Quick update: overclocking the 260s

Final clocks on the new cards: 756/1620/1053 (core/shader/memory). Stock was 576/1242/999. Big overclocks, and very noticeable performance improvement. To overclock, I used EVGA Precision combined with Furmark. (Not to be confused with Futuremark.)

Also: addendum to the previous post. With the newest WHQL drivers, AA has a significantly reduced performance impact. It's enough that I've got transparency supersampling enabled by default in my driver settings. Shamwow!

Transparency supersampling in Crysis Warhead: teh awesome

Anyone who has used anti-aliasing in the Crysis games knows that while it does a fine job of smoothing out edges on solid objects, it doesn't really help with transparent objects like trees and foliage. By default, I set the nVidia drivers to transparency multisampling, but unfortunately its negligible performance impact is paralleled by its negligible visual impact. The only way to really smooth out transparent textures like foliage and fences is to use transparency supersampling (TSAA), which carries a significant performance cost to coincide with its visual upgrade.

The new rig has been performing really well, so I thought hey, why not try TSAA with Crysis Warhead? I had tried it with Mirror's Edge and it worked great (the game has a lot of fences). I figured that, since Crysis uses so many transparent textures, it would kill performance. But guess what? It didn't. In fact, while the frame rate drops in a few situations with very dense foliage, overall the impact is surprisingly negligible. And to the extent that there is a performance impact, I have to say that the visual upgrade in this case is quite dramatic and well worth it.

Alright, so, I'll let a couple pictures do the talking. Here we are with multisampling:




And here with supersampling:




The difference is obvious, even in still shots. However, it's actually much more noticeable during gameplay, and this is why the performance impact is worth the visuals. With multisampling, there's still a lot of "shimmer" on foliage; as you move around the game world, you'll notice that transparent textures have a sparkly, unnatural look to them. This shimmering is virtually eliminated with TSAA, resulting in a dramatically more lifelike image quality.

I'll finish off with a few more screens. Notice how clean the foliage is, particularly with fine textures such as leaves. If you've got a PC that can handle it, TSAA is amazing, and well worth implementing.






p.s. I tried using TSAA in the original Crysis, and it just wasn't worth it. It looked great of course, but the engine isn't as well optimized and TSAA makes for a much bigger performance hit. This is one of those things you really need to test on a game-by-game basis, and use your nVidia profiles.

Good things come in twos

First item: I recently replaced my 9800GTX cards with a pair of GTX 260s (216 core version). It was basically a total steal: the two cards together cost the same as one GTX 285. Granted, it's not a cheap option or anything, but you know what? I can play Crysis at maximum settings with 4xAA at 1680x1050, and get around 50 frames per second. Suck on that, Charles Q. Huddingsworth! Or something.

Anyway, I had been having some trouble with my rig. My pump was simply not powerful enough to get coolant all the way through the loop. I had way too much air in there, and my temperatures were suffering as a result. I contemplated returning to the Swiftech MCP 655, but the orientation of the pump would mean major re-organization of my rig, plus the DB-1 I had was virtually silent, which can't be said for the MCP 655. Plus, the MCP is like $80 or something, and I knew I wouldn't get more than $20, if I was lucky, for my DB-1.

But see, I never really liked the way I had two cards dumping their heat onto the CPU either. So, one option made the most sense: get a second pump, and use dedicated loops for both the GPUs and the CPU. That's exactly what I did. The system is still very quiet, the loops are totally full, and temperatures are way down. It took about three hours to put it all together and my apartment looks like a war zone, but it was totally worth it. Now, to get to overclocking those 260s!

p.s. At one point, it occurred to me that it might make things a little more aesthetically pleasing if I inverted the front 120mm radiator so the CPU tubing wouldn't have to run in front of the graphics cards. But anyone who's tried to remove that front fan fixture from the Silverstone TJ09 knows better than to screw with that.


GPU loop runs from a pump at the bottom of the case, to the bottom then top card, to the 220 radiator at the top of the case, to the res in the 5.25" drive bay, and back to the pump.

CPU loop runs from the pump located on the top of the fan fixture, to the CPU, down to the front radiator (intake fan), and back to the pump. It's filled with a fillport that sits conveniently to the side of the drive bays.










Bonus: here is what this new rig can do. These shots are from Crysis with all settings at maximum and 4xAA. Check those frame rates!

Hardware confusion: counterpoint

Koroush Ghazi of Tweakguides.com posted an article fairly recently detailing the upgrades he made to his system — why he chose each component, and his thoughts on various issues like overclocking, third-party cooling and multi-GPU systems. Koroush says that he wants a hassle-free system — one that will last two or three years without needing any significant changes. I think he's accomplished that, and he's built a fine system. But I want to offer another angle, an angle to explain why, if I were building a system today, I would do things a little differently.


Upgrading

Koroush clearly doesn't care for upgrading. The only upgrade he made for his previous system was a single GPU upgrade in three years. That's pretty minimal. Personally though, I don't feel like upgrading is that big of a deal at all. And it's not that I make mountains of money or anything. But when I want to upgrade, I just sell my old stuff on eBay. Case in point: my previous 9800 GTX SLI system was very fast, but a few games were still putting the crunch on it. When Riddick came out I knew I wanted to really max out the performance. So I upgraded to a GTX 260 SLI, which ran me about $340 for the two cards (XFX brand, and yes this is the newer 216 core version of the card). Considering that a single GTX 285 goes for about that much, it seemed like a sweet deal. I then hocked my 9800s on eBay and got a couple hundred bucks for them. So in the end, I only paid about $140, and got a positively huge upgrade. I can play Crysis at maximum settings with 4xAA in 1680x1050, and get around 50 frames per second. Not too shabby!

So for me, swapping out any component is no big deal. I don't swap out a motherboard without a damn good reason because it's a pain to change out, but I don't look for a system that will be what people often call "future proof". I pay for the performance I want, nothing more. When I need more performance, I'll upgrade. In the long run, it's cheaper than buying all the latest components.


Core i7

Koroush got a Core i7 system, and as a future proofing kind of thing, that's perfectly logical as it's obscenely fast, particularly with multitasking. Koroush said he doesn't plan to overclock, but should he ever need more CPU power, the Core i7s are monster overclockers just like the Core 2s.

But frankly, if you're mainly concerned with gaming performance (and not, say, A/V editing or something), there is absolutely no reason at all to buy a Core i7 system right now. The CPU simply does not bottleneck modern games. While Koroush is correct that more games are becoming threaded, the performance gains are still negligible; the main bottleneck in all games continues to be the graphics card.

Moreover, a Core i7 system requires the purchase of a costly motherboard and expensive DDR3 RAM, neither of which will give you any significant performance improvement over a DDR2 platform. Neither memory bandwidth nor latency are or have ever been significant bottlenecks in games. What counts is primarily the amount of memory you have. Koroush got 6GB, which I think should be more than enough for a long time. I haven't seen much evidence that anything beyond 3GB provides a significant performance improvement.


SLI

Koroush comments on SLI: CrossFire and SLI cannot yet be called 'hassle free' by any stretch of the imagination. This is because whenever a game or the drivers don't support CrossFire or SLI properly, performance will not necessarily scale well enough to fully utilize both GPUs. Furthermore, there are various quirks which both SLI and CrossFire bring with them, including strange framerate drops and the very undesirable 'microstuttering'.

I've been using SLI for nearly a year now, and I can say pretty confidently that SLI has advanced to the point of being completely transparent. I have, out of curiosity, disabled one of my cards and, aside from lower frame rates, tried to discern any difference. I can't. In fact at one point, I was playing some less intensive games after installing some new drivers and later realized I'd forgotten to turn on SLI. So while I can't comment on something like microstuttering specifically, I can say that subjectively, I could discern no difference between one card and two aside from the dramatically better performance.

Firstly, with regard to drivers, while I have never used ATI cards, I can say quite confidently that nVidia aggressively supports SLI in all new games, and developers seem to be on board as well. A beta driver, for example, was available prior to the release of Dark Athena, which is a very system-intensive game that benefits greatly from SLI. And besides, even in the almost unheard of scenario that a game (or driver) doesn't support SLI properly, you're still going to get some improvement over a single card. And frankly I cannot think of any game I've played in the last year that didn't benefit significantly from the second card.

Secondly, SLI can actually be a terrific value. I originally upgraded to 9800 GTX SLI, for example, when I saw numerous benchmarks showing that a pair of 9800 GTXs were faster than nVidia's newfangled (at the time) GTX 280. Rather than spend $500 on a 280, I spent about $200 on a new 9800. Right now, on Newegg, the cheapest GTX 285 is $330, from Sparkle. I've never dealt with or heard much about Sparkle, and wouldn't buy from them; the next cheapest card is from EVGA, who I've bought nearly all my cards from and who are quite reputable, and it's $340 — exactly what I paid for two GTX 260s. Clearly, a pair of 260s will provide significantly better performance than a single GTX 280. This kind of bargain may not always be the case, but that's why it's nice to have an SLI-capable motherboard — the option is there if and when it becomes a good value.


Counterpoint: GPUs on the out

Koroush is convinced that GPUs are less important these days because, in order to remain as profitable as possible, it's in a developer's best interest to release their games on as many platforms as possible, which could mean fewer PC exclusives (as well as fewer XBox or PlayStation exclusives).

Back on the Tweakguides forum, I often voiced my disagreement with Koroush's assessment of the PC gaming landscape, particularly where graphics are concerned. In my experience, many of the most demanding, eye-popping games I've played are multiplatform games. Jericho, Riddick, Call of Juarez, Oblivion, Assassin's Creed, Mirror's Edge, Far Cry 2 and Mass Effect just to name a few, are all positively fantastic looking games that require a pretty beefy PC to max out. Riddick, in my opinion, outclasses even the mighty Crysis games in some respects (its complex dynamic lighting and use of ambient occlusion make Crysis look drab by comparison). Even my 9800 GTX SLI system was not enough to max out Riddick — ambient occlusion is a performance killer.

Secondly, it's simply a fallacy to believe that PC gamers are, across the board, equipped to handle extremely intensive games at high resolutions. Most people buy mainstream cards, and 22" continues to be the "sweet spot" for monitors. Core i7s currently represent less than 1% of Intel's processor sales. So it would seem more than a little silly for a developer to focus lots of time and money developing a game that very few people would actually be able to play in all its glory. That's why game engines are flexible. When a dedicated team is developing a PC version of a cross-platform game, they can crank up the visual fidelity options. Fallout 3, for example, is known for looking much better on a good PC than it does on any console, as is FEAR: Project Origin and all the games I mentioned previously. Console games are also played at lower resolutions (most games are not even 720p, but lower resolutions upscaled to hi def), and rarely above 30 frames per second. In other words, game engines can always scale upwards or downwards. There is nothing special about the PC, since there is no single ubiquitous PC configuration.


Overclocking

Koroush seems pretty adamant about avoiding overclocking. He stresses the value he places on system stability, and rightly points out that people have different definitions of "stable". However, I always overclock; I want the best possible value from my components. And yet I also believe in the importance of a hassle-free system. Overclocking has evolved to the point that it is pretty easy to have a fully stable, overclocked system. Personally, my PC runs without a hitch, and it's generously overclocked. I disagree with Koroush's view that, "I've never bought the argument that an overclocked system is "stable" just because it can do 12 hours of Prime95, or run endless loops of 3DMark." I'm not sure why extended testing that strains the system to a degree that is almost never achieved in daily use would not be considered stable. Keep in mind as well that I know many people who have used robustly overclocked PCs from boutique builders for years on end without any problems. Personally, the only problems I've had from overclocking were from my own carelessness, and they were always easy to diagnose and resolve.

I also disagree with Koroush's conclusion that overclocking does not significantly impact game performance. Generally speaking, Koroush is correct; the CPU is simply not a bottleneck in most cases and will add only small fps gains. However, as graphics cards increase in power, the CPU can indeed become a significant bottleneck. Case in point: when I first added my second 9800 GTX to my system, I was using a Q6600 at stock speed (2.4ghz). Overclocking it to 3ghz provided a huge increase in performance — the graphics subsystem was being bottlenecked by the CPU. This type of situation was also documented some time ago by [H]ardOCP. Now, given the power of the Core i7 and the low price of fast processors like the E8500 that I use, CPU power is likely not to be a bottleneck most of the time. But in some systems it will be, and as GPUs get faster the bottleneck will be more significant. That's why it's nice to overclock and simply give your system the most overhead it can handle. I don't agree with sacrificing stability either, but hell, within reason, why not get the most performance possible from your processor? Besides, a mhz boost does noticeably affect daily use in other applications. Everything just zips along that much faster with my E8500 at 4ghz. And of course, there's also something that's much more noticeable in games: overclocking your graphics card. Overclocking the GPU will provide an immediate and often significant performance improvement.

With regard to heat and noise, indeed overclocking can create more of both. But it's not an inevitability. Overdrive PC, who makes air-cooled, highly overclocked PCs, are famous for being remarkably quiet. Heat is only an issue to the degree that it affects stability and creates more noise as fans speed up. But most graphics cards very rarely — even when overclocked — rev their fans up to 100%. And modern CPU coolers like the Thermalright Ultra 120 are quite silent, as they can be fitted with a standard 120mm fan.

Personally though, I avert the heat and noise issues with a liquid cooling system. Obviously liquid cooling is not right for everyone, but for those willing to undertake it, it's a very rewarding investment. I'm running a generously overclocked PC, and at times I've double-checked it after powering it up to make sure it actually turned on — it's that quiet. Notably, my case is fitted with vibration damping rubber at key points, and I have also installed sound-damping foam on the interior.



Final thoughts

I think it's important to emphasize that I don't think Koroush is "wrong". He built a system that fit his needs, and he did a fine job rationalizing it. He made wise choices that seemed to suit him well. But I wanted to respond to show that there are plenty of different ways to build your own mouse trap, and that some of the issues he comments on may not be as cut and dry as he makes them sound. And now, I'm gonna take a piss and grab some grub. Toodles!



p.s. I'm making some changes to my cooling loop, and I'll be posting pics soon after I get it all done. In case you didn't notice, all my old pictures are gone. I got sick of paying $160 a year to host all those pictures. Blogger now allows you to upload pictures, so I'll just be doing that from here on out. Peace out choads.

Quick update... again!

I overclocked the 9800GTXs to 790/1866/1100 (yes, I kept the memory at stock, as I've had some trouble with memory overclocking), ran 3DMark Vantage for my one free trial run (it was kind of dumb) and did a fair bit of gaming — some Crysis Warhead, some FEAR, some UT3, some Oblivion. Everything ran just fine — no artifacts, no crashes.

Right now, I'm running Prime95 on the E8500 at 3.8ghz. I've left all the voltage settings on "auto". So far, so good. If the current test goes okay, I'll probably just keep it here. I imagine I could push it a little farther, possible to 4ghz or beyond, but given that 1) 3.8ghz is more speed than I could possibly need, and 2) I'd rather play it safe and have stability than try to milk my system for every last ounce of useless power.

Speaking of useless power, am I the only one who just totally does not care about this whole Core i7/Nehalem launch? We've got Core 2s that can push 4ghz, and pretty much no applications that can actually take much advantage of that power. Is Nehalem really going to be faster than these overclocked Core 2s, and if it is, does anyone really give a crap?

Holy update!

Man, I've really been laying off this blog. Guess I could only blog so much! But, there is some new stuff to talk about. I just hooked myself up with a nice new EVGA 750i motherboard. The Abit 680i decided to go to shit, so it was time to upgrade. I haven't done any overclocking yet; right now I'm just going through the drudgery of getting everything re-installed, because I had to re-install my operating system. Pain in the ass!

I'm also going to make a small modification to the quick connects I'm using. Right now they stick out too far, and I can't close my case because the tubing protrudes too much. But Koolance makes some female connectors that have a 90° angle on them, which would free up some room in the case. I may also replace the tubing with the appropriate sized Tygon tubing so I can use the compression fittings instead of the clamps. Using the clamps makes me just a tiny bit nervous.

I'll update soon with overclocking results with the new board, and plenty of pics of the new build once I get the new fittings installed. Peace and chicken grease!

Bored with the board

I've got the SLI/E8500 system all up and running. I'll snap some pics later. I have to say though, I'm quite frustrated with the Abit IN9. I cannot get it to overclock at all, or at least nothing that would be worthy of a Core 2 Duo chip. We're talking very, very slight clock bumps at best. Maybe. I can't get it to budge. To make matters worse, my memory is rated DDR2 1066, but the board can't handle the necessary voltages so it's running at a paltry DDR2 667. Lame!

So, after I sell my Q6600 I think I may snag the EVGA 750i. Memory standard is DDR2 1066, it supports Wolfdale out of the box, and I've heard nothing but praise about its overclocking abilities. Not to mention that it has the almighty Clear CMOS switch, just like Abit boards.

It's really frustrating, because the QuadGT overclocked so easily. Voltages would auto-adjust and I had no trouble getting fat overclocks. My buddy, who I gave the board to, is running an E6300 at 3ghz on that thing.

I'm not in a rush or anything. Right now my priority is actually to pay off my Carvin gear; I bought it with zero-interest financing for one year, and I have to pay off a certain amount by September to avoid the interest hit. And besides, I'm running a 3.16ghz chip and 4GB of RAM, so at this point the performance boost probably wouldn't be worth the investment. But it'd be nice to have a board that can do justice to my hardware.