I was looking at the numbers, and it looks like the 3450/3470/3650 are all equal to the 3850/3870 at idle. :-(. This is a bit of a bummer, in that there's really no benefit from a system power draw perspective to get the low-end card for an HTPC where it sits idle most of the time - the review of th...

well considering the only thing onboard video is good for is decoding... Any add-on card will be faster in games. Even a slow 8400gs would be faster than the fastest onboard video as far as 3d framerate is concerned. You could maybe run 5-10 yo software with decent framerates with onboard video. Th...

I picked up a 3850 the other day, and it's really awesome, but it would be good to pick up an exhausting fan - does anyone have a stock 3870 fan that they'd want to sell? I didn't really see any aftermarket fans that exhaust out that looked any good - any suggestions? Thanks! -Dan Bump! Doesn't any...

I picked up a 3850 the other day, and it's really awesome, but it would be good to pick up an exhausting fan - does anyone have a stock 3870 fan that they'd want to sell? I didn't really see any aftermarket fans that exhaust out that looked any good - any suggestions?

Thanks!
-Dan

Hey all, Just wanted to post my experience with the VisionTek 3850 I just got - summary is that the stock cooler seems pretty quiet for this SPCR reader! I have an Antec P150, a 250, 320, and 500 GB drive (all soft-mounted with cords), a Seasonic S12-380 (I think - it's the highest one without the P...

There has been major quality control issues with the WD 500GB drives lately, a friend of mine lost 17 of 21 drives in 3 weeks (they were migrating in a new storage solution + a few servers)... so I'd rather not recommend WD for raid0 stuff at all. Count me in as one of tbe burned - I bought a Essen...

my x1950pro required 32amps on the 12v (as listed on the ati website), im pretty sure the 3870 will be around that level also. also had rebooting troubles when i first tried to load up games with my x1950pro when i had a 400w, 14amps on the 12v psu. Changed to a 36A on the 12V rail psu after :). sm...

No guarantees about the cost/print, but I just did a ton of research and picked up a Canon MP970 from Circuit City - price match the web at $269, and a $100 rebate (not tied to a camera purchase, apparently), makes it a good deal. I tested prints in the store (had to move it and plug it in myself :-...

Buy.com is selling these for $60 after rebate. I thought I'd ping this thread to raise awareness of other SPCR'ers whose interest was piqued by the low price and the flashy bling!

-Dan

I think that was a first - I'm upgrading my PC with a 2nd SATA burner, and backing up files (.. see.. I was worried a drive might fail, so I was backing things up!). I'm copying files over the network, and my 500gb WD drive just starts going "TICK TICK TICK!". I pull into Disk Utility (OS X), and lo...

Did you end up getting this CPU? If not, I am, and I'll be able to tell you more in a few days. Nope, chickened out after a BIOS upgrade seemed to trash my system, so I re-imaged, re-flashed, and went back to the good ol' days. Let me know what it's like - I still might tempt fate during Christmas....

Hey all, I built an HTPC with an Athlon 3800+ EE x2 running stable 1 GHz @ 0.850v and 2 GHz @ 1.050v. This is pretty nice, but I'm doing more encoding, and moved a Slimserver to this machine as well. I'm wondering, with the price of the 5000+ x2 being a 65w part (I think my EE was a 65w part, as the...

elec999, 2. I think this IntelliPower could have real benefits in the desktop environment (office apps and web surfing). Also, DVRs could really use these to quiet the idle noise or vibration coming from under the TV. And of course external drives would run cooler and quieter when in use. Plympton ...

Great price drops. Now, once the Samsung SpinPoint F1 1000GB 32MB SATA II (HD103UJ) starts selling, we will have them all competing and brave new price reductions!!! Hitachi Seagate Western Digital Samsung <-- BEST? Sounds like the WD drive is the one to beat - despite having 5 platters, it runs at...

That's a bad GPU and CPU decision. Also, don't bother with the 2.5" drive, because Media Center doesn't like running on multiple partitions. It's just easier to stripe a few big drives into an array. Not sure this is good advice - I've got XP MCE running off a cheap 40GB 5400 RPM 2.5" drive (boot),...

Probably the others are better performers at overclocking. Something tells me I read that the 6000+ was a "stressed" part, in that they had to do special binning, upping voltage, etc.. to get it to 3.0 GHz, and that it uses 125+ watts. Me, I want a 65W AM2 6000+ before they discontinue the socket! -...

It's in at NewEgg - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125074 Still trying to figure out the heat/performance/power consumption between this, a 2400 pro, 2400xt, and a 2600xt with either heatpipes or passive. Haven't found anything definitive - the Sapphire 2600XT ultimate soun...

2600 pro and xt is just a mhz increase as far as I can tell. 2600 pro runs cooler. you arent doing intensive gaming on a 2600 xt anyways, so might as well get it. plus: Pro sounds nice. both are pimp for decoding 1080p Actually, since the XT is usually running GDDR3 and not DDR2, wouldn't an equall...

Mikey wrote: That's annoying, i would have thought you'd have it already

Gets worse - now MWave says its not in stock. Oh well. Now that 2400XT's and 2600Pros are coming out, I'm going to sit it out... it was an impulse purchase anyway!

-Dan

Mikey wrote:That's awesome dan, look forward to hearing about how it goes!

Still waiting MWave to ship the thing... shoulda waited for Newegg to get stock... oh well.

-Dan

I want this http://img.hexus.net/v2/internationalevents/computex2007/JARS/Thursday/DSCF4088_cropped.jpg Will be perfect for my htpc build. Will have to 'borrow' another card until august, methinks. ;) http://www.powercolor.com/Global/products_features.asp?ProductID=1362 Is the 64 bit memory bus rea...

If you read this article, it looks like MXM is the new standard for mobile GPU's, but this sounds kick-ass for an HTPC - 20 watts passive? Sign me up!

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40063

What's stopping them (other than cost, nee price to the consumer & low volumes)?

-Dan

Check this out. :wink: Very nice find! I've been struggling with my HTPC case decision for a few weeks because of the "will it fit into a Fusion" question. I was wondering when Gigabyte was going to put that cooler on a 7600GT - seeing how the 7600GS is just a down-clocked 7600GT (and a pipe or 4 s...

FINALLY a silent single-slot 7600GT design - yeah!!

Pooh - it's probably too bit to fit in a HTPC case such as the Antec Fusion or NSK2400... DANG!!!! (

(Well, not without cutting a slot in the top of the case...)

-Dan

I uninstalled the ATI card, and reinstalled the 7600GS, and lo-and-behold, it appears to work - even have the horsepower to use Inverse Telecine most of the time (though I can't see much of a difference, except a few stutters as it appears to try and keep up). The secret sauce appears to be that Pur...

Yeah, something else is wrong and I'm not sure if throwing more powerfull video cards is going to help. Like I said, I used a 6150, and two 7300's with great success. Can you tell me what your exact setup is? You can also post this over at AVSforums. They know a lot about this Searched and searched...

You must be doing something wrong. ... I have no problems with 1080i content even at stock speeds. ... There are a few interlacing artifacts here and there but nothing to really get your panties in a bunch about. . Well, I tried and tried, but this is the stuff I was getting on 1080i content with t...

:? I'm lost. So did you ever get the X1600XT? If you didn't, then you found a passive GDDR3 x1600XT? But you said you get a X1650XT. [/ :? ] Ok, 73C isn't dangerous, but with a fan, that really hot. My X1950Pro idles at 42, with the X2 fan set at 27 in Ati Tray Tools. At 27, my Tri-Cools make the m...

but the curved heatpipes would poke out through the top - not against that, I just don't know how to do it without butchering the top of the case. How comfortable do you feel about modding? I'm not sure how you would bend heatpipes, but you could detach the heatpipes from the base (the part that to...

How much space do you have between a) the back of the card, and your CPU heatsink? b) the top of the card and the top of the case? I was thinking of a 7600GT with a HR-03 installed backwards . I doubt it will fit in the NSK2400, but it's an idea. This can also be run passively. Look at this: http:/...