How many CUDA Cores do you have?

[Sam I Am]

Time to upgrade tupper! :laugh2:

==========================================

NVIDIA is releasing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core GPU.

Just in time for the holiday buying season, NVIDIA is at the ready with a brand new graphics card. Sort of. Today, NVIDIA is announcing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores. Some of you may be thinking, “Hey! GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards use the GF114 GPU which offers a maximum of 384 cores!” And you’d be right. This new GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores, however, isn’t built around the GF114 GPU. Rather, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores is outfitted with the same GF110 GPU powering the high-end GeForce GTX 570 and GTX 580, but with a couple of its SMs fused off.

There are some other factors that differentiate the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores from other GF110-based cards as well, but NVIDIA had a bin of the GPUs with 448 cores available and decided to put together a graphics card that would fill the gap between existing GeForce GTX 560 Ti and GeForce GTX 570. Instead of naming the card something like the GeForce GTX 565, however, NVIDIA chose the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores moniker because the card will be a limited edition. Once the bin of 448-core GF110 GPUs is gone, so will the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores. NVIDIA is also only offering this card in certain key regions—it won’t be a worldwide release.

http://hothardware.com/articleimages/Item1764/small_zotac-560-448-core-1.JPG

http://hothardware.com/articleimages/Item1764/gtx-560-ti-448-core-specs.png

Complete Review (http://hothardware.com/Reviews/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-560-Ti-448Core-GPU-Review/)

[dback]

Very nice. GPU clusters are the hot topic in scientific computing since you can get more FLOPS/dollar with some of these cards. Imagine having a 100 node cluster with 3 of these things in each.

[tupperware]

nope.avi

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5153/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-w448-cores-gtx570-on-a-budget

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph5153/42696.png

[REDVOLUTION]

I recently got this for a steal.

A sony series of mistakes and errors on a lesser laptop let them to send me this one

Cost of lesser one: $600 (was worth $1,800)

The one they sent me was:

Sony VAIO VPCZ12GGX laptop

Processor Intel Core i7 620M / 2.66 GHz
Multi-Core Technology Dual-Core
64-bit Computing Yes
8 GB RAM
2 - 256 SSD
Features Intel Turbo Boost Technology
Max Turbo Speed 3.33 GHz
Backlit Keyboard
Graphics Processor / Vendor NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M / Intel HD Graphics - 1 GB

Spec'd out at $4,000+ when I got it last year

[Sam I Am]

lol, I thought it said it was a new 580 series. I didn't notice it said 560. I need to get more sleep at night. :laugh2:

I quit spending $500 for video cards. Now, I just buy a highly regarded model that is in the $200-$300 range.

[Sam I Am]

I recently got this for a steal.

A sony series of mistakes and errors on a lesser laptop let them to send me this one

Cost of lesser one: $600 (was worth $1,800)

The one they sent me was:

Sony VAIO VPCZ12GGX laptop

Processor Intel Core i7 620M / 2.66 GHz
Multi-Core Technology Dual-Core
64-bit Computing Yes
8 GB RAM
2 - 256 SSD
Features Intel Turbo Boost Technology
Max Turbo Speed 3.33 GHz
Backlit Keyboard
Graphics Processor / Vendor NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M / Intel HD Graphics - 1 GB

Spec'd out at $4,000+ when I got it last year

Nice. Though I can't see myself spending lots on a laptop. I build up my desktop and then would just buy a decent laptop to do work from.

I'm thinking about getting that ASUS Transformer Prime to be my laptop. I can use that when I'm at co-locations with the servers or when traveling. When I'm traveling, I just need VPN, web, ssh, rdesktop, and IM access and I'm good to go.

[Duane]

lol, I thought it said it was a new 580 series. I didn't notice it said 560. I need to get more sleep at night. :laugh2:

I quit spending $500 for video cards. Now, I just buy a highly regarded model that is in the $200-$300 range.

Same here and they still serve my needs for several years.

[Dallas]

Same here and they still serve my needs for several years.


Im currently running an NVIDIA GeFORCE 280 GTX 1GB card. I have been thinking about upgrading.

Any thoughts?

ATI?

NVIDIA?

Something in the 300-400 range would work.

I also need to take my desktop to 16GB from 8. Its 2 yrs old and appears to getting a lil slow. I have had some choppiness in Skyrim a few times.

[tupperware]

lol, I thought it said it was a new 580 series. I didn't notice it said 560. I need to get more sleep at night. :laugh2:

I quit spending $500 for video cards. Now, I just buy a highly regarded model that is in the $200-$300 range.
I used to do this, but I try and do a full system rebuild and just scrap some parts every 3 years or so. With my last system, the 8800 GT graphics card was way too long in the tooth when I built this system. I wanted this system to still feel good after 3 years. If it does, I might even stretch it to 4 or so.

[tupperware]

Im currently running an NVIDIA GeFORCE 280 GTX 1GB card. I have been thinking about upgrading.

Any thoughts?

ATI?

NVIDIA?

Something in the 300-400 range would work.

I also need to take my desktop to 16GB from 8. Its 2 yrs old and appears to getting a lil slow. I have had some choppiness in Skyrim a few times.
Nah you shouldn't need more RAM unless you're a super duper multi-tasker (and I mean HUGE) I have 8gb and never max it, ever. Invest that money in to a nice SSD SATA 3 drive (Even if your MB doesn't support it, you can swap to a SATA 3 port when you finally make a motherboard change in the future). I'd personally recommend this 480 core version of the GTX 560 TI nyc just posted. The dropoff isn't much. I definitely would do SSD though if you don't currently have one.

So:

SSD
GTX 560 TI (480 core)

Your choppiness is most likely due to your GPU. What CPU do you have?

[Dallas]

Nah you shouldn't need more RAM unless you're a super duper multi-tasker (and I mean HUGE) I have 8gb and never max it, ever. Invest that money in to a nice SSD SATA 3 drive. I'd personally recommend this 480 core version of the GTX 560 TI nyc just posted. The dropoff isn't much. I definitely would do SSD though if you don't currently have one.

I like the SSD option. I will take a peek at Dells site and see what they have available. I have a nice zero interest account w/ them that is sitting empty atm.

Thank you for the suggestion.

[Sam I Am]

Im currently running an NVIDIA GeFORCE 280 GTX 1GB card. I have been thinking about upgrading.

Any thoughts?

ATI?

NVIDIA?

Something in the 300-400 range would work.

I also need to take my desktop to 16GB from 8. Its 2 yrs old and appears to getting a lil slow. I have had some choppiness in Skyrim a few times.

I like what ATI is doing by open sourcing drivers etc, but I've never had an issue with any Nvidia cards I've bought so I've always stuck with Nvidia.

Upgrade to 16GB from 8GB? :confused: What do you use that would even eat 8GBs? I have 8GBs and I usually have a few free GBs of memory even when playing Skyrim or BF3.

It would have to be something artsy fartsy. :laugh2: (ie, video editing)

[Dallas]

Nah you shouldn't need more RAM unless you're a super duper multi-tasker (and I mean HUGE) I have 8gb and never max it, ever. Invest that money in to a nice SSD SATA 3 drive (Even if your MB doesn't support it, you can swap to a SATA 3 port when you finally make a motherboard change in the future). I'd personally recommend this 480 core version of the GTX 560 TI nyc just posted. The dropoff isn't much. I definitely would do SSD though if you don't currently have one.

So:

SSD Drive
GTX 560 TI (480 core)

Your choppiness is most likely due to your GPU. What CPU do you have?

CPU is Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 at 2.9GHZ if I remember correctly.

My system is SMOKIN. Its a Dell XPS 630i. The reason I got it was the hardware at that time but mainly because of the true ATX case it had. Not only was it a great looking tower, but it was trul ATX and I could do w/e upgradew I wanted in the future, even system board replacements that aren't Dell specific. Any ATX MB will fit.

Appears the future is now. :D

BTW: Dell has a Post Cyber Monday Sale going on today.

You can get 27" Planar HD WS monitors for 209.99 today. GO GO !!!

[Sam I Am]

Nah you shouldn't need more RAM unless you're a super duper multi-tasker (and I mean HUGE) I have 8gb and never max it, ever. Invest that money in to a nice SSD SATA 3 drive (Even if your MB doesn't support it, you can swap to a SATA 3 port when you finally make a motherboard change in the future). I'd personally recommend this 480 core version of the GTX 560 TI nyc just posted. The dropoff isn't much. I definitely would do SSD though if you don't currently have one.

So:

SSD
GTX 560 TI (480 core)

Your choppiness is most likely due to your GPU. What CPU do you have?

Yeah, SSD is my next upgrade. I figured I will get two of them and then still keep my 1TB drives.

One for the OS, and One for the large games. (Skyrim, BF, etc) I hate long load times. :mad: Then the spindles for other games and storage.

[Duane]

Im currently running an NVIDIA GeFORCE 280 GTX 1GB card. I have been thinking about upgrading.

Any thoughts?

ATI?

NVIDIA?

Something in the 300-400 range would work.

I also need to take my desktop to 16GB from 8. Its 2 yrs old and appears to getting a lil slow. I have had some choppiness in Skyrim a few times.

I bought a HD6970 card earlier in the year and it's been rock solid. Some people don't like ATI cards/drivers but I've never had an issue with one.

[tupperware]

CPU is Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 at 2.9GHZ if I remember correctly.

My system is SMOKIN. Its a Dell XPS 630i. The reason I got it was the hardware at that time but mainly because of the true ATX case it had. Not only was it a great looking tower, but it was trul ATX and I could do w/e upgradew I wanted in the future, even system board replacements that aren't Dell specific. Any ATX MB will fit.

Appears the future is now. :D
Your CPU will start showing its age pretty soon with newer games but it's still more than capable to play most any game at a decent level. One possible issue will be bottlenecking. I think the Q9450 is riiiiight at the barrier where if you don't OC it at all it will bottleneck anything over a 560 TI, so you may want to go for the original TI over the 480 core version. But really, your setup right now taking into account all parts is pretty decent. You won't really want to drop much money in a GPU because in my opinion the performance gains seen over your current GPU don't warrant it considering when you finally do build a new system, you probably won't stick with the 560 TI or maybe you will (I wouldn't, though).

That seems like the best bang for your buck route at the moment, a 560 TI and an SSD. The SSD won't impact in game performance too heavily but will help a lot with games that have a lot of in-between loads and level loads (I'd think Skyrim would fit that criteria) But the SSD will benefit everything and a Sata 3 SSD will last you some time to come, so can be swapped into any new builds you do.

[Dallas]

I bought a HD6970 card earlier in the year and it's been rock solid. Some people don't like ATI cards/drivers but I've never had an issue with one.

How is your crashing of Skyrim going? Are you impacted by it? The reason I ask is that my tech and I are back and forth about Skyrim crashing more often than not on NVIDIA cards than ATI. He runs an ATI card similar to yours and swears he not crashed more than 1-2x in 40 hrs of play. I have probably crashed 100x in that time frame. :mad:

Checking SSD drives now

CRAZY SPENSIvEOMG

[Sam I Am]

Checking SSD drives now

CRAZY SPENSIvEOMG

...and there are tiny! You don't get **** in GBs for your money! :laugh2:

I haven't kept up with SSD drives since the Intel X25 came out some years back. They had a lot of upside, but a lot of downside too and they were expensive so I just marked them off my list.

That will change with my next upgrade.

What SSD drives are good these days tupper?

Here ya go Dallas. 960GB SSD and it's cheap (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227742)!

[Dallas]

Your CPU will start showing its age pretty soon with newer games but it's still more than capable to play most any game at a decent level. One possible issue will be bottlenecking. I think the Q9450 is riiiiight at the barrier where if you don't OC it at all it will bottleneck anything over a 560 TI, so you may want to go for the original TI over the 480 core version. But really, your setup right now taking into account all parts is pretty decent. You won't really want to drop much money in a GPU because in my opinion the performance gains seen over your current GPU don't warrant it considering when you finally do build a new system, you probably won't stick with the 560 TI or maybe you will (I wouldn't, though).

That seems like the best bang for your buck route at the moment, a 560 TI and an SSD. The SSD won't impact in game performance too heavily but will help a lot with games that have a lot of in-between loads and level loads (I'd think Skyrim would fit that criteria) But the SSD will benefit everything and a Sata 3 SSD will last you some time to come, so can be swapped into any new builds you do.

Awesome information Tup, and thank you. I will def be going the SATA3 SSD option for sure. I might just see what that buys me before grabbing a 560TI.

Appreciate your knowlege.

Thanks

[tupperware]

How is your crashing of Skyrim going? Are you impacted by it? The reason I ask is that my tech and I are back and forth about Skyrim crashing more often than not on NVIDIA cards than ATI. He runs an ATI card similar to yours and swears he not crashed more than 1-2x in 40 hrs of play. I have probably crashed 100x in that time frame. :mad:

Checking SSD drives now

CRAZY SPENSIvEOMG
What I do is run the OS and games I play a lot on the SSD and put most of my data and other applications/games on another drive.

[Dallas]

What I do is run the OS and games I play a lot on the SSD and put most of my data and other applications/games on another drive.


Where do you purchase your SSD drives? I liked SamIAMs option about using 2 drives.

I would need something close to 250GB for each.


Any good drives and places you can recommend?

Thanks much

[tupperware]

Awesome information Tup, and thank you. I will def be going the SATA3 SSD option for sure. I might just see what that buys me before grabbing a 560TI.

Appreciate your knowlege.

Thanks
No problem. That sounds like a good plan, start with the SSD. The GTX 280 is paired nicely with that CPU.

Whether you want to pony up more dough for the gains for the 560 TI is up to you. From reading around it looks like a 25% improvement in most games. Here is a comparison of the GTX 285 and GTX 560 TI (Couldn't find the 280)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/317?vs=330

Where do you purchase your SSD drives? I liked SamIAMs option about using 2 drives.

I would need something close to 250GB for each.


Any good drives and places you can recommend?

Thanks much

I'm a big fan of newegg.com. I pretty much do all my shopping there for computer parts unless I find an incredible deal elsewhere.

[tupperware]

...and there are tiny! You don't get **** in GBs for your money! :laugh2:

I haven't kept up with SSD drives since the Intel X25 came out some years back. They had a lot of upside, but a lot of downside too and they were expensive so I just marked them off my list.

That will change with my next upgrade.

What SSD drives are good these days tupper?

Here ya go Dallas. 960GB SSD and it's cheap (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227742)!
Ludicrous, lol. They're still quite cheap though (SSDs) from what they were, RAM used to be the same way. If memory serves me correctly (Pun intended?) the local computer shop around here years ago was selling ram for almost $3 a megabyte (This was back when my system had around 128MB of ram, something like that). I think it's what now, pennies per MB? I imagine SSD is going to behave in pricing the same way.

[Sam I Am]

Ludicrous, lol. They're still quite cheap though (SSDs) from what they were, RAM used to be the same way. If memory serves me correctly (Pun intended?) the local computer shop around here years ago was selling ram for almost $3 a megabyte (This was back when my system had around 128MB of ram, something like that). I think it's what now, pennies per MB? I imagine SSD is going to behave in pricing the same way.

When I built my first computer, it was a Pentium 233MMX around 1997, I think I paid about $220 for (2) 16MB SIMMs. (32MB total) That was also when I bought my first video game graphics card. The original 3DFX Voodoo card. Where it was only a 3D card and you still had to have an actual 2D card too! :laugh2:

Prior to that, my PCs were off the shelf. Though I did do some upgrades to my Packard Bell Pentium 75! (smoking!)

I never even looked inside the Tandy 1000 or 3/486s until they died.

[tupperware]

When I built my first computer, it was a Pentium 233MMX around 1997, I think I paid about $220 for (2) 16MB SIMMs. (32MB total) That was also when I bought my first video game graphics card. The original 3DFX Voodoo card. Where it was only a 3D card and you still had to have an actual 2D card too! :laugh2:

Prior to that, my PCs were off the shelf. Though I did do some upgrades to my Packard Bell Pentium 75! (smoking!)

I never even looked inside the Tandy 1000 or 3/486s until they died.
Nice man I owned a 233MMX Pentium as well, haha. In fact, the Voodoo 3 was one of the first "real" gaming graphics cards I owned. My friend used to play Q1 in OpenGL mode with a Matrox card and I just had to have something, so I got one. I could finally play in OpenGL mode and got around 60 FPS, it was awesome. Prior to that I could only manage 15-20 FPS even by reducing my game resolution to lowest :(

Good(?) Times..

[Duane]

How is your crashing of Skyrim going? Are you impacted by it? The reason I ask is that my tech and I are back and forth about Skyrim crashing more often than not on NVIDIA cards than ATI. He runs an ATI card similar to yours and swears he not crashed more than 1-2x in 40 hrs of play. I have probably crashed 100x in that time frame. :mad:

Checking SSD drives now

CRAZY SPENSIvEOMG

My experience is closer to his than yours. I think I've had about 5-6 crashes over 40+ hours of play.

[Sam I Am]

My experience is closer to his than yours. I think I've had about 5-6 crashes over 40+ hours of play.

I've only got about 11 hours of game play and I've crashed 2-3 times I believe.

I just upgraded my Nvidia drivers to the 290 beta drivers. Nvidia said that it has tweaks for BF3 and Skyrim in the beta drivers.

[MyBad]

The new card just needs 2GB of memory!! and I am buying it..

[Sam I Am]

The new card just needs 2GB of memory!! and I am buying it..

Shouldn't you be killing someone right now? :laugh2:

[MyBad]

Shouldn't you be killing someone right now? :laugh2:
I am waiting for your return......:)

[Jenky]

FYI:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-nvidia-28nm-desktop-gpu-roadmap/14067.html


My 580s are going to hold strong at least for another year.:laugh2:

[Sam I Am]

I am waiting for your return......:)

You will be waiting a bit. I'm traveling to Texas today. I won't be back until Tuesday night. ;)

[Dallas]

Bumping this so Tup can gimme his 2 cents. :D


So Tup I was looking at this SSD3 drive from Dell. Its a Kingston. Thoughts?

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A5436523&~ck=baynoteSearch&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=0

[tupperware]

Bumping this so Tup can gimme his 2 cents. :D


So Tup I was looking at this SSD3 drive from Dell. Its a Kingston. Thoughts?

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A5436523&~ck=baynoteSearch&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=0

My thoughts are I wouldn't buy it, not because it's bad, but because it's way too expensive. Save that money and buy a smaller drive ~100GB or so. When it comes to raw performance, such as FPS in most games, SSD drives aren't going to help that much. What they primarily help is day to day computing (Programs load faster, level loads in games are much faster, etc) So what I do is put my most played or load intensive games on my SSD along with Windows. I put the rest of the games on another drive.

As long as you're upgrading to SSD don't get too caught up in all the technology of them and try to get the 'very best' SSD drive out there. Pretty much any SSD is going to be so much faster than what you've got.

Just get a SATA 3 SSD drive around 100GB or so. I'd recommend manufacturers such as OCZ/Intel etc. I personally own an OCZ SSD, they have good customer support in the event you ever need to RMA it.

[Jenky]

Bumping this so Tup can gimme his 2 cents. :D


So Tup I was looking at this SSD3 drive from Dell. Its a Kingston. Thoughts?

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A5436523&~ck=baynoteSearch&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=0

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139918
Why buy it from Dell? Yes, they offer the transfer kit which isn't that much in price.

Edit- Nevermind you probably have some kind of financing account with them. Like I do with Newegg.

[Jenky]

In terms of SSDs across various manufacturers, the read/write speeds will be in the same general ball park. Some will be faster based on what controllers they use.

I will always go to newegg and look at the user reviews. I'll see what systems they are running and if it's similar to mine or not. Then of course, I'll look at the ratings (5 eggs vs 1 egg and why).

This is in my MBP as of right now. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442

This is in my desktop.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148348

When the read/write speeds are in the same ball park, you almost have to look at the SSD's reliability. You won't notice the speed difference because almost all SSDs are very fast, but you'll know when you have a dead SSD. :lmao:

[Dallas]

Good stuff.

Thanks for the information Tup and Jenk.

Merry Christmas everybody.