i get it

i disagree. I dont see anything wrong with your choices. This is your hobby. its fun to buy new things. Its fun to mix and match to build your own personal PC. To some people it doesnt mean as much. But you know you love trying out new HW. You openly discus and share your experiences. Its great, a great thing. I dont see anything "wrong" with your choices. They were experiences and brought you joy. It was time well spent in your hobby. Gaming may be the end goal, but your love is more directly the PC and its technology. You have to admit you spend a lot of time involved just in the hardware. Whether its researching, discussing, or tinkering your hooked. We probably spend more time in the technology than we do gaming!!!

As for your SLI setup, I am almost certain your AMD system was holding you back more than even you ever thought. I would say it was the biggest drawback. Its been well known that AMD cant really hold a light to intel processors as of late. This is fact. But if you looked at gaming, in resolutions that cause a GPU bottleneck, one could easily be convinced that AMD processors wasnt so bad. You might even come to believe that AMD was at least on par with intel while gaming. Things didnt look so bad when the GPU was the bottleneck but this didnt mean AMD CPUs were on par with intel while gaming.

Multi-GPU setups show very large differences. AMD systems clearly cannot keep up with intel in these environments. Its pretty clear. I think your SLI setup was held back both by your SLI SW hack and by your AMD cpu driven system. I seen first hand the dramatic difference an intel system makes for multiGPUs. In my experience, even I was blown away by seeing it when my brother did nothing but upgrade his motherboard and CPU from AMD to intel i7. The fps went up of course, but the real impressive part was the smoothness and minimums. He could turn up the graphics settings just from a CPU/motherboard upgrade alone. It was pretty night and day. Benchmark scores and fps do not really tell the whole story. He could turn up settings with the intel system and it was wayy smoother and a much more balanced experience while gaming.

So sickbeast, i am pretty sure you never really got the full experience of your 460s in SLI. I have seen the difference an intel system makes for multiGPU setups and its large.

Of course ABT is going to test this ... however, in the meantime, check this out
http://techreport.com/articles.x/22835/8



read the whole article

i am really glad that i met Scott

This is the second time that you (apoppin) has misread this. I'd expect better from a trained journalist. The "you" refers to anybody reading the thread, not just you personally, and you (as in apoppin) haven't compromised on your monitor as you (as in apoppin) have a 30" monitor yourself.

Secondly this is only a recommendation, with no obligation to actually do anything about it. I don't believe I told anyone in this thread "go and buy a 30" monitor or I'll send the mafia to pay you a vist", so kindly stop the nit picking!

No problem; i might have misread "should have" for must have


i thought you had already hired trained assassins


And this trained journalist is going to bed early ... the nap only made me more tired

gstanford I don't see how going with a Catleap monitor is "compromising". It's a huge upgrade over what I have, and whatever defects it has will be minor. Most people have no dead pixels on theirs. A little bit of backlight bleed won't bother me.

The thing is 1/3 the price of the "A+" panels. The people buying them have been extremely happy with them. They apparently overclock to 100hz as well which is great, although I would love to see a GPU setup that could run games at 100fps at 1440p resolution.

I found an armoire that will hold this beast so I'm going to order one soon. I will let you all know how it turns out.

Yes, you're right about the AMD CPU limitations, and even if I had gone with 1gb GTX 460s I still might be vram limited.

I'm really looking forward to the new monitor and potentially a new GPU as well.

Would you guys sell the 7850 and get a GTX 670 or get another 7850 for Crossfire?

I'm not sure I could sell the 7850 after all the mods I did to it.

Depends if they fix CrossFire issues or not. If you decide to sell it, full disclosure is the way to go. Some people might want a modded and overclocked VC.

Just remember they are cheap for a reason. Just like the low end 17" CRT's of old that you could pick up in places like Kmart. You get what you pay for. As long as you are fine with that, great.

AFAIK they are LG's A- panel. The same one used in the Apple Cinematic Display. High quality. LG is dumping their slightly imperfect panels for cheap obviously.

Unless you are doing mission critical photo editing work, an A- display can be a good entry-level way to enter high resolution gaming considering you are getting it for half-price.

Personally, i would not buy a Catleap off if eBay unless a seller with a good reputation examined it for me. And if i had a choice, i would pay $400 at a B&M Microcenter over eBay (for this important purchase, i'd drive an hour each way for a visual evaluation) and i would want to have the option to return it.

it is not comparable to buying a cheap display from Walmart; and even there you can return it