Best graphics card for i7-920?

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swoperet

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Jul 11, 2009
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I'm building a new system with the above CPU and intend to overclock it to 3.66. What graphics card would be ideal for this build? Going with 12 gigs of Corsair Dominator RAM, Corsair 750W PSU and Asus P6T deluxe Mobo. Is the Radeon card going to work better than nVidia, or is it an apples and oranges crap shoot? Also, I need a good CPU cooler. How about the V8? Any thoughts or recommendations would be appreciated.
 
Hey, I've got a similar thread going w/ the same question and some of the same hardware... http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/268206-31-final-review

12 gigs is unnecessary right now unless you're getting them for a ridiculously cheap price. I think 6 gigs is more than enough. I was also thinking of getting either the Corsair Dominator or OCZ XMP, but I was told to go with OCZ Platinum over both of those. There's a pretty good combo deal on newegg right now for the HIS Radeon 4890 1gb and OCZ Platinum 6gb 3x2 DDR3 for $262...the other combo deal I was looking at was OCZ Platinum 6gb 3x2 DDR3 and EVGA GTX 280 for $297.99...All I can suggest is that you take a look at the benchmarks for the specific resolution you'll be playing games at. This way you find the video card most suited for your needs.
 
I'm not sure if I should get the Asus P6T mobo or the EVGA 141-BL-E757-TR LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX X58 SLI LE Intel Motherboard. Can you tell me why you ended up going with the Asus? Do you plan on OCing your computer?
 
^+1 beg5670 on the RAM choice....

I recommend either the ATI 4890 or GTX285 for a gaming rig... or a Crossfire / SLI with at least ATI 4870 / GTX260 or higher. Research the games you play and review the GPU benchmarks for those games to determine which is the best for your games.
 
have a look in the memory articles on this site . Toms got no improvement going from 3 -6 gig and 12 gig slowed frame rates marginally .
DO NOT install 12 gigs for gaming .

The only single gfx cards worth considering is either a GTX295 or an ATI 4870 X2 . If you are not using either of those you are wasting money on an i7 and should be spending differently for best gaming experience .
of course since you havet mentioned your monitors resolution its hard to even reccomend either of those .
Try reading the latest "best gfx card for the money " article on this site
 
Despite it's impressive appearance, the V8 is a waste of money. It's performance is good, but not enough to justify the cost especially when the airflow of the case generally makes it less effective than much cheaper coolers. Read some cooler reviews and get a 120mm cooler that would work for you (so long as you get a big enough case for it). I say something like a sunbeam or this XIGMATEK

XIGMATEK HDT-S1283
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233003


As for the video card it just depends on your budget, what resolution you want to game at, and what games you want to play as some favor AMD, and others NVIDIA. A single 4870X2 or two GTX 260 sp 216s are a pretty good value right now. Thanks to price drops two 4890s or GTX 275s isn't too bad either if you don't mind paying more. Anything above that and you're experiencing greatly diminished returns as your generally spending alot more money for only a relatively few fps
 
Ok I agree with outlander on this one 4870x2 or GTX295 if not i7 not gonna do you much good over a PhenomII in gaming. And you did specify the best graphics card right?

As for the cooler goes a thermal right 120 is pretty close to the top.
 


two GTX260 or two radeon 4870
 


Anything higher than 2 GTX260 or 2 4870 is a pure ridiculous money dwell.

For exemple, I got an Phenom II X3 and 2 4850 OC in crossfire and I got a mere 15% difference with 2 4890 in crossfire on a phenom II 955. Not joking...
 
Ok then well Fully maxed out in crysis warhead I am getting FPS of 32 @ Enthusiast settings and full AA and VS and 1080 res....... All this is witha PII 940 @ 3.8 Ghz with 8 gigs 800 RAM and a Diamond viper HD4870x2 with the top ASUS bios and modified ATI drivers running at 815 core clock and 995 mhz ram clock the i7 will pump better frames out of this card all day long. My previous Video card was a GTX280 it was only getting about 23-26 FPS in Crysis warhead, my synthetic scores were much better on cpu tests but when it came down to graphics and playeablity the 4870x2 stomps its @$$.
 


As stated, yes, I intend to overclock and I've heard the Asus board is more user friendly in regards to overclocking. All the eVGA cards they've sent me were remanufactured pieces of junk on RMA's, so I'm shying away from their products right now.
 


This will be my first 'build', so I'm new to this. So, why do I need two 4870 cards? Seems like that would not be cost effective. As for gaming, as long as it's a 1st person shooter (no internet, please), I'm happy. When the price drops for a game, I'm buying! As for the monitor, it will be last on the wish list, due to my insistance on a 23" or 24" unit with 2 ms. or less response time. I'm sure Dell has none of those, so I guess I'm looking at Samsung and LG for right now. The last computer game I played was at 640 x 480, so I'm not sure what higher resolutions will look like on a small screen. I currently use a 50" plasma for the Xbox 360, but have run into a 'slight' burn in problem. Thought I'd try going back to computer gaming since you're not 'tied' to the dreaded mouse anymore. Thanks everyone for the leads on other products and newegg deals.
 
Hey, just noticed this thread and after reading through the posts felt I had to comment. 1ST. Why the insistance on a monitor with 2ms timings?? I am running a Samsung 2493HM with 5ms timings and I play Crysis at max settings, I play BF2 at 1920X1200 command line forced widescreen, I play COD4 at 1920X1200 all setting maxed, I also play Halflife 2 at 1920X1200 maxed settings and other games that are very fast action and have NEVER had a single experience with ghosting. 2ms is for bragging rights only, you will not have any trouble with a 5ms monitor at all.

Here is My rig components:
Asus P6T Deluxe
Core I-7 920@3.20
True 120 Extreme
CoolerMaster HAF case
GTX 295
6 Gigs Dominator Ram
WD 1TB HD
WD 640 Black
Thermaltake Toughpower 1000W

My rig is about 6 months old, I surf the net and play games and other things on it. I play Ms Flight sim X on it at max setting. I also play some F=16 Falcon Gold. I play at 1920X1200 and I have no stutter and great framerates Halflife 2 runs at over 90 FPS

farcry2.jpg


This was before I did the OC on my CPU!!
 
Oh, and I am not saying get a GTX 295 at all, personally, I think the GTX 285 would be plenty for a 24 at 1920X1200! I got the 295 before the 285 was out. Hindsite is 20/20. LOL
 
Jack64... Very nice numbers on FarCry2.... Very impressive rig you have :)

I agree with you on the monitor doesn't have to be 2mm or less! The OP will be just fine with 5mm for gaming. The OP will see no real noticeable difference between the two response times.
 
Thank you sir. I just hate to see folks get caught up in the hype about something and do what I have done so many times and throw away money. I have done it many times and hopefully have started to learn my lesson. The rig I built was for my birthday gift to myself. I did go overboard with it and some of the parts were from a previous built that I replaced parts in to give my son. He ended up with a Core 2 Quad 6600 and a 8800 GTX, An ultra X3 1000W and a thermaltake Armor MX case, 3 WD 500GB HDDs and an LG 22X dvd burner. He also got my old Asus 19" LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse. His MB is an Intel DG 965 RY. Good reliable board something that should last him a while.
 


See I've heard the complete opposite. While the ASUS may be simpler to configure, EVGA wants you to OC. If you fry your mobo due to OC issues, they will send you a knew one as long as the voltage doesn't exceed a certain amount (I can't remember off the top of my head. I think it was something like 1.6). I've never used EVGA before so I think I'm going to give it a shot.
 
Ya know, on the MB question, it really boils down to your taste and your preferences. The MB will be the least of your concern if you pop the voltage too high. You will cook your CPU. Your best bet is to go with a good MB manufacturer and EVGA is a reputable one, so is Asus and Intel. About the only one I wouldn't recommend is the MSI Bloodrage one that fail miserably to run stable in the reviews I have read. With the I7 the voltages are tied together Memory, CPU, in a different way than before with the other chipsets. Just mind your voltages and you'll be fine, that replacing the MB if it fries isn't any better that the other manufacturers warranty. Go with what you want and enjoy.
 


I say go with a GTX295, and especially that one because it's the co-op single board version, not the dual board version. Another reason to go with nVidia is built-in PhysX for games like UT3 and Mirror's Edge, and CUDA if you're a developer, but most people won't care about that. It also goes better with Intel I believe, whereas ATI is made to run with AMD.

Also, there's no need for 12GB of RAM, like beg5670 said. 6GB will be more than adequate unless you're doing some hardcore audio/video editing or rendering.
 


Thanks for this informative response. I guess it's 5 ms. then. Also, how does your i7 work with the nVidia board? Did you run into any 'bottlenecking' with it? I read a 'Tom's' article where the 280 did not fare so well up against the Phenom in game and application testing. I suppose I can ramp up to 12 gigs at any point and that 6 will do for now. That's the ultimate end game for building your own, isn't it - to create upgrading possibilities where Dell, etc. would hold you back. I always had trouble with the original Halflife on the PC, as the fps would dive to 15 at the end of the game. That's when I said 'hello, xbox'. But, computer games are cheaper. Enough, though. Thanks again for the response.
 
Yes, the feeling of accomplishment after it all comes together is truely gratifying. I haven't noticed any bottlenecking, however I s'pose it could happen. I have been rolling my own since 1988 and I love to build them, and knowing every piece in the computer is nice, hand-picking each component and putting it all together, the trials and tribulations that come with it are a great learning experience that will leave you with a feeling that you have really done something and done it to the best of your abilities. Help is always just a forum away, ask and the great and very smart folks on here will help you thru most any situation. In the end, you will come away from it smarter and more able, with more appreciation of the patients you have. Granted, they can tie you in knots and make you say words you didn't even know before you started, but hang in there, it is worth it. And it is much easier to build a great system today than it was 15 yrs ago!! Trust me....I know. LOL
 


Sorry to bump an old post ... but better to do that than to create a new one, eh?

Anyway, I will soon be building my first gaming rig since pre-Athlon CPUs were considered good 😉 I've bought pre-made package deals ever since because I just didn't have enough time to devote to building and managing a system. Or...at least that's what I told myself! (I'm currently gaming on a 5600+, 3GB DDR2, 4850 512 Etch-A-Sketch...because it was on sale a few years back ;P)

I plan on ordering an i7 920 and OCing it to an everyday 3.2 or so...nothing ridiculous (first of all, is this problematic? Do most OCers permanently keep their CPUs OCed like this?) And I HAD planned on buying a GTX 285 until I happened upon this thread. It would seem that an i7 needs an SLI/XFire setup to take advantage of it's power. Now, I will not step down to an AMD chip as I have other reasons for wanting the more powerful i7 such as rendering and animations. But I might be willing to change up my video card selection if that is what's best. I'd most likely go for SLI GTX 260 216s instead of the 285 if that's truly better. My issue with this is...not all games utilize SLI or XFire.

Here's the exact set-up I planned on going with. I play FEAR 2, Half Life 2, and various new-gen MMOs. Can someone who is smart just pick apart my options before I order this stuff off Newegg? ;P

Coolermaster HAF 932 Case
EVGA E758-TR Mobo
i7 920 CPU with Coolermaster V8
6GB Corsair Dominator 1600 DDR3
Corsair 1000HX PSU
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
ASUS VW246H Black 24" LCD
Sony 24X DVD/CD Rewritable SATA
GTX 285 or GTX 260/216s SLI
 


It's funny you should say that. I am actually on Jab-Tech right now trying to order a Thermalright after researching HSF a bit and learning about lapping.. there are a few listed though...I'm guessing this is the one I want? http://www.jab-tech.com/Thermalright-Ultra-120-eXtreme-775-BP-pr-4388.html and then any quality 120 fan.
 
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