Trying to Get ready for GR on a Budget...


Bill Z Bubba

 

Posted

It's been a while since I built myself a new computer. As I was looking forward to GR and having, for the first time in a looong time, some extra cash coming up soon, I thought I'd get around to putting together a new one.

Trouble is I'm not really as up on all of this as once I was. As such I'm afraid of making some dippy stumble over compatibility and or functionality from being out of practice.

I thought I'd post the build I've come up to see if anyone can spot any glaring errors. (All of this is to be bought on an egg-type site) I know this isn't a gaming monster but my budget tops out around $1,200

Processor:
Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core ($199.99)


*EDIT* CPU Cooler:
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7 compatible RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm "heatpipe direct contact" Long life sleeve CPU Cooler


Mobo:
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD4P LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel


RAM:
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)


*EDIT* This item might depend somewhat on what is still available when February rolls around. My preference is Nvidia, but i'll do the ATI if I must.
Vid card:
Palit NE3X262SFHD94 GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDC


or

SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail


HDD:
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5


PSU:
CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS


Case:
COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower


Monitor:
Acer X223Wbd Black 22" 5ms


OS:
Win 7 Professional (nice price available for students)

Other bits like Blu-ray, DVD burners, Keyboards, Meese, etc I'm pretty sure I know what I doing on. :P

Any opinions? Abuse away!

PS. this was originally intended to be a $1000 rig, but it's gotten a bit away from me. This really is pretty much as high as I can go.


 

Posted

I can't speak to the Monitor, but otherwise that looks solid. I would make two comments though.

Firstly, the AC Freezer 7 Pro is kind of the bottom end for after market coolers. It's a good one, but it doesn't have a lot of headroom if you plan to do any overclocking. On the other hand, it's also one of the very few coolers that are currently Socket 1156 compatible. If you want an alternate to comparison shop with, there's the Xigmatec + adaptor kit that Father Xmas put into his $1200 CoX build; which is more expensive in total, but has a little more thermal dissipation capacity.

Secondly, the specific GTX 260 you have selected there is out of stock and unlikely to come back into stock as Nvidia has End Of Life-ed the entire GTX 2xx line (it was losing them money). There are a couple of other brands still available on the site, but they cost around $195. As an alternate, you might consider the ATI Radeon HD 5770. It's newer, supports DirectX 11 (which no Nvidia card does currently), and has roughly the same capability as the GTX 260 Core 216. When Going Rogue is released, the ATI graphics oddities mentioned in Bill Z Bubba's sticky thread are also supposed to go away (and the ATI sticker is now at the bottom of the CoH homepage in place of the Nvidia one), so there should be no compatibility difficulties with an ATI card. The specific model linked there is the newly-released Sapphire (good quality) Vapor-X edition (cooler and quieter than standard). You could get a regular version for around ten dollars less.


 

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Acer's a good brand on monitors right now. I've got one of their 24" screens right now.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Human_Being View Post
I can't speak to the Monitor, but otherwise that looks solid. I would make two comments though.

Firstly, the AC Freezer 7 Pro is kind of the bottom end for after market coolers. It's a good one, but it doesn't have a lot of headroom if you plan to do any overclocking. On the other hand, it's also one of the very few coolers that are currently Socket 1156 compatible. If you want an alternate to comparison shop with, there's the Xigmatec + adaptor kit that Father Xmas put into his $1200 CoX build; which is more expensive in total, but has a little more thermal dissipation capacity.

Secondly, the specific GTX 260 you have selected there is out of stock and unlikely to come back into stock as Nvidia has End Of Life-ed the entire GTX 2xx line (it was losing them money). There are a couple of other brands still available on the site, but they cost around $195. As an alternate, you might consider the ATI Radeon HD 5770. It's newer, supports DirectX 11 (which no Nvidia card does currently), and has roughly the same capability as the GTX 260 Core 216. When Going Rogue is released, the ATI graphics oddities mentioned in Bill Z Bubba's sticky thread are also supposed to go away (and the ATI sticker is now at the bottom of the CoH homepage in place of the Nvidia one), so there should be no compatibility difficulties with an ATI card. The specific model linked there is the newly-released Sapphire (good quality) Vapor-X edition (cooler and quieter than standard). You could get a regular version for around ten dollars less.
Hrm. I'da sworn that 260 was in stock when i looked earlier. Crappola.

As for the cooler, Yeah I just figured that, until I've got a bit more capital to throw into it, it'd be better than the stock cooler. I'm also planning to fan up the case a bit more than it comes. in hope of easing the load.

I'll have to take a look at that $1200 CoX build. Somehow i missed that.

I'm... reluctant to go ATI. I've been an Nvidia guy for many many years. I suppose I'll have to look at the video card aspect again. MAYBE I'll go ATI, but we'll see. I also don't much like the idea of playing a criippled CoH for 3-5 months till GR comes out.

Thanks for the input so far folks. I really appreciate it. Specifically I didn't know the GTX 2xx line was toast. Shame.


 

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Ah with the GTX 260 the Newegg page said it'd be back in stock next week. Not likely to actually happen, eh?


*Edit* heh, that guys build is VERY close to what I did. that's reassuring.

Shame he didn't work a monitor in though.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by corridor View Post
I'm... reluctant to go ATI. I've been an Nvidia guy for many many years. I suppose I'll have to look at the video card aspect again.
I've been cheering for the Green team for a long time myself, but Nvidia has been machine-gunning itself in both feet for about a year now. Conversely, the new ATI 5000s are really sweet little pieces of engineering. Here's a review for the mainstream 5700s.


Quote:
MAYBE I'll go ATI, but we'll see. I also don't much like the idea of playing a criippled CoH for 3-5 months till GR comes out.
That would be a legitimate objection.


Quote:
Originally Posted by corridor View Post
Ah with the GTX 260 the Newegg page said it'd be back in stock next week. Not likely to actually happen, eh?
It might show up. I don't think that I'd rely on it doing so, though. I was going to recommend an EVGA model to you, but those appear to be gone, gone, gone.


 

Posted

Not that I am arguing against your statement, but I cannot find anything that indicates that nvidia has end-of-lifed the 2xx series (granted, I only did a quick search online and visited nvidia's website) ... I did find this in Wikipedia under "geForce":

"GeForce 200 Series
Based on the GT200 graphics processor consisting of 1.4 billion transistors, the 200 series was launched on 16 June 2008.[10] The next generation of the GeForce series takes the card-naming scheme in a new direction, by replacing the series number (such as 8800 for 8-series cards) with the GTX or GTS suffix (which used to go at the end of card names, denoting their 'rank' among other similar models), and then adding model-numbers such as 260 and 280 after that. The series features the new GT200 core on a 65nm.[11] The first products were the GeForce GTX 260 and the more expensive GeForce GTX 280.[12]

GeForce 300 Series
The GeForce 310 was released on November 27, 2009 [13], but is another rebrand of Nvidia's older DirectX 10.1 cards rather than the newer DirectX 11 technology[14]. It is unknown when the upcoming 300 series will be released with Direct3D 11, Shader Model 5.0, and GDDR5 memory support. It is expected to be fabricated on 40 nm process, with a target release at the end of 2009.[15][16] "

As I recall, the 9800's were available well into and past the introduction of the 2xx's - why would it be any different in this case? Again, not being argumentative, just seeking clarification.

[edit] Tiger Direct has a bunch of the 2xx line - prices are not as good as the newegg prices, but they appear to be in stock at TD... Zotac is a decent brand - I have a Zotac 9800GTX+ which has been operating quite well in my machine for the last 18 months.[/edit]

Thanks.

Storm


Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm ...

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by PerfectStorm View Post
As I recall, the 9800's were available well into and past the introduction of the 2xx's - why would it be any different in this case? Again, not being argumentative, just seeking clarification.
Actually, the 9800s are still available as the GTS 250. The GTX 2xx line however, based on the G200b chip, turned into a money-pit for Nvidia. It was vastly more complicated than the prior, G92-based cards and was fabricated on a 65 nm process. Late last year, ATI released their 4xxx series, manufactured at 55 nm process, and badly surprised Nvidia. The 4xxxs provided similar or better performance to the Nvidia offerings at each market-tier, but could be manufactured at 20-50% lower cost. The resulting price competition dragged the GTX 2xxs down to the point where Nvidia was forced to lose money on each card sold. They could either pass the chips on to their board-fabricators at lower cost than they paid the chip-manufactory, or they could pay the difference to the board-fabricators when they retailed for less than Nvidia's MSRP (because of their sales-guarantee with the fabricators).

Nvidia considered this an unpleasant but warranted act of "buying marketshare" while they waited for the G300/Fermi chip to come out. That chip was supposed to arrive in early fall, before the ATI 5xxxs. It is now projected to come out (maybe) in February/March. That's too long for Nvidia to go on "wrapping each chip in a $20 bill". Yet they can't make a big announcement that they are shutting down production either; they have no replacement and the drop in price from retailers would cost them even *more* money on the remaining boards as fabricators tried to liquidate their stock. So they told the board-fabricators that they were having "supply difficulty" and slowly choked off the flow of G200b chips. Once they had an artificially-created rarity in the market, then Nvidia quietly told the fabricators that the GTX 260, 275, and 285 were being EOLed.

That bit of information made it out into the news and hasn't been confirmed by Nvidia on their website (perish the thought!) but has been dug out by diligent tech-sites like Anand.

Excerpt:
Quote:
NVIDIA told me two things. One, that they have shared with some OEMs that they will no longer be making GT200b based products. ThatÂ’s the GTX 260 all the way up to the GTX 285. The EOL (end of life) notices went out recently and they request that the OEMs submit their allocation requests asap otherwise they risk not getting any cards.


 

Posted

Good info in this thread. Looks like I'm going to quietly slip back into a holding pattern until GR hits beta and/or Mechwarrior becomes more than vaporware. Whichever happens first.


Be well, people of CoH.

 

Posted

Not a bad list of parts. The big problem is the holiday shopping season is tapping out a lot of inventory.

As for the cooler yes the Freezer 7 Pro is not the ultimate air cooler out there but it's still very good. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus is somewhat better and cheaper but is currently out of stock at NewEgg. Actually a lot of Socket 1156 coolers and adapters are out of stock at NewEgg.

You could save a little money, $20-30 by looking at a smaller hard drive for now like the Seagate or Samsung 750GB drive. But again it seems there is a run on smaller WD Caviar Black drives as they are also, surprise, out of stock. Then again WD may be planning on introducing ones using the 500GB platters and the new dual action head actuator the 2TB Caviar Black is using. Face it, the hard drive is the easiest part of the system to add to later on.

If you don't care about SLi and true CrossfireX, Firewire (IEEE-1394) and Dolby Theater sound you can save $30 with the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R. You also lose dual LAN (why does any normal person need dual Gb LAN is beyond me) and finer over voltage control.

As for graphics there is always the HD 5770/HD 4870/HD 4890 in the same price and performance range of the GTX 260.


Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components

Tempus unum hominem manet

 

Posted

Honestly, the best thing you can do to prep for GR on a budget is put the money into savings and wait until there is at least a release date.

Prices on hardware only go down in the long term. Things that cost you hundreds today might be under 100 when GR releases.

Saving, you might end up with a bigger budget with much, much more buying power.

After holiday sales are nice too! Keep an eye out for bargains.

I, personally, don't plan to shop for GR until it has a release date and official box-top requirements/recommended.


Quote:
Originally Posted by eltonio View Post
This is over the top mental slavery.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba View Post
Good info in this thread. Looks like I'm going to quietly slip back into a holding pattern until GR hits beta and/or Mechwarrior becomes more than vaporware. Whichever happens first.
My Mechwarrior upgrade, should it support it, will be very similar to MW2:

New Joystick
Separate throttle
Pedals.

Twisting a joystick is just an irritating way to pilot a 'mech. Left/Right directional change on the pedals, torso via joystick and good throttle control... now that's the way to go.

Assuming anyone makes pedals any more. Don't think Thrustmaster's in existance. Time to search on CH... Possibly Saitek.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Human_Being View Post
That bit of information made it out into the news and hasn't been confirmed by Nvidia on their website (perish the thought!) but has been dug out by diligent tech-sites like Anand.

Excerpt:
Charlie over at SemiAccurate talked about this as well:

http://semiaccurate.com/2009/10/06/n...5-prices-soon/
http://semiaccurate.com/2009/10/06/n...gh-end-market/

Now, you generally do need to take anything Charlie says with a bit of... well... a barrel of salt. He's from The Inquirer, a site more known for deliberately getting tech news wrong than getting it right.

That being said, Nvidia EOL'ing the G200 series of chips is something that has been circulating in too many circles. Nvidia's pretty much denied saying they have EOL'd the chip series, saying that the rumors about cutting off chip orders were about the retreat from the chipset market... but now... looking at the supply problems with GTX video cards, it does seem like Nvidia has cut production of the current set-up.


 

Posted

OP here,

Ok addressing several points.

1) I'm actually going to be doing the buying mid to early February most likely, I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row now. As my original targets price was a bit lower than this any price decline is a very good thing as far as my checkbook is concerned. Out of stock RIGHT NOW isn't really a problem. They've got a month to get things back IN stock. I'll just have to see what stock survives the holiday season and see what comes back INTO stock afterwards as far as Video cards go. If I can get the Nvidia I'll probably not bother to SLI, but If I end up with the slightly less impressive performance of the 5770 then I'll probably Crossfire it sometime this summer or fall.

2) Waiting for a release date. Not gonna do it. While this rig is intended to play GR (Hopefully on max) I also REALLY need a new computer. My Athlon 2700 system (Yes it's that old) is just about garbage at this point. It NEEDS replaced. I'm buying a new computer because i need a new computer. it's just fortuitous timing that CoX has an expansion coming out near to the same time.

3) ATI vs Nvidia. I've been wary of ATI for a long time. I've been wearing blue since the early 90's. I will consider ATi, but looking at the benchmarks the 5770 just can't keep up with the GTX 260's on most benchmarks. Oh supposedly ATI will be great (Or at least finally functional) with GR, but I won't ONLY be playing GR. Hell i'm FINALLY making the move from a history of AMD processors to my first Intel since my old 386. I've been on AMD up till now. I suspect I'll stick with Nvidia so long as i can find a decent one unless I get some pretty compelling evidence that I shouldn't or that I'm hamstringing myself by doing so. Admittedly the DX 11 thing is the first really compelling thing I've heard. The phasing out of the GTX 2xx line just means It'll either be tougher to find. If I CAN'T find one then I['ll HAVE to go ATI.

4) Cooling. Yeah i was torn between that Cooler master and this Arctic Cooling heatsink. I just leaned this way randomly. Perhaps I'll stick with the cooler master. I've had their stuff before and really liked it anyway. I'm buying a couple of extra cooler master case fans anyway. I just wish someone would someday invent a good CPU heatsink that installed easily for a reasonable price. BOTH of the coolers i'm looking at are supposedly monsters when it comes to instillation.

5) Hard Drive. I could save a bit of money going smaller, I suppose, but man. I'd REALLY like to not have to. If it comes down that $20-30 making a BIG difference on some other piece of my hardware i'll do it, but otherwise I'd like to stick with the 1tb

Great info here. Please keep it up! It's also VERY encouraging to see that i managed to pick compatible parts and such after not really following the subject for a few years.


 

Posted

1) That's good, waiting that is. Also allows you to stash away some more money for the new rig.

2) Not waiting forever is also a good thing. At some point you have to stop listening to talk of price cuts or the hype of what's coming in "only" another couple of months or you'll never upgrade.

3) True, the HD 5770 is 10-15% slower than a GTX 260/216. Actually ATI is bracketing nVidia's offerings with their HD 5xxx series of cards. The HD 57xx series is faster than the GTS 250 yet slow than the GTX 260/216 and the HD 58xx series is faster than the GTX 285 leaving nVidia holding the ground between with their GTX 2xx series of cards, which people have mentioned are becoming harder and harder to get. nVidia may have the cards designed around the new G300 GPU out by February but they will be priced for enthusiasts with nothing in the $200 range.

4) FrostyTech is a good site to find lots of CPU cooler reviews. So are X-bit Labs and bit-tech.net.

5) Well you did mention you were trying to keep the price in check. It's really easy to rationalize to spend just a little more for that bigger drive or faster memory or faster video card and before you know it the price is now way above what you were willing to spend.


Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components

Tempus unum hominem manet

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Father Xmas View Post
1) That's good, waiting that is. Also allows you to stash away some more money for the new rig.

2) Not waiting forever is also a good thing. At some point you have to stop listening to talk of price cuts or the hype of what's coming in "only" another couple of months or you'll never upgrade.
Sadly, it's not really a question of my budget going higher the longer I wait. It's more based on what I've saved at this point, and the projected increase of that savings until early February, this is how much I'll have to spend. I'd LOVE to be able to save more, but as you say, eventually you just have to go for it. Frankly, if I could, I'd do this early January, but due to some holiday bonus action I'm getting a big infusion late January (Yeah bonus AFTER X-mas. Lovely, ain't it?)

Quote:
3) True, the HD 5770 is 10-15% slower than a GTX 260/216. Actually ATI is bracketing nVidia's offerings with their HD 5xxx series of cards. The HD 57xx series is faster than the GTS 250 yet slow than the GTX 260/216 and the HD 58xx series is faster than the GTX 285 leaving nVidia holding the ground between with their GTX 2xx series of cards, which people have mentioned are becoming harder and harder to get. nVidia may have the cards designed around the new G300 GPU out by February but they will be priced for enthusiasts with nothing in the $200 range.
Yeah normally when the G300's came out the GTX200 line would drop in price. Sadly Nvidia seems to be ending the one BEFORE launching the other. As a long time customer this is pretty danged annoying and might just cost them my business. I guess we'll see what's still available when i plunk down my monies.

Quote:
4) FrostyTech is a good site to find lots of CPU cooler reviews. So are X-bit Labs and bit-tech.net.
Nifty, i'll take a look.

Quote:
5) Well you did mention you were trying to keep the price in check. It's really easy to rationalize to spend just a little more for that bigger drive or faster memory or faster video card and before you know it the price is now way above what you were willing to spend.
Yeah this is why the only way I can go higher on anything at this point is to cut elsewhere. My original budget is already fractured. At this point adding in one place will mean subtracting elsewhere. Though I'm really not happy about it. I can stretch my $1000 budget as far as $1200, but not any more than that, sadly. Basically it was supposed to be $1k including a monitor. Now it's $1k AND a monitor...

On the upside I might be able to add to it a bit come summer. Perhaps double the RAM, a second vid card (X-fire or SLI whichever depending), and a second HD. Remains to be seen.

Btw, I like your build Xmas. If i didn't need a monitor I might just swipe it. Sadly I need to work that in. My CRT with the blinky upper left corner just HAS to go... It's giving me headaches...


 

Posted

Ok, I guess I'm sold on that Radeon 5770. It's a bit slower than the GTX 260, but after looking at the differences between DX10 and DX 11,

Watched a bit of the upcoming AVP game and learned it'll support DX11. I'm totally sold. I'll just make sure to get a second one and crossfire them this summer.

It's just going to suck a bit playing the ATI version of CoH till GR launches.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by corridor View Post
Ok, I guess I'm sold on that Radeon 5770. It's a bit slower than the GTX 260, but after looking at the differences between DX10 and DX 11,

Watched a bit of the upcoming AVP game and learned it'll support DX11. I'm totally sold. I'll just make sure to get a second one and crossfire them this summer.
When thinking about that slight lag behind the GTX 260 in some benchmarks, also keep in mind that the drivers for the 5770 are still young.


 

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have all my other games run more smoothly and look more pretty?


Be well, people of CoH.

 

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Have all new tech-toys to tweak and optimize?


 

Posted

At worst it'll be no worse than CoH as it is since if the GR areas suck we can just stay in the old world.

If it somehow sucks AND ruins the old game then I'll take my loverly new PC and play games like the above mentioned new Alien Vs Predator, and many many more.

In fact, as I mentioned earlier, I need the new computer anyway. GR is just a bonus.


 

Posted

OK. Here is my Item list as it currently stands.

The GTX 260 is back in stock, but for how long. I'm also now pretty attached to the idea of having DX11 support so I'm pretty sold on the Radeon 5770. Not looking forward to a few months of crippled CoH, but what can you do. Gotta think about the future.

I'm not really sure which brand of Radeon to go with though. Anybody have any preference on that? If so who and why?

*EDIT* Ok I totally forgot to attach my wishlist and had some problems getting the website to let me edit.

HERE is the list.


Keep in mind the Video card is likely to change to some version of the 5770.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by corridor View Post
OK. Here is my Item list as it currently stands.

The GTX 260 is back in stock, but for how long. I'm also now pretty attached to the idea of having DX11 support so I'm pretty sold on the Radeon 5770.

I'm not really sure which brand of Radeon to go with though. Anybody have any preference on that? If so who and why?
Honestly,. it's often easier with ATi cards to tell you who not to buy from. Don't buy from Diamond Multimedia.

As a hold-over from their days of manufacturing cards directly with no third party partners ATi has a rather... high... quality standard they expect manufacturing partners to meet. For the most part vendors like HIS, PowerColor / Tul, Asus, XFX, VisionTek, and Sapphire tend to make really good graphics cards.

I, personally, wouldn't buy MSI, Gigabyte, or Jaton, mostly because their non-graphics cards products that I've bought just haven't been that good.

If it was my money on the line, I'd be looking at the slighty more expensive $180 Sapphire and XFX cards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102858
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150447

Why? Well, I've got a couple of Sapphire 4850's with the non fully ducted fans... And um... at full tilt, it's loud. Not as loud as a GeforceFX 5800 I ran a few years back, but still loud enough that even with headphones on I know when they've kicked into high gear. They get loud because they just can't exhaust the heat from the GPU's.

Okay, I haven't got a 5770 card, so I don't actually know if they have the same problem with the non-ducted versions being unable to exhaust the heat properly. The 5770 cards are supposed to put off less heat than the older 4870. As I understand the Radeon lineup the 5870 has the same thermal envelope as the 4870, so the cut 5770 should have a much lower thermal output.

So in theory, or if you don't mind the noise, you could probably use one of the $165 5770 models and be fine with the fan they ship with.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by je_saist View Post
So in theory, or if you don't mind the noise, you could probably use one of the $165 5770 models and be fine with the fan they ship with.
Eh, I don't think the extra $15 would be a problem. Just one less pizza between now and then.

I like the idea behind the fully ducted fans. I live in Florida on the sunny side of an apartment building so my place gets warm during the day. It's air conditioned, but if you've never experienced a Florida mid-day in June it's BRIGHT and HOT. the sun here reminds me of the overly bright washed out sunlight in the movie Pitch Black. LOVE December though. Therefore I'm PACKING this case with fans. I've had cooling issues in the past and I'm sort of being especially conscious of it this time around. My Psu draws air in from below and spits it out the back. My case will have 4 120mm fans (Front, Back, and 2 on the open side), and one 80mm BEHIND the mobo, and I'm giving serious consideration to hooking a second fan onto the CPU cooler to create a more solid flow through. So the idea of the ducted heatsink on the video card appeals to me. I like the idea of it not dumping more heat into the case, although honestly with all that ventilation it probably wouldn't really be an issue. i also suspect I'll already be screwed noise-wise with all of those fans going. I'm hoping that, since I'll have so MUCH airflow, I can keep them set to low. I guess we'll see.

ANYWAY, Yeah the Sapphire and XFX cards were the ones I was eyeing.

Other than the cooler though I can't see what the difference is between these two...


SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail


and


SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100283VXL Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail


*EDIT* What little I can find looks like it's a slightly (VERY slight) overclocked 5770 with a funky "vapor chamber technology" cooler which Sapphire says is more effective than the original fully ducted one. No clue it that's true.