On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 3:44 PM, Neil wrote: > Ouch -- that's a significant difference in graphics card. I want this > for just this one game and nothing else. It will be part of a tradeshow > display for 3 days, then sit in a corner until another trade show. My > ex-robokids (who are in college now) are open to upgrading it to a > force-dynamics type racing sim later. But that's it -- no other games, > etc. > > I've got recommendations for an HD6850, which is ~$150 or a EVGA GeForce > GT640 2GB at ~$105. Quite a big difference from $400, so I really need > to ask if I need that much. I found a benchmark on the HD6850 of 2745 > (passmark) vs. 3057 for the HD6950 you're using. The HD7970 comes in at > 3939. These numbers are way higher than I'm hearing that I need though. > > I think the pieces settling in place right now are i5, win7, 8GB. I'm > not familiar with SLI, but I like the idea of being able to run 2 video > cards, so later we can upgrade to a 3-monitor setup, if we wish. For > now, we'll be using a HDTV/monitor. I notice these graphics cards don't > do VGA, but I can use HDMI. > > Also, FWIW, Win XP is still supported for another couple years IIRC. > But I agree with not using it, due to RAM limitations. > > Cheers, > -Neil. > > Trust me on this, PassMark is not a good benchmark, ESPECIALLY for video cards. Never trust synthetic benchmarks. You need to look at real world game benchmarks. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/549?vs=3D547 If you're on a tighter budget, the 7850 ($200) is what you need. I really wouldn't go anything lower than that and still call the computer a "game machine". You can do your own research, just don't go for the older AMD HD6000 series, as the newer 7000 series is out. AMD's technology is called CrossFire (not SLI). For either one though, you need to make sure that your motherboard chipset supports it, and obviously needs to have at least two PCI-e x16 slots. This will add to the cost of the motherboard. So you have to choose between a more expensive single card or a more expensive motherboard, and potential problems with SLI/CrossFire down the road. I'd personally just get a good single card and a non-sli motherboard if you don't want to bother with all this. Don't worry about stability. As long as you get a decent motherboard and video card and power supply, you'll be fine. --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .