Building First Computer; Advice Needed.

[hikaricloud]

The 750tx would be good if he did crossfire later on though.

 

[JudgeJimmie]

Yeap, thats what someone else told me at a different forum, and it wasn't to much more after a bunch of rebates.

 

[baron5]

by the time you upgrade to crossfire 4770's it won't be worth it, you'd be better off selling your card for cheap and upgrading to a evenly priced budget card at the time.

 

[hikaricloud]

Well yeah, then he could crossfire new cards later. If he can afford a better PSU, who are we to tell him different? Makes it easier to upgrade later.

 

[JudgeJimmie]

It seems everywhere I talk people think I should have better video cards, so I did some looking and came to these two.

Newegg.com - HIS Hightech H477F512P Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

or

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100277L Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

I think the only difference between these two is brand. I am still pretty new to this and don't know much about video cards, so any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to be stuck having to get a new one in 6 months or anything like that, but as I have said, I am only a light PC gamer. I may get into more gaming in college. I also do some video editing, and I think these two cards are supposed to speed up video encoding. I could be wrong on that point though.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I would get an XFX HD 4770. All of the 4770's currently available are the same except for the name but XFX is the only one that offers a double lifetime waranty.

Newegg.com - XFX HD-477A-YDLC Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

CUDA or Steam will only speed up video encoding with specific programs. Personally I haven't been very impressed by any of the CUDA or stream encoding software I have tried, they all had very limited options, although they will probably get better over time. Since you have a Core i7 encoding will be pretty fast even if the program doesn't use Stream or CUDA.

 

[JudgeJimmie]

I would get an XFX HD 4770. All of the 4770's currently available are the same except for the name but XFX is the only one that offers a double lifetime waranty.

Newegg.com - XFX HD-477A-YDLC Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Probably a really stupid question but I can't figure out the difference between the three cards that were just posted other than brand and price.

The last part of the name is all the same. Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card
The first part is the only thing that changes
XFX HD-477A-YDLC
HIS Hightech H477F512P
SAPPHIRE 100277L

 

[hikaricloud]

Double lifetime warranty, he mentioned that. Otherwise they are all pretty much the same.

 

[baron5]

To clear things up, there are only two main companies that make GPU's (for you others i know there is matrox etc but i'm not including them) anyway, these two companies are Nvidia and ATI. Now they release a reference card, i.e 4770 or gtx 260 and the companies like sapphire, XFX, evga buy these designs and have then made themselves. In most cases, the cards are made by companies like foxconn then distributed to evga, xfx etc. where they can chuck their own sticker on the cooler. Of course the only exception to this is when they have non-reference cooler like the 4850/70 ice4Q cooler. So in essence most of the respected brands cards are all the same.

 

[JudgeJimmie]

Ok thanks so I will be good to go with any of those Cards suggested. I have seen some reviews about people complaining about Drivers. Is that something I need to worry about. I think I will go with the Newegg.com - HIS Hightech H477F512P Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards . Thanks for your help Guys.

Oh and What do you think about RAID 0 on two smaller drives, like two Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives for 500GB instead of my one 640GB Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives . It's about $30 more, but everyone I have talked to says it's like a 20-30% increase in performance.