Building a PC with Stereo 3D in mind... Need help

[Anthony1]

I'm thinking of building a cheapo gaming rig (around $600 ish for the tower)

The basics of it would likely be a i5 750 and a HD 5770. 4 gigs of ram. Will the Radeon HD 5770 work for my needs?

[DmitryKo]

I own a HD4870 which is similar in performance, and it's an absolute minimum to play any modern game in stereo (2007-2009 DX9 games). I would go for HD5830- it should cost around $250 and offers 256 bit memory bus and roughly 1.5 times the processing power of HD5770.

[cybereality]

First off, which display solution are you looking at getting? This is important because, for example, 3D Vision only works on Nvidia cards. Also it is going to be pretty hard to put together an entire 3D rig for $600. Keep in mind that running 3D can take a serious performance hit (sometimes as much as half) so you need extra power to comfortably run 3D.

[DmitryKo]

Well, since Anthony1 starts with Radeon HD5770, I guess he either rules out 3D Vision or wants a DX11 part.

[Anthony1]

I own a HD4870 which is similar in performance, and it's an absolute minimum to play any modern game in stereo (2007-2009 DX9 games). I would go for HD5830- it should cost around $250 and offers 256 bit memory bus and roughly 1.5 times the processing power of HD5770.

Well, back in the days....when I used to be a PC gamer (1996 thru 2000), the strategy I used was to buy a video card that I felt would last me about 9 months. I figured, in 9 months time, I'm going to want to upgrade it anyways. So, I just see it as a cost of doing business. Every 9 months, time to throw a new GPU up in there. Because of this strategy, I usually try to find the best bang for my buck in the $150, $160 or maybe $170 range. I don't mind playing some of the older games that have less demanding requirements. The only 3D display I have right now is the Samsung which requires 1360 x 768. So, that will be the resolution that I'll be playing the 3D games at. Do you think setting a HD 5770 to 1360 x 768, and playing older PC games (2006, 2007, 2008) will work? I would like to have the settings at pretty much max level, but I have no problem playing games from as early as 2005. Heck, I really need to play Half-Life 2 all the way thru. I've played it a bit on 360, but never did finish it. Another game I know I want to play is Far Cry 2. I heard the PC version was much better than the console versions. I absolutely want to play Fallout 3. Now, the thing about Fallout 3..... I doubt I would be able to set it to max settings on everything, along with 1360 x 768, and still get 30 fps when playing in 3D? I wish I had a buddy with a kick ass gaming PC that I could borrow, just to try it out. I have no idea how it's gonna look.

First off, which display solution are you looking at getting? This is important because, for example, 3D Vision only works on Nvidia cards. Also it is going to be pretty hard to put together an entire 3D rig for $600. Keep in mind that running 3D can take a serious performance hit (sometimes as much as half) so you need extra power to comfortably run 3D.

Right now, the only displays I'm going to use are my Samsung PN50A450 plasma, which can "kinda" do some 3D if fed 1360 x 768 checkerboard, and also my Optoma HD7100 projector (not 3D, and 1280 x 720 native). I'm saving my pennies for a legit 3D projector that will be fully hdmi 1.4 compliant. I'm not going to even consider any until I know for sure they work in 3D with the PS3, and DirectTV. Unfortunately, there aren't any 3D projectors under 2 grand with hdmi 1.4 on the market. I don't even know of a specific projector that will be coming out in the next 8 months that is 3D with hdmi 1.4, and tested to be compliant with the 3D Blu Ray players out there. I definitely want to get one, when they become available for less than 2 grand. I'd really want a 1080p projector, but I'm thinking it will be 2012, before I can get a 1080p 3D projector for under 2 grand. I might have to settle for another 720p projector... which kinda sucks.

Regarding the Nvidia vs. ATI thing... if I go ATI, then I'm rolling with iZ3D drivers right? Or is AMD coming out with a special 3D driver that will be more all encompasing? I know they announced something about some 3D initiative. The thing about a GeForce, is the fact that I'm not going to be buying Nvidia's glasses if I can get away with it. Doesn't their special firmware require their glasses? I'm kinda intrigued by Eyefinity for the ATI cards. I'd love to do an absolutely crazy thing with Eyefinity and 3 projectors, but damn that would get expensive!

As for putting together a 3D rig for $600, I'm going to try to cut a few corners. Fry's has a deal right now where you get a i5 750, plus a Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 motherboard for $209.99 after rebate. With the case, I would get a case/power supply combo for around $100. I've heard there are a couple of good case + power supply combos that would work well. The HD 5770 is available for $149.99 after a $10 rebate. For ram, I would go with 4 gigs from a decent company like G.Skill. I'm not sure what exact specific ram I should get for that motherboard combo but I know it will cost in the $90 range. There is a particular 650 gig hard drive that is very recommended for like $75 that I'll probably go with. I've got a Pioneer DVD drive that I will use, so I don't need to buy that. I'm not sure how much everything adds up to, but I think it's around $650 or something. Also, I'm not going to be buying this thing right I away. It could be damn near June before I actually build it. So, prices of the stuff I'm going to want might be slightly less by the time I actually start putting it together.

[cybereality]

Well at 1360 x 768 a mid-range card will probably suffice, but you may have to turn down the settings on some games (like Far Cry 2). If cost is a big factor though you will probably be alright. I mean, I still manage to get by with an 8800 card and I play modern games. So as long as you can live with moderate settings I'm sure you'll be fine.

[Anthony1]

Well at 1360 x 768 a mid-range card will probably suffice, but you may have to turn down the settings on some games (like Far Cry 2). If cost is a big factor though you will probably be alright. I mean, I still manage to get by with an 8800 card and I play modern games. So as long as you can live with moderate settings I'm sure you'll be fine.

Right now, Fry's has a 9800GT 1GB for $79.99 (after rebate). The normal price is $129.99 (then $35 instant savings), and then a $15 mail in rebate. Pretty tempting, considering the card I'm getting is almost twice as much. I could lower my build cost by $70 if I went with the 9800GT. Again, I'm not going to actually be putting this thing together for another couple of months, so I'll have to see what the best GPU deal is then...

[Dom]

When choosing a video card now by either nvidia or ati you need to look at the core functions it can do or it will dissapoint you within days. Trust me look at the bit-bus theres 64,128,256,384,448,512 ect dual cards and also look for 2 gigs of ram and the ROPS. Thats random operations per second I think? Most of these features will be on a newer card but if your looking for bang for buck look for this stuff. Considering your going with ati it costs less for them for higher settings but make sure you get a decent cooler on your card to. Choose a card from a trusted manufacturer too and make sure they have warrenty to send back to them if it fails. Also make sure your PSU power unit has at least 500 watts and that your computer has extra fans on it to keep it cool. As far as 3d with that 5700 series most games you need to turn off the shadows and shaders so actually you don't even need an expensive card. And now that ati is supporting 3d with their drivers they will boost performance when in 3d. It used to be the more depth convergence you set on your screen the more demanding it would be and slower. So basically as long as your system is stable and not overclocked with heat damage then you will be fast enough at lower settings if not higher in most games. Whats the core clock on that card anyways, 800mhz? or is that the one thats 1ghz. Those cards sound fast at anyrate, its just that nvidia has been with stereo3d so long as I am with them.

[DmitryKo]

Every 9 months, time to throw a new GPU up in there. Because of this strategy, I usually try to find the best bang for my buck in the $150, $160 or maybe $170 range.

Well, high end gaming is best served by high-end cards - since you're going to do stereo 3D, mid-level cards are just not going to fly anymore.

Plus, if you buy a $300 card, you could always resell it in 9 months for $150, so your yearly costs of "running the business" will essentially be the same; more that that, higher-end card could probably last more than 9 months in the end.

I want to play is Far Cry 2

Here are test results in FarCry 2 on Core i7 920 with 3 GBytes of RAM.

FarCry 2 - all resolutions, no antialiasing and anisotropic filtering
FarCry 2 - all resolutions, 4x antialiasing, 16x anisotropic filtering

1280x1024 corresponds to 1360x760; 1920x1200 corresponds to 1360x760 stereo or 1080p; 2560x1600 corresponds to 1080p stereo (megapixel count is roughly the same).

As you see, the drop in framerate scales linearly with front buffer size (pixel fillrate in other words) - so if you want to run in stereo 3D, you need a graphics card twice as fast, since you need to render twice as much pixels.

Here are diagrams for other games tested http://www.ixbt.com/video3/i0210-video.shtml#diags" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (the page is in Russian, but the test diagrams are quite readable and no other site does such comprehensive amounts of testing on a monthly basis).

the thing about Fallout 3..... I doubt I would be able to set it to max settings on everything, along with 1360 x 768, and still get 30 fps when playing in 3D?

From what I see in the benchmarks, Fallout 3 is heavily CPU bound - the framerate is capped at 60 fps in Utra High settings, which means you probably won't ever get 30 fps in stereo 3D in any resolution on any existing graphics card, even two HD5890 in a Crossfire setup.

a Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 motherboard for $209.99 after rebate

IMHO you don't need a $250 motherboard with 6-way RAID, dual PCI-E 16x slots for CrossFire X, USB 3.0 and other high-end stuff. You're only going to use a single hard drive and a single graphics card, so you can safely go for any cheaper Intel P55 board, and spend these money on more important things which directly affect gaming performance, such as the video card and the PSU.

With the case, I would get a case/power supply combo for around $100

Make absolutely sure the PSU is rated for 550-600 W and has the necessary 6-pin and 8-pin PCI-E power cables; this will give you more freedom in choosing a video card when you decide that it's time to upgrade.

[Anthony1]

Every 9 months, time to throw a new GPU up in there. Because of this strategy, I usually try to find the best bang for my buck in the $150, $160 or maybe $170 range.

Well, high end gaming is best served by high-end cards - since you're going to do stereo 3D, mid-level cards are just not going to fly anymore.

Plus, if you buy a $300 card, you could always resell it in 9 months for $150, so your yearly costs of "running the business" will essentially be the same; more that that, higher-end card could probably last more than 9 months in the end.

You know... I understand the point that you're making... Still, I find it very difficult to throw $300 at a video card. That is double what I would normally throw at the GPU. I know that the GPU is tremendously important, but again, I don't have a problem with being about 2 years behind the times in my game playing. There are lots of games from 2006 and 2007 that I wouldn't mind playing. I'm thinking that if I get the best bang for my buck video card in the $160 ish range, I can play those games no problem. Sure, certain games are going to have more beefy requirements, and maybe I won't be able to play those games in stereo 3D, but it isn't the end of the world for me. I just have a very hard time jumping into the $300 category for video card. To me, video cards get outdated so quickly that throwing $300 at one seems wasteful.

However, you're strategy of just selling the card used for $150 every 9 months does sound interesting. The key factor, would be whether I could really get $150 for it 9 months from now. Things change so rapidly...

a Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 motherboard for $209.99 after rebate

IMHO you don't need a $250 motherboard with 6-way RAID, dual PCI-E 16x slots for CrossFire X, USB 3.0 and other high-end stuff. You're only going to use a single hard drive and a single graphics card, so you can safely go for any cheaper Intel P55 board, and spend these money on more important things which directly affect gaming performance, such as the video card and the PSU.

Well, that motherboard for $209.99 "includes" the Intel i5 750 CPU. It's a bundle deal. I'm basically getting that motherboard for like $30 while buying the i5 750. In the USA there is this store called Fry's Electronics, and every once in while they will have a crazy deal like this where you can get a CPU/Motherboard combo for a really good deal. The main thing you have to be careful of, is that they don't include a crappy, cheapo motherboard in the combo. The Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 seems like a decent enough motherboard, so I don't think this is a very bad deal at all.

The thing is, I'm not going to be actually putting this PC together until probably around June. So, I'm not going to run out and buy this CPU/Motherboard combo right now, cause there might be an even better deal in June. I might try to buy a couple of components per month before I'm ready to build the thing. For example, in April I will probably buy a tower/CPU combo. In May, I'll probably buy the hard drive that I'm going to use. Then in June, I'll buy the motherboard/cpu/ram/gpu and assemble everything.

[DmitryKo]

I find it very difficult to throw $300 at a video card.
However, you're strategy of just selling the card used for $150 every 9 months does sound interesting. The key factor, would be whether I could really get $150 for it 9 months from now.

I used to buy middle-end cards too, but then I found it's much more easier to keep up on the higher end, because you can always sell a high-end card for a decent price, easily at 2/3 of the current average price of similar brand new item, and sometimes even 3/4 of the price; you just need to make upgrades closer to the middle or to the end of product life, when prices are at the minimum level.

This is how it works for me. Last Summer I started playing World in Conflict, which is a 2007 game, and it was quite unplayable in mono on until I got the HD4870. The upgrade was less than $50, since I was able to sell my one-year old HD4830 for $100, and the new card easily offered twice the performance flat out because of GDDR5 memory.

I don't want to upgrade to HD5830 (MSRP $230), as this will probably cost me $100 (I can easily sell the HD4870 for $130) but will offer a mild 1.5x performance bump, so it is not really reasonable. But if I wait until the release of HD6xxx series in the Fall or Christmas, I could probably get 2x to 3x performance gain for the same price difference (I could still sell HD4870 for $90-100, and a new $150 card will offer 2x the performance, while a new $230 card will offer 3x performance gain ove HD4870).

God bless you Gordon Moore for the Moore's Law which makes it all possible!

that motherboard for $209.99 "includes" the Intel i5 750 CPU. It's a bundle deal.

Ah. In this case, grab it and run.

So, I'm not going to run out and buy this CPU/Motherboard combo right now, cause there might be an even better deal in June. I might try to buy a couple of components per month before I'm ready to build the thing

The wait is worthwhile only if you're looking for a specific product announcement, like Nvidia GeForce 480 coming out in April which is going to directly affect AMD/ATI pricing.

Intel is not going to annouce anyting better and cheaper that Core i5 750 in the coming month, so I suggest you to take the opportunity.

[Anthony1]

You know whats interesting? I'm actually considering a HD 4870 now! I was looking at the GPU Hierarchy chart on Tom's Hardware. Here is how the ATI side of it breaks down:

ATI

Tier 1

1. HD 5970

Tier 2

2. HD 4870 crossfire
3. HD 5870

Tier 3

4. HD 4850 crossfire
5. HD 5850

Tier 4

6. HD 4870 ($120 to $160 ish via Ebay)
7. HD 4890
8. HD 5770
9. HD 5830

Tier 5

10. HD 3870 crossfire
11. HD 4850 ($90 to $120 ish for 1GB version via Ebay)
12. HD 5750

Tier 6

13. HD 4770

Tier 7

14. HD 4830
15. HD 5670



As you can see, they have the 4870 as the best card in Tier 4. According to them, to truly notice an improvement in performance, you need to climb three tiers. This would mean that you would need to get a 5970 to actually notice an improvement! I'm not sure how factual that is, but that is what they say about it. It's interesting that they rank it ahead of the 4890, 5770 and 5830. They do rank the 4850 x 2 in crossfire mode as the tops in Tier 3.

The only thing about the 4850 and 4870 is that I've heard these cards run tremendously hot, and ever hotter in crossfire mode. I'm not really all that knowledgeable about cooling systems and all that. Maybe I shouldn't mess with cards that run so hot. Still, the bang for the buck factor is pretty high with those two setups.

I was also thinking about running a 3870 x 2 in crossfire mode. They consider it slightly better than a single 4850. I might be able to get two 3870's for the same price as I would pay for a single 4850...

[DmitryKo]

As you can see, they have the 4870 as the best card in Tier 4 ... It's interesting that they rank it ahead of the 4890, 5770 and 5830.

HD4870 may be slightly faster than HD5770 in higher resolutions because of its 256 bit memory bus, but HD5770 is clocked slightly higher so it has more GFLOPs.
HD5830 is definiterly faster than both, with 1.5 times the processing power of HD5770 and 256 bit memory bus it clearly belongs where other 5800 series are placed in this table.

I was also thinking about running a 3870 x 2 in crossfire mode. They consider it slightly better than a single 4850

Crossfire has issues on its own; I see little reason why you should prefer x2 setup for double the power requirements, if the performance is the same as single HD4850.