actually the Smartpower is the predecessor of the Earthwatts...but not really because Smartpowers were made by CWT with inferior capacitors and the Earthwatts are made bye Delta and Seasonic and are good values.
actually the Smartpower is the predecessor of the Earthwatts...but not really because Smartpowers were made by CWT with inferior capacitors and the Earthwatts are made bye Delta and Seasonic and are good values.
Well, they weren't than, but due to the better architecture, the x1800 are faster in games that heaviely use the shaders, just a little, but they are.Seriously, people bought Radeon X1800 cards and they weren't the best.
GTX 295 with Antec SmartPower 450W = NO
If he wants to spend money on it, then let him. Seriously, people bought Radeon X1800 cards and they weren't the best. People bought Pentium 4 instead of A64 and they weren't the best. People bought domestic cars... doh, low blow!
Yes, but were all these products priced 20% higher than a competitor's performance equal?
I totally agree, I'm just frugal, I guess when I say that I wouldn't touch a GTX295 while I can get an HD5870 for $100 less...
HD 5870s are hard to come by. Plus like I said, my only ATI burned up quickly. I like Nvidia. GTX 295s can be bought from pretty much any major etailer without having to wait for them to come in stock.
Yes, but were all these products priced 20% higher than a competitor's performance equal?
I totally agree, I'm just frugal, I guess when I say that I wouldn't touch a GTX295 while I can get an HD5870 for $100 less...
So, you have established that your purchasing criteria is primarily based on a dollar-performance scale. That's great! The OP's purchasing criteria is primarily based on his Nvidia mouse pad. That's also great! Can't we all just accept that we don't all think the same? ^_^ Heck, I'm sure people buy graphics cards based on what the fan sticker looks like, or the box art, or all kinds of various reasons.
In the past I've been known to have purchased cards based on PCB color. :awe: A bit silly of me? Perhaps. Is it my right to do so? Sure! Just don't judge me too harshly, plz, k thx.
My power supply doesn't even have the right power connectors to hook this thing up. Guess I'll be needing a new one. Also it's HUGE. I wonder if it will even fit in my Antec Sonota II case...
It will fit, you may have to take out the lower drive cage. However, while those cases are pretty decent for being quiet and for cooling the CPU (for a mid tower) they are absolutely awful for airflow to the GPU (and chipset blocked by a longer GPU).
Be sure to closely monitor your GPU and chipset temperatures under load for a while.
BTW, future proofing with an expensive directx-10 only multi-GPU card when DX10.1 and DX11 games are already on the market is... probably not as optimal as you think it is. I've done that once before, and not being able to see eye candy people with cards a third the cost were enjoying ate at me until I "downgraded" to the card I should have bought in the first place.
What the heck is DX10.1? I'm sure a DX10 card would have to support it... And I wasn't aware of any DX11 games out yet.
I'm mainly looking forward to playing games like Jedi Knight Dark Forces II expansions, Bioshock, Mass Effect, KoTOR, Fallout 1, 2 and 3, Borderlands, Left For Dead 2, Titan Quest, etc. All the stuff I've gotten for sale on Steam and have stacked up. I think the GTX 295 should do fine for those things, whereas my 8600GT is choking.
That's not the important part.DX10.1 is a few rather important performance related features over and above DX10.
DX10.1 is a few rather important performance related features over and above DX10. Feel free to google it. Modern ATI cards and the GT240 and other 40nm current (but low end) GPUs from NV support it. Dinosaurs like my 8800GT and your 295 do not.
As far as DX11: today you have Dirt2, BattleForge and Stalker: Call of Pripyat. There are also a few very compelling tech demos.
Soon to hit DX11 games are Aliens vs Predator, BF: Bad Company, Crysis 2. We also know DDO and LOTRO and Grid2 will also have DX11 support. Tesselation makes for very apparent and striking improvements in image quality so I would expect anyone trying to make a great looking game will be making use of it sooner rather than later.
So if you were only planning to keep that 295 a month or so you're fine even without support for the latest D3D standard. Me, I learned my lesson. I won't be getting any more high end hardware without support for the latest standards.
Unless you're on a 30" monitor those look like fodder for an 8800GT. A $100 GT250 would have easily torn through them at anything below 2500x1600. A 260 216 would have been overkill.
You should be very happy with a 295 if retrogaming is your bag even if the games don't have a good SLI profile (old titles aren't a priority for multi-GPU support). As to your OP: with such undemanding titles your PSU might have been sufficient to run a 295, but it would have been very risky.
Well I feel like most of the titles that I want to play are either from the hayday of the 295 or older. And I'm sure it will run BF: Bad Company with plenty of power in DX10 mode. And I'm gaming on a 28" monitor. And since it doesn't support the latest standards, it's really not fair to consider it to be "high end hardware," and hold it to those standards.
I think it has the power to play any of the games out now at or near full detail, and probably will continue to be able to do so with the games coming out over the next year. And yes, I plan on keeping it for at least a year. If I wanted a video card that only lasted a month, I'd have gotten another ATI.
Ah, a 28" monitor means 1920x1200. An 8800GT or better was all you "needed", but since when is this hobby about need? BTW, it's not all about frame rates.
Not supporting the shiny new effects means your games won't look the way they're meant to (or like the screenshots you see on the web) even if they're pushing 300 fps to your 60 frame/sec limited LCD. A DX10 card simply won't accelerate tesselation. Ever. Not rendering in DX10 mode, not rendering in DX9 mode. DX11 has features to greatly improve the look of games. Look at the Unigine demo if you don't believe me. That's the big difference between the step from DX9 to DX11 vs DX9 to DX10 -- DX10 didn't make games look any better. That said, people are still cooking with 8800GTs, but the "equivalent" performing 1950XTs are long forgotten relics. Even on XP using DX9.
Price determines whether a card is high or low end. At $400, that card definitely weighs in at "high end."
Earlier you mentioned being unaware of any disadvantages of multi-GPU. Now may not be a good time, but after the honeymoon is over you'll want to google "AFR microstutter" and "SLI input lag." Also see if the older games you enjoy have good SLI support. If not, you'll be running a GTX270 even though you are powering a 295.
Not at full detail -- it won't be able to play the 3 DX11 titles I mentioned at full detail *today*. Full detail will require tesselation, a DX11 feature. You will see the same things people with $40 GPUs see, but the frame rate counter will be much higher than your monitor can display.
I'm glad you have no buyer's remorse, but the point we're trying to make is there are vastly cheaper alternatives to fill needs. For your needs a 5770 would have been a perfect fit. GTX260 would have been the best fit "green team" alternative, although once again without the ability to display DX11 eye candy.
Why can't you, you know, sell it and use the cash on a 58-I mean, a GTX 260 or something?
I will take it for the price of a smartpower psu :awe: