30 Sep 2010
whats the best gaming graphics card/s that I can fit in my Abit AW9D motherboard?
Author: admin | Filed under: GamesI have 2 radeon x1950 pros in crossfire mode. I am having severe overheating of the graphics cards (121 degrees). I have cleaned out the case/fans with compressed air with no noticable difference. I think one/both the cards are on the way out and want to upgrade my graphics.
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Tags: Abit, AW9D, Best, Cards, Gaming, graphics, motherboard, What's
Peter.
Prior to looking at upgrades I think you should investigate your overheating problem. What is clear to me is that your case isn’t getting adequate air flow, hence your cards overheating. Perhaps investing in a better PC case would solve the problem, even if you intend to upgrade your GFX cards at a later date. There is very little point in upgrading to something else especially if your x1950s are glowing in the dark. It is not cost effective long term.
Although I rarely use it, I still have a pair of X1950 in crossfire running in my old tower and they never got above 95 degrees, and even then the ambient temp was rather high.
hi peter
the Abit AW9D motherboard is a awesome gaming platform that supports 2 x pci-express x16 buses so your options are great… however in regards to your radeon x1950pro,s these are notorious for overheating… i have one in my spare pc and allthough its not too much of a problem it can get warmer than other cards i have had
so what should you go for ? …….. well with the release of the radeon HD5000 series the HD4000 series have dropped in price so with that in mind i would recommend the “Asus HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI Out PCI-E Graphics Card”( http://www.ebuyer.com/product/201168 ) in crossfire
these cards have some excellent specs and these include a 750mhz core clock and a mammoth 1gb of gddr5 memory clocked at 900mhz(3600mhz ddr effective ) and with a 256bit memory interface this equates to a healthy 115.2gb/sec
translated into crossfire this is a 512bit memory interface and 230gb/sec bandwidth … so this will yeild some excellent results and frame rates
in terms of cooling the asus models use a copper based cooler and these are rated at 12°C Cooler than Generic HD 4870 … so thats not bad
on the nvidia side of things theres the “Point of View GTS250 512 MB DDR3 DVI VGA HDMI Out PCI-E Graphics Card”( http://www.ebuyer.com/product/200916 ) .. i have a xfx gts250 in my main pc and its a excellent card on its own.. however this does depend if your motherboard supports sli … if not then ignore this card… allthough as i have said on their own they are excellent performers
however for real crazy performance why not try this… buy two “asus Radeon HD 3850X2 1Gb”( http://www.saverstore.com/product/20021013/7725665/Asus-EAH3850X2-HTDI-1G-Radeon-HD-3850X2-1Gb-DDR3-256Bit-2-x-DVI-I-PCI-Express-20 ) .. these house 2 x HD3850 gpu,s on a single pcb so this would allow you to run quad crossfire.. ok it wont be as good as the HD4870 x2 however it wont cost as much aswell
performance wise this would be slightly better than crossfire HD4870,s and in terms of power you would need a 650watt or more to run these two HD3850×2 in crossfire
you will probally get many answers recommending the HD5750,s and HD5770,s as these are pretty good cards and work well in crossfire x … however these only support a 128bit memory interface which can hold you back at higher resolutions
the HD3850×2,s on the other hand have a 512bit memory interface ( per card ) so that would equate to a massive 1024bit memory interface over the two cards… thats awesome… infact you would have no problems running games at 1920×1080 on 60″ lcd tv,s
i hope this helps,any problems let me know
good luck peter !