Hardware Discussion Thread

Unregistered.

MMiskella wrote: »

i'm planning to go the route of watercooling and looking to get a HD 6970 when it is released (next week) or early next year.

I wouldn't expect it to be affordable this side of the new year to be honest!

Solitaire

HD6970s might be affordable as AFAIK they're hitting the channel in volume; the catch being that this is the result of BIOS tweaks to borderline dies so for every extra HD6970 on the shelves you'll have one less HD6950, which may cause some odd pricing

MMiskella

Yep, the 6970's are hitting the market with big stocks so they should actually be near RRP as companies try to undercut each other and if that happens I may as well get one now instead of waiting for prices to drop when it will tend to increase as stock reduce.

Unregistered.

MMiskella wrote: »

...I may as well get one now instead of waiting for prices to drop when it will tend to increase as stock reduce.

I'd give it a week or two. Seriously.

MMiskella

Unregistered. wrote: »

I'd give it a week or two. Seriously.

Thats the only site to have the 6970 advertised right now but they do not have any stock. Overclockers.co.uk has a very large stock of 69**'s right now but can't advertise until the NDA lifts on the 15th which indicates that the French site is just trying to take advantage of people placing orders now while there is no reference price against other companys.

Also stocks in different country's depend on where they sell the most with Germany, America and the UK getting the largest bulk buys, therefore highest discount and lowest prices on the cards. So that site isn't too representative of what we will see next week.

With an expected date of the 23rd instead of the 15th seems pretty odd as well.

Unregistered.

It's pre-order only. Naturally, they will make a quick buck between now and *official release date*.

Hogzy

I need help deciding on what size PSU i would need.

Q6700
GTX 460 1GB
4GB DDR2 SDRAM
LG DVD+/-RW Disc Drive
1TB WD Caviar Green SATA
500GB Seagate Regular SATA
Asus P5Q Pro Turbo Mobo
Zalman 9700 CPU Cooler.

Would 500W be enough to power that or would i need 650?

Unregistered.

Hogzy wrote: »

I need help deciding on what size PSU i would need.

Q6700
GTX 460 1GB
4GB DDR2 SDRAM
LG DVD+/-RW Disc Drive
1TB WD Caviar Green SATA
500GB Seagate Regular SATA
Asus P5Q Pro Turbo Mobo
Zalman 9700 CPU Cooler.

Would 500W be enough to power that or would i need 650?

Overclocking (much)?

Hogzy

Unregistered. wrote: »

Overclocking (much)?

I plan to but im a complete noob to overclocking so it wont be overclocked by much.

Solitaire

600-650W. Q6700 and the GTX460 can be OCd lots and quite easily to boot, and as a result power consumption ramps up quite aggressively The price of OCing a good PC into a great one I'm afraid!

Unregistered.

This comes with a proviso that in recent months I've found Fudzilla to be well dodgy with their reports on GFX cards and they don't supply any links to this information....
http://fudzilla.com/graphics/item/21210-radeon-hd-6970-to-cost-275-euro

Solitaire

AFAIK Fud became nVidia's b!tch a good while back. XBit only went over to the Pathological Liar dark side a few months back. Both tend to print very misleading articles about both manufacturers now (IIRC XBit was claiming the GTX460 was the most awesomest card ever and the HD6850 was inferior to the GTS450 a few weeks back!), nVidia just use them both as braindead attack sites like they did with Tom's a couple of years back :rolleyes::mad:

Tea_Bag

Is that Tomshardware you're refering to Sol?

i use them all the time for info, please dont tell me ive been wasting my time on them (ie are they're baised?)

Solitaire

Most of them are biased one way or the other, the average trend always tends towards nVidia and Intel simply as they're the first to pay bribes and/or withhold review samples or sue/spam/hack/attack anyone they don't like the look of. Not that AMD is an angel either, nor is it just the companies - fanbios will always be fanbois no matter whose side they're on - but AMD has always focused their investment on products first and dodgy "marketing" tactics second.

It can be damn hard to find an unbiased view at times, especially pivotal product launches. When the HD68x0 arrived you had some sites (was Anand one?) saying they were very nearly as good as the HD58x0 and others (most noticeably the former AMD-biased site XBit Labs) saying they were rubbish and no better than a GTS450 (lawl).

Unregistered.

Anand is one of the best out there. Really covers everything in a review

MMiskella

Unregistered. wrote: »

I'd give it a week or two. Seriously.

"286.43 €" Didnt that say like 480 before?
Pixmania has an ASUS one for 545 and a Gigabyte for 339...absolute madness.

Thankfully I got mine for 320 Euro and apparently AMD says they will rise in price in the new year after initial stock has diminished.

Unregistered.

MMiskella wrote: »

"286.43 €" Didnt that say like 480 before?
Pixmania has an ASUS one for 545 and a Gigabyte for 339...absolute madness.

Thankfully I got mine for 320 Euro and apparently AMD says they will rise in price in the new year after initial stock has diminished.

They prices look quite good on launch. 6950 being the best buy out there at the moment if you need something > a 6850

Tea_Bag

Sandy Bridge is out in parts of Malaysia

linky

interestingly enough, i5 and i7 are both running on LGA 1155

i love the look of the sabertooth p67 MoBo, but ill stick to AMD, thanks.

game4it70

Tea_Bag wrote: »

Sandy Bridge is out in parts of Malaysia

linky

interestingly enough, i5 and i7 are both running on LGA 1155

i love the look of the sabertooth p67 MoBo, but ill stick to AMD, thanks.

Yeah shame there not the "K" versions though so we could get a better idea of the overclocking potential.

As for the sabertooth mobo they do say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" :P
I think the new gigabyte mobos look good.Its nice to see normal looking from them instead of the rainbow effect ones.

Tea_Bag

LGA1155 MoBo's are up for sale on HWVS, most of them are out of stock, but some are in. no 1155 CPU's yet though.

Trevor451

Just got my build running today! Thanks for all of your help and advice!

RoyalMarine

hey guys, im lookin for a new psu. 600 - 700w +.

needs to be reliable!

max budget €70

Deano12345

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

hey guys, im lookin for a new gpu. 600 - 700w +.

needs to be reliable!

max budget €70

You mean PSU am I right ?

What e-tailors do you prefer buying from and I'll take a look see whats out there

Solitaire

Not going to get much over 500W for that price range! Add shipping, and... :eek:

I've seen Antec Earthwatts 650Ds going for around €70 but that's usually on HWVS

RoyalMarine

yeah meant psu lol my bad.

i was thinking of going second hand, but then again....

for retaillers, id go with dabs, komplett, pixmania no problem.

hwvs, im not sure as ive never bought from them.

Tea_Bag

the only problem with HWVS is shipping is a flat rate of €30...

challengemaster

PSUs are fairly heavy so shipping costs are more expensive than usual...

Corsair Tx650 on dabs for €65.67 + €12.60 delivery (€78.27 total)
http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4RY9

44 in stock too, best I can find (~100 on pixmania)

Unregistered.

http://www.techpowerup.com/137140/AMD-Radeon-HD-6950-can-be-unlocked-to-HD-6970.html

Nollog

Is the 6950 much of an improvement over the 59-whatever range?

Unregistered.

/\/ollog wrote: »

Is the 6950 much of an improvement over the 59-whatever range?

Your mileage may vary, depending on the games you play. But the 6950 usually has higher fps than the 5970 at high resolutions (extra gig of memory). At lower resolutions I've seen it just below the 5970 but more often tied or slightly better.