So I grabbed Denty's HD 4870 off him, so that means I'm finally moving from my 3-4 generation old 8800gt. Hoping to get good results.

I compared results at anandtech and tomshardware and it looks like i'll be getting about a 50% performance increase, which sounds great to me.

I heard these can run hot though. I have an Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo vga cooler on the 8800gt i can use if need be.

But if I can get sub 80C temps running the stock cooler @ 50-55 I should be good I think anyways.

Finally I can stop rambling on about how weak my gfx card is in here and get some satisfying performance.

Anyways, here's my current setup, I'll include the new card just for reference:

AMD X2 7750BE Kuma @ 3.0ghz
Asus M2N-MX SE Plus motherboard (my next upgrade)
HD 4870 512mhz (we'll say stock clocks)
4gb Corsair XMS2 PC-8500 @ 1066mhz
CM Extreme Power 550w PSU

Will I finally be comfortable without fps dips in my games at decently high settings? I've replaced everything in this damn box minus my motherboard which is next.

I'll post my experiences once I get this thing installed and working properly.

Your temps will be fine.

Frame rates will be good if the game is not overly CPU intensive and moreso GPU intensive (Like hawx and grid)

I'm more into FPS games like COD4 and of course I want good performance for MW2 when it comes out. I've been getting consistent fps dips from like 90 down to 30-40 with my current 8800gt, its been driving me nuts because I play in a league and its hard for me to play 100% in my matches.

Hopefully this will finally fix my issues.

My PSU should be fine as well I think. It's brand new so no capacitor aging. And I used that psu req calculator and it says I should only need about 400w to run my system including the 4870. It's only got one 6 pin pcie connector but i got another 2xmolex-6pin pcie connector for it here.

Fingers crossed.

I have a 430W PSU, and it's fine.

decent setup Phonix. Way to go with the 4870. I would double check specs on power consumtion to make sure your psu can handle the draw. I am sure theres an online calculator so you can put in how many optical drives, cpu type, hdd's how much ram etc so it will give you what you need in terms of watts.

'member if u overclock its going to need a lil to alot more juice. Congrats on the purchase! I will be doing that in the next few weeks myself.

Thanks! Yup I already calculated my power consumption to be around 390w with an online calculator, and that's with 20% capacitor aging, and there's no aging on this brand new psu.

Will post benches and all that for fun.

Edit.

Nm..

Card is installed and working properly minus the CMOS problems I had during install.

Haven't run any benches yet, besides Far Cry 2, which played smoothly at 50-60fps with all settings to Ultra High and 4xAA.

I must say that I'm noticing a 50%+ performance boost in pretty much any game, and I'm able to crank settings up max in almost everything.

Unfortunately, the reason I bought this card was to fix framerate issues I was having in Call of Duty 4, and I'm still having the same problems.

When I first enter a server, for the first 5 minutes of a round my fps drops by 20 every other second. It doesn't matter what I cap it at. If I cap it at 120, it drops to 100. If I cap it at 80 it dips to 60. After the first 5 minutes it goes away. Then when heavy action sets in, the fps drops to about 30, and even after the action dies off, my fps hangs around 60fps and doesn't get much better from there unless I'm staring directly at a wall.

This is happening on WinXP, Win Vista and Win 7. Also interesting to note, is that this also happens in COD2 and CODWAW, but no other game. So just the Call of Duty series, which is my main game.

I have replaced every component in this PC to try and fix this problem. I'm down to motherboard at this point. It's the only thing I haven't replaced.

What the hell is going on here?

"Make Sure Anti-Aliasing Is Set To Box" ?

otherwise i got nuthin.

Well at this point, the only thing that remains the same in all situations, is the game itself. (besides the motherboard) You have one puzzling issue.

I am guessing you did alot of online searching? Following some of your previous threads on the issue, I was leaning toward a card/driver issue possibly. Too bad spare boards to test arent a dime a dz otherwise I would say swap it out and test - Pain in the A$$ cheek to do that tho. If you have eliminated everything else, then whats left usually is the cause.

I have noticed frame rate drops in Game myself from time to time to the point where its unplayable, I join a different server and the issue is gone. There is after all, alot of hacking going on. Where you are concerned I am guessing further testing is required.

Did you bump up the pci-e slot watts in the bios?

AA set to box? What do you mean?

I did not increase the PCI wattage, why should that make any difference.

Man this is frustrating.

I had to up the PCI-E slots that are in use with both of my 3870's to 75 watts instead of the default 25 as the cards require it. Your card may require the same to function properly. I would google it to find out for sure.

I know I am grasping at straws here but if it happens to fix the issue you'd be happy.

AA set to box in your graphic settings, theres options there in a drop down to set it to narrow, wide and box. Steve-o suggested box.

Ahh ok thanks. Don't see an option in bios to up the voltage anyways, if I could it would be great though.

Well you're board may or may not have the option. The option for me a a level or two down in the menu. I would Go thru each option entirely to see if you can find anything that would allow you to increase the wattage going to the slots.

Funny how only the COD series has this issue on your machine.

Did you try disabling AA for COD4? I read online several people have issues with AA and the call of duty series. Funny thing, I dont have any issues at all with the game running AA at max.

If its only that game that gives you the prb, then its something to do with the game and your hardware. research and patience required.