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Off Topic / Re: Name your graphics card
« on: April 12, 2010, 07:00:07 PM »
HD5870. 3 monitors.
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482
Off Topic / Re: College
« on: April 11, 2010, 06:19:40 PM »
I'm studying Aerospace Engineering right now. Almost done with my first year.
483
Help / Re: Buying from Italy?
« on: April 11, 2010, 03:34:29 PM »Guys, I could buy THEORETICAL Blokland in Italy in these ways (which I enclose why I can not do them)
1) Paypal (no age and my parents do not want to let me)
2) Credit Cards (I have a bank account? Mmmm... NO >:( )
3) send money via letter (but we kidding? Do not know how they are postmen and post office employees here in the US / UK / wherever the hell you want but here they steal the money, you frisk the letter and you take them. You think I'm kidding? Come here and try it. 60% possibility that you take them, 30% reach their destination, 10% that a thief is waiting outside.)
4) Amazon? Never heard it.
As I said, I'm in a deadlock situation.
Really Paypal isn't an option for you, even if your parents would allow you to use it. Paypal is a "middle-man" and generally requires a credit card or attached bank account to be used.
I suppose you could send cash in the mail by placing it inside of a birthday card. This would make it less apparent there is money inside and they are usually sold with envelopes anyway. Then you just need a stamp and the appropriate address. Unless Italian postmen are in the habit of opening up letters and enclosed birthday cards, your money should be safe.
Whilst at the store, see if they have the VISA gift cards. They look like, and in many ways can be used as, a credit card. There is no age requirement for their use and you should be able to play BL much sooner. As I mentioned earlier, there is a small fee you have to pay for their activation, but it may be a better option if you don't feel comfortable about cash in the mail.
484
Help / Re: Help me
« on: April 10, 2010, 01:50:20 AM »Or
1. Get $20
2. Put it in an envelope
3. Put the address on the blockland buy thing or something.
4. Put lots of stamps and put it in the mail.
5. ???
6. Profit
This is what I did. :/
Sending cash in the mail is an incredibly bad idea. I'd advise against doing that.
Ephialtes can you explain me what' s a Amazon payments?
I never heared it.
Caution I want a old key that someone don't use not a key of someone that play Blockland least once a month.
As far as I am aware, it is against the EULA for a user to sell/trade/give away their key to others. This means a "second-hand" key will be difficult to find and will likely be disabled if discovered.
If you are willing to spend the money on a new key a prepaid VISA giftcard is an easy way to purchase items online. There are no age restrictions for their use and can usually be found in convenience stores/grocery stores. Of course, this may not be the case in Italy, but it is certainly worth a look. The only downsides to using these prepaid cards is there is usually a fee for their activation and it is unlikely that you will be able to spend the full value of the card.
The mail order method that Regulith mentioned is your safest and cheapest option. It will simply take longer.
485
Off Topic / Re: CCleaner: Is it worth it?
« on: April 09, 2010, 01:27:50 PM »
I would be careful when using a registry cleaner. I've noticed no performance boosts from using one, but have on occasion experience some instability issues after the fact.
Using CCleaner purely as a temporary file remover/program uninstaller is my recommendation.
Using CCleaner purely as a temporary file remover/program uninstaller is my recommendation.
486
Off Topic / Re: New PC
« on: April 08, 2010, 06:32:30 PM »The GTX480 retails at $500 before its inevitable price drop, while the 5870 retails at ~$420. The 480 performs noticeably better.
Regardless if the 28% increase is true, it will be a better buy when stocks are increased.
I'm not sure you read my post correctly. The GTX 480 has an MSRP of $500. This will almost certainly increase $50 to $100 for the next few months until supply/demand meet up. Even if it were to be sufficiently available at $500, it still does not have any where near the performance increase to justify the additional $80-$100 cost.
Lets check out some performance comparisons...
It should be noted that [H]ardOCP doesn't use canned, pre-recorded benchmarks for testing and actually plays through a chosen level to gain real world performance statistics.
How about we check out a different site? Lets try Tom's hardware...
The results above leave a little more to talk about than the [H] benchmarks. Starting at the top, The GTX480 wins by a landslide in MW2. This advantage, whilst impressive, is rather pointless as you aren't going to see the benefits of 120FPS vs. 70 FPS. With Dirt 2 the GTX 480 eeks out a minor 5FPS without AA, and roughly 10 with AA. In Crysis, the HD5870 out does the 480 very slightly without AA, and only falls about 3FPS behind it with AA, both are unplayable at this resolution however. Stalker shows a similar situation in which the 5870 outperforms the 480 w/o AA but falls behind the 480 with AA enabled. Metro2033 is quite unique in that it brings a few special features to the DX11 table that quite simply crush any modern GPU. The GTX 480 isn't even playable with this enabled and is a no go for ATI GPUs. You'll note that in [H]'s review that feature was disabled and we see almost identical performance from the two GPUs.
The point still stands; in certain games with AA enabled the GTX480 pulls ahead by a small margin. This margin is far too insignificant to justify spending an extra $80-$150 on for the savvy purchaser. The 5870 is widely available in a variety of flavors at an acceptable price point and can play modern games at the highest settings with great performance. If you are in the market right now for a GPU and you don't demand the absolute "king" of performance, the HD5870 is the wisest choice. If you must have that extra smidgeon of performance, or really want Physx/CUDA, and don't mind spending $100's extra, and don't mind trawling the internet for hours and days at a time trying to find it in stock, and don't mind the enormous power consumption and heat production, then yes, by all means attempt to purchase a GTX480.
In 6 months time it may be a better buy. But then you'll have to consider whatever refresh ATI comes out with. In any case, Ephi is trying to buy a computer soon and the GTX480 is not the best choice right now.
487
Off Topic / Re: New PC
« on: April 08, 2010, 02:41:57 PM »The GTX480 is worth more per dollar...
~28% increase in performance and a 20-25% increase in price.
That doesn't appear to be accurate. I'd like to see where you are getting these figures from.
At the very least it is a fools game to be mentioning price when GTX400's aren't even in stock for more than a few minutes.
For instance, lets look at this graph of HD5870 pricing over the entire time it has been available....
(Source: http://www.h-online.com/priceinsight/?phist=465504&age=2000)
Notice how prices start at the MSRP that ATI specified but quickly climbed to a peak about 2 months later. This was due to high demand and low supply. Die hard enthusiasts and scalpers will purchase the cards at any price keeping stocks low. Around January/February supplies become readily available and the price drops dramatically. This is a cycle that has happened every time a new high-end card(s) is released.
Note that the newly released GTX400's are at the very beginning of their "life cycle" and as such prices still generally reflect MSRP. This will quickly increase (often times the increase is about $50-$100USD) whilst stocks remain almost non-existant. So what is my point? My point is that the current MSRP prices that you see listed on sites is no where near the price that regular consumers are going to be able to purchase the card in a few months. As such, basing price/performance ratios of their present prices is incredibly inaccurate.
As for the statement that purchasing a GTX400 series card will "last longer", that too is dubious at best. How long a card remains acceptable is entirely up to the end user. Few games, if any, are attempting to push the envelope in terms of graphical fidelity and existing titles are easily played on mid-range cards even at relatively high resolutions. Granted some titles require a little extra "grunt" to achieve the maximum settings combined with heavy anti-aliasing at high resolutions but this is for the realm of the hardware enthusiast and not the occasional 'gamer' or average consumer.
As indicated in [H]'s review of the two GTX400 cards, the best value for money in the high-end market segment remains the HD5850/HD5830 and that is only considering the relative performance of the cards at their existing prices (not the actual inflated prices you will see shortly). When you add power consumption and heat production on top of that the choice becomes clear; ATI still has the best card for the smart consumer.
For the hardware enthusiast who demands the best performance at any cost, the GTX 480 is SLI is the most powerful setup you can use. This is not a system I'd recommend though.
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Off Topic / Re: New PC
« on: April 07, 2010, 03:54:39 PM »I'll give it 6 months before it breaks.
I work in the IT department on campus and we are purely Dell based. We are still running hundreds of machines that are 6 years old. Generally they need replacement due to outdated hardware before they need replacement due to failure.
The Alienware appears to be a better option. It is worrisome that the "PCspecialist" would make such a glaring mistake as that of the power supply.
The i7 930/X58 platform has loads of great features but doesn't necessarily equate to higher gaming performance. An i5 750 would offer similar levels of performance at a much cheaper price. An i7 on the P55 chipset would give you hyperthreading if you need that and you would still avoid the higher cost of an X58 motherboard.
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Games / Re: Is Crysis even that fun?
« on: April 07, 2010, 03:40:01 AM »
It was technologically ahead of its time, but it suffered from a poorly written, cliche, storyline, and overly linear gameplay. The characters were barely developed and in a fashion reminiscent of the CoD series, most squad mates are memorable only for screaming orders at you down a radio. The latter portion of the game featured annoying enemies (hovering alien squid) in a graphically uninteresting environment (ice on everything).
The different selectable powers were an interesting feature but aren't enough to make up for the previously mentioned shortcomings.
The multiplayer was poorly balanced, most maps were over-sized for the regular number of active players, and many servers were susceptible to simple "hacks" that broke the game for other players.
The different selectable powers were an interesting feature but aren't enough to make up for the previously mentioned shortcomings.
The multiplayer was poorly balanced, most maps were over-sized for the regular number of active players, and many servers were susceptible to simple "hacks" that broke the game for other players.
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Off Topic / Re: Confession of Athiesm.
« on: April 06, 2010, 09:27:11 PM »Don't listen to this starfish.^
If the people around you can't accept your beliefs, you don't want them around you anyway.
We don't adjust. Somebody forces it on us.
Do it.
Unless the religious beliefs of those that surround him inflict on his personal freedoms or bring him into harms way, I see no reason for him to earn the ire of the people he cares about. As long as he is a dependent, there is nothing to gain from letting the world know how he feels about organized belief.
There are plenty of situations in which religion is detrimental to society but these are rarely worth the hardships that come with fighting those battles. All businesses pay taxes, but churches of all denominations are generally exempt from tax laws despite their profit-earning nature. Despite that fact, I personally don't write letters to my local/state government or act out against this unfairness.
For the time being, I'd suggest you try and keep quite about it. There are better situations to be in when you let your loved ones know.
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Off Topic / Re: Confession of Athiesm.
« on: April 06, 2010, 09:16:30 PM »
There is little to gain from exposing yourself. Society isn't ready for that level of tolerance just yet.
492
Off Topic / Re: New PC
« on: April 06, 2010, 02:36:32 AM »
Your current choice, the HD5870, is optimal.
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Off Topic / Re: New PC
« on: April 06, 2010, 12:27:14 AM »
GTX400 series have yet to available in any appreciable quantity and as such have not settled at their market price yet. It is the way of high end GPUs that they start out at their MSRP but they then sell out and the price often jumps about $100. The same exact problem happened with the 5850/5870/5970 initially.
A 20% performance increase is optimistic at best and painfully ambiguous at worst. I'd look at it on a case by case basic as the result can vary quite widely between different resolutions, AA levels, etc. The impression I got from reading [H]ardOCP's review is that the GTX470 isn't worth the price premium over the 5850 as it offers little to no performance gain but comes at significantly greater cost (assuming it keeps selling at MSRP). Similarly the GTX 480 competes with the 5870 and out performs it in a few games, but certainly not by a margin that justifies the additional cost. The one scenario that Nvidia's latest GPUs did come out on top, [H] mentioned, is in GTX480 SLI which has really impressive scaling compared to that of the HD5970. This is, of course, the extreme high-end and will be quite expensive. The power requirements are enormous for such a system.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/26/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/8
If you were to buy a GPU in the next few months I would still go with ATI as it will be quite awhile before we see the GTX400's regularly available. The HD5830/5850 are quite good for mid-range systems and the 5870/5870CF/5970 make great high end cards. The HD5770 is a well priced, good performing, budget GPU.
A 20% performance increase is optimistic at best and painfully ambiguous at worst. I'd look at it on a case by case basic as the result can vary quite widely between different resolutions, AA levels, etc. The impression I got from reading [H]ardOCP's review is that the GTX470 isn't worth the price premium over the 5850 as it offers little to no performance gain but comes at significantly greater cost (assuming it keeps selling at MSRP). Similarly the GTX 480 competes with the 5870 and out performs it in a few games, but certainly not by a margin that justifies the additional cost. The one scenario that Nvidia's latest GPUs did come out on top, [H] mentioned, is in GTX480 SLI which has really impressive scaling compared to that of the HD5970. This is, of course, the extreme high-end and will be quite expensive. The power requirements are enormous for such a system.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/26/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/8
If you were to buy a GPU in the next few months I would still go with ATI as it will be quite awhile before we see the GTX400's regularly available. The HD5830/5850 are quite good for mid-range systems and the 5870/5870CF/5970 make great high end cards. The HD5770 is a well priced, good performing, budget GPU.
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Off Topic / Re: New PC
« on: April 05, 2010, 04:19:24 PM »
A single HD5870 is quite powerful. I am using one myself and it pushes out three times the resolution of the monitor you selected in games.
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Off Topic / Re: My upcoming build.
« on: April 05, 2010, 03:56:09 PM »
Duckmeister's statements about the performance of AMD CPUs in combinations with modern GPUs is entirely inaccurate. I'm not sure if he is trying to be humorous about it, "trolling", or is just plain misinformed.
In any case, the i5 750 or any of AMD's high end quad core Phenom IIs are excellent choices for gaming computers.
With regards to the i5 vs i7 argument, a bit of clarification is in order. There are two distinct platforms to keep in mind; the P55, and X58 chipsets. The former can use i5 and i7 CPUs designed using the LGA1156 socket design, the latter uses the LGA1366 socket design. Indeed on the P55 platform the primary benefit of the i7 CPUs is that hyperthreading is enabled which can benefit certain applications, although typically not gaming. Now, on the X58 platform which uses its own selection of i7 processors, there are several extra benefits over the P55 chipset. The main two that come to mind is support for two full x16 PCIe slots (useful if using two high-end GPUs) and the option of using triple-channel memory. These features are of little concern for low-to-mid range gaming computers and as such the P55 chipset and the quad core i5s that accompany it remain excellent choices for the budget gamer.
The Phenom IIs are also quite good and can certainly be more cost-effective than some of Intel's offerings. I believe AMD is set to release a new 6-core CPU in a few weeks that will be reasonably priced.
In any case, the i5 750 or any of AMD's high end quad core Phenom IIs are excellent choices for gaming computers.
With regards to the i5 vs i7 argument, a bit of clarification is in order. There are two distinct platforms to keep in mind; the P55, and X58 chipsets. The former can use i5 and i7 CPUs designed using the LGA1156 socket design, the latter uses the LGA1366 socket design. Indeed on the P55 platform the primary benefit of the i7 CPUs is that hyperthreading is enabled which can benefit certain applications, although typically not gaming. Now, on the X58 platform which uses its own selection of i7 processors, there are several extra benefits over the P55 chipset. The main two that come to mind is support for two full x16 PCIe slots (useful if using two high-end GPUs) and the option of using triple-channel memory. These features are of little concern for low-to-mid range gaming computers and as such the P55 chipset and the quad core i5s that accompany it remain excellent choices for the budget gamer.
The Phenom IIs are also quite good and can certainly be more cost-effective than some of Intel's offerings. I believe AMD is set to release a new 6-core CPU in a few weeks that will be reasonably priced.