Be Excellent To Each Other

I need a GPU and fast. I can't trust this shitty company after the tude they showed me earlier and I can't game.

What is the Radeon 4890 1gb like? I don't have hours and hours to research it I have to order it in the next 30 mins.

Does it perform as well as the 280?

Thanks mates great etc.

I have a 2400pro you can have.

Tenner.

The graphics card in the 360 works really well.

Hope this helps.

I have a Voodoo 2 in my cable draw. £2 + P&P.

Done deal.

1 x XFX ATI Radeon HD4890 PCI-Express 850Mhz 1GB 2 X DVI TV Out Graphics Card
XFX-01006( sku:XFX-01006) : £136.90

Time to do some reading now I guess.

Seriously though JC.

Get a 360 Elite.

I cant afford it dude.

Stop blinging up your typewriter!

Was the tude they showed you faulty? I'm confused.

Better than the 4870 but not anywhere near the 5870. So about right for it's price point.

Not sure about Nvidia comparisons because I never care enough to look.

Definitely good for widescreen resolutions though.

You remind me of me..... in 1991.....

I'M IN DENIEL! I'M HAPPY WITH MY AMSTRAD. I DON'T NEED AN AMIGA. MY AMSTRAD PLAYS EVERY GAME I WOULD EVER WANT. LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!

4890 scrores 3 more points than a stock 280 in 3dmark. Scores are in the 19k range so it's literally trace ammounts. 4890 is better in some games, worse in others. Thankfully it's better in Fallout 3.

I just need a card and I need it now. The weather is set to dip well below 0 again and it's not a place where there's much else to do until spring. Plus it's dooble ghey because I've been gaming like a mofo for the last 9 days. I thought it was odd that my 280 was quiet. I even checked the fan and it was spinning, but I will hazard a guess and say it wasnt able to spin up for some reason (fucked temp sensor?) and has fried itself. And with a topout temp of 107c Im not suprised.

"A new colour monitor for my Amstrad costing 80% of the price of an Amiga would be money well spent"

I don't think you understand the complexity of that statement. I have a game collection at least 200 strong. If I buy a 360 elite then I can probably get one for around the £170 ish mark. However, I won't get any games with it and 360 games are notoriously expensive. Not only that but due to my enormous back catalogue of PC games I have an enormous collection of PC game saves. One of which is about 40% into a playthrough of Fallout 3. One that I am not prepared to do on a console all over again.

There are other reasons of course, but that is the biggest one. When I say I can't afford a 360 what I really mean is I cannot afford a 360 AND replace my entire game collection (or even my current installed games that I play daily).

Read, digested, and understood.




Now go buy a 360.

PS Apologies for the teases on your actual birthday and everything

Nah it's cool. I would find it funny but I haven't stolen a game in coming on two years. Infact I'm pretty hard core anti piracy on games now as it just fucks the format and you get less good games.

But PC games are cheap. Literally half the price of an Xbox game. I can get AVP2 pre order for £16.99. Can you do that with the Xbox?

I had far more games than that on my Amstrad. Having lots of games never ever stopped me from enjoying a new format. I got a Spectrum in 1991!



Not true. I've been picking up games for about the same as a CPC disc title! Burnout Paradise was 13 quid new, my new flight sim thing was 17 quid used (and looks like new). Yes the latest and greatest titles are pricey but if you show a little patience you are paying next to nothing! Allowing for inflation Burnout Paradise cost less than a full price 8 bit title back in the day.

That new vampire game is already in the 2nd hand section in the local softie with 10 quid off.



You do not need to replace your entire games collection. I didn't go out and replace all my CPC games when I upgraded. Likewise I didn't replace all my Amiga games when I upgraded to a PC.

It's perfectly possible to enjoy multiple rival platforms* at the same time and own all of them. I am the living proof! FFS I bought CPC Lemmings when I had an Amiga because I wanted to have it on the CPC!


* Apart from the ST which as we all know was shit.

You can get shut of 360 games for reasonable money after you get bored with them. I'm not a collector and I don't normally go back to games so I just trade a lot of them in.

PC gaming to me is a format. One I really don't want to change. If I buy a 360 it means not being able to play my PC games any more. Well, not until I buy a graphics card that will run the last two year's worth as trust me, a 64mb onboard bag of shit won't run 10 yards. So in the future? Sure, it's highly probable I will end up with a 360 (I was actually considering it over triple SLI..). But for right now I have to fix what I currently have before I move onto something else. Without a decent GPU I cannot run my second monitor, so no TV in bed, no movies, etc, etc. I have to repair the Pc and I have to repair it 'like for like'. It's not a simple case of buying a 360 and leaving £700 worth of hardware to rot.



Right now I am currently playing... Fallout 3 and all DLC. Dirt 2. Grid and MW2. I have already brought those and already own them. And I really don't want to go out and buy the same games again, even if they were a fiver a go. This is it really, I already own all the games I could possibly want right now and I'm not interested in any apart from AVP2 which I will pre order soon.



Yeah but it's not as simple as switching from an Amiga to a PC. If I get a 360 I dont switch. I lose my entire PC as a gaming platform. That includes any game in 3d. My online community, etc, etc. This would also be the same reason that 90% of 360 owners have all owned at least two consoles. Their original purchase and at least one replacement. Because it's not as simple as ditching an entire format (especially one I have been on for 15 or more years) and moving to another one.



Oh absolutely. But I cannot own multiplatforms until I repair the PC. It's a lot deeper than gaming dude. It's like me telling you to replace your Mac with a 360.

I'm not really into that Mark tbh. I don't really like selling things in all honesty. Which is why I have two spare CPU coolers, two spare keyboards and soon a spare 280 GTX that no doubt I wont sell.

I usually buy what I can afford and hold onto it. Selling movies and games has always been a tragic loss. Like, paying £50 for it and then being offered 1/3 of that a week later if you don't like it by some cunty corporate gaming store who will then mark it up to the max after having your pants down.

In a way I suppose if you never sell anything you never lose on it

You've got a Mac? You should probably replace that with a 360.

If I had a Mac, I'd eat it. But first, the fries

I just take the view that once something has provided me with £40 of fun then anything I get back is a bonus and if it's a game I've paid £40 for then I usually get back £20-25. I just don't need loads of shite that I'll never touch again piling up around me and if I ever do want to revisit said shite then by then it will cost pence.

I have 2 Macs and a 360. I RULEZ!

On the subject of buying and selling 360 games. If you buy cheap, you don't really loose much money on them.

However, I am the most price elastic gamer around.

I can entirely understand why JC loves his PC so. When it all works, PC gaming is wonderful. You've got virtually everything that you can get on the 360, but with noticeably better graphics and smoother gameplay, plus a whole raft of fantastic exclusives, emulation, all sorts. And there's no reason why it can't all be a trouble-free experience - JC just likes to tinker with his PC which inevitably raises the risk you're going to break something. My PC, for instance, worked brilliantly with no issues at all for 2 years with a significant overclock in place and I'm only having issues now because I swapped the motherboard round and probably didn't take the necessary precautions whilst doing so.

I know that, honestly, if I had to chose between my consoles and my PC, the PC would probably win.

Edit: I'd add that I think part of the problem here is that we're just not a forum of PC gamers. Having seen some PC gaming forums though, I firmly believe this is entirely An Good Thing (tm).

I would not be so bothered about my 360 without Live, and Games for Windows isn't quite the same experience, especially with its limited support. And this is from someone who shunned the idea of ‘the next generation will be all about online gaming.’

I was with you up until you said "significant overclock".


A PC gamer, yesterday.

Well I have an RMA from the company I got it from and I have to say the email was a lot nicer and more apologetic than their phone CS.

I have already sent them the screen shots of what it's doing.

Also after a lot of thought I think I know when the card began failing. A few weeks ago I noticed the card was hitting 107c and crashing. I took it out and cleaned it and upgraded all my case fans. Since putting it back it's seemed fine temp wise but TBH I think the 107 thing had already done the damage. I think it was down to failure on the automatic speed controller because since then the card has not spun up the fan once. I just assumed it was good temp wise. Once booted (if you can get it there) the card functions OK. I think it's down to buggered solder joints or possibly expansion and shrinkage.

None of which is helped by the fact that the 280 is already a very hot card. Add to that a manufacturer's overclock and it's far worse. Now I understand why they charged £120 more for the factory overclock because they then have to warranty the card. I've absolutely no doubt that it simply needs reflowing but I'm not putting it in the oven. Apparently they charge a 10% restocking fee for working parts (should they not find a fault) so in the very least I should get some credit to spend with them. I don't expect cash back after 7 months.

I'm really glad I didn't buy that card now. Lucky escape.

Very lucky yes. Because a 5 month warranty was nowhere near enough to do an RMA.

Im not reading a page and a half, but if you're willing to spend £150 on a graphics card surely you're better off getting a 360 for the same(ish) price, AND there's the bonus of playing with us

Well you should have read the page and a half because then you could see me explain that I cannot afford to replace my entire game collection and basically buy a load of games I already have. Or leave a £700 pile of PC parts to rot.

It's extremely likely I will get a 360 this year, but I cannot buy one to replace my PC as there's no chance of a 360 doing that

It does help of course that all I have to do is get one and plug it straight into my swanky new HDMI monitor

If you didnt spend over £700 on typewriter junk then you'd have lots of 360 stuff to play with.

Why not buy a cheap PC to surf the net, design websites and watch films, and a 360 for games? It'd end up much cheaper for you in the long run.

That's true. And if I fancied blondes instead of brunettes then maybe I wouldn't be divorced.

Seriously though I will always love PC gaming. Nothing will ever change that. It's almost like a feeling of playing a game and every time you do feeling this amazing sense of pride that you created the machine pumping it out

I will no doubt end up with a 360 this year. It's a lot easier now I don't smoke any more. But it will never ever take the place of my P.C. A game console just sits there. It offers no stimulation other than picking up the controller.

Bullshit. The controllers vibrate.

You can have both. I just don't comprehend what the problem is. The arguments make no sense at all.

There was a time in around 1993 where I was running a CPC, Speccy, C64 and an Amiga. I was buying games for all of them. I had the luxury of picking the best format for each game. There was never a problem at all.

Get a 360, just pick the games that are suited to it. Don't pick PC games. Play to strengths. You can have both without sacrificing either!

Get a PS3

Come on now, that's not even remotely fucking funny.

Hey!

Dude we all have something. I flash bioses, you have a PS3

OMG PS3 HAXXORED. (ahem)
http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/

I have 2 xbox, ps3, wii and a gaming PC

(and older consoles too)

lookatmelookatme

Which actually makes it infinitely more interesting and sell able no doubt.

Also this. Since I removed my 280 my PC now wafts out cold air. It used to blast nice warm air from every orifice making my room nice and cosy. Not now though so I was fucking freezing last night