking forward to getting stuck into the Sandy Bridge platform build, I don't do so much PC gaming these days but would like to get back into some with the latest games on the PC platform ... plus of course I love the whole system build process.

Anyway keep up the good work, I'll be checking back often to OC3DTV and looking for advice/comment in the forums

thanks

 

[oneseraph]

Also in a quandary on the graphic card options, favouring the radeon 6000 series - perhaps crossfire 6970's but may wait for the 6990 which is apparently due out sometime in Q1 2011.

I think if you are planning to do a Crossfire setup the the 6950 is the way to go. Here in the U.S the 6950 sells for around $300.00. About $70.00 cheaper than the 6970 each. The reference 6950 cards can be flashed into a fully functional 6970. Here is a link on how to do it.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159

So for a Crossfire setup you would save $140.00. That said even if you don't flash the 6950's into 6970's a pair of 6950 are formidable to say the very least. unless you are playing games at maximum detail at 2560x1600 you are not going experience much difference in game play. That is to say without a frame-rate monitor like "fraps" displaying the frame rate you are not going to notice much difference in actual game play between the cards at 1920x1200 in most games. If you do, Flash the bios and you have a pair of 6970's. That should smooth it out.

The best part is the cards are set up with dual bios switch on the side of the card, so if anything goes wrong, your card doesn't become a paperweight.

I hope this helped.

Regards, OneSeraph

 

[fox182]

Hey smeghedd, welcome.

Yeah 6950s hacked to 6970s is where the bang for buck is at. Should more then power everything you need. nvidia GTX 580s are the current leading chip but they will rob you for it. I imagine the 6990 will knock off the GTX 580 but it will be a dual GPU card so measuring it against 580s in SLI will be the real test.

Keep in mind intel are now putting hardware DRM (Digital Rights Management) on the sandy bridge, who knows what other Big Brother stuff is on the chip. Thats what ended turning me off the idea. But then again maybe its not a big deal, time will tell. All p67 boards apparently need a bios update so its hard to tell which is best right now, but ASUS usually are pretty solid. Good luck with it.

Cheers

 

[smeghedd]

oneseraph & Fox182

thanks for the info & advice re the 6950 hack ...

so many options to consider, I'm in no real hurry so I will wait for some more reviews & comment on the Sandy Bridge mobo's (but the GigaByte p67 UD7 looks hard to beat right now - dual 16x lanes for crossfire/SLI, overclock on the main SB core as opposed to turbo mode only overclocking options for the ASUS high end boards, aesthetics etc etc).

On the graphics front - I would hope that the radeon 6990 will be able to complete with the 580's in SLI (maybe nVidia will have hit back with something else by the time the 6990's are released to market), anyway I will see what other benchmarks and comparisons I can find before deciding which way to go.

thanks again ...

 

[CRAZYCAP]

Because I wanted CUDA and PHYSX I just upgraded from a Sapphire 5850 to an MSI GTX 570. I will be staying green for a very long time I think.

BTW - Gr8 to see another 'aussie' on the forums and also another from Sydney.

 

[sideways60]

More Aussies and they just keep coming! Welcome, this is a great forum, have found heaps of good info on it!