This comes from the good folks at AMD/ATI that can't seem to put out drivers that work properly more than once a year despite their monthly driver updates.

Framerate is a sticky issue and I don't always understand it - so what you're saying is that the framerate can never truly be above what the refresh is for your LCD?

I turned on VSync for Fallout 3 when I upgraded to my monster machine and I outright noticed that while I had no stuttering or slowdowns my character actually moved slower. It took me longer to get from place to place. No joke. I turned Vsync off and I was moving at the correct speed again, even though the screen would shear from time to time. Any idea why when it's synced to my refresh rate the game itself would be slower?

Yeap. I go along those same lines, realistically for me though it's around every 3 or 3 1/2 years that I go between rigs. Of course usually when I build a new rig I always re-use some parts. I know I'll be re-using my Blu-Ray burner until either it breaks or they change the popular format (again...*sigh*). I also re-use parts in my wife's system. For instance, she's using my old GeForce 9 series in her system. It still runs most all the new games, just not as sleek or fast as my Rig running the GTX280. When I upgrade to the next NVidia card I'll need in about 3 years, she'll get the GTX. My wife isn't as big of a PC gamer as I am so she rarely wants the top of the line graphics cards anyway. Works better for me and it's a lot cheaper.

The only time I was ever burned spending too much for a system was my very first computer when I was 17. I paid about $2,500 for a system I could of built for a little over a grand. It was a old Pentium 1 system with a VooDoo graphics card, CD burners were still $800 brand new, and I had a old CRT monitor. The reason it burned me wasn't because it wasn't a good system, but because the next generation of systems (architecture change) happened about 6 months after I bought it and got into the market.

Sounds like me....[except the 17 bit - PC computers didn't exist then].

P100 1gig drive 16meg of ram, Trident card, CDRom, 15" Monitor and $2500 AUD.

Now....

i7 920, 2.5 TB drives, 12gig DDR3 ram, XFX GTX285 card, 2x DVD Rewriters,...$3000 AUD.

That config isn't actually too far off from my current. I can't help but ask....how come that cost you so much? It's gotta be all that extra Ram and the hard drives. I have two 1 TB drives, a Blu-Ray burner, DvD/CD Burner, GTX280, and 6 Gigs of DDR3 Ram, all for a little over $1850. The most expensive piece was my Grphx card at a little over $400.

AUD vs USD for starters.

Also there were other bits in the 3 grand...the full spec is as follows...

What I got....

Lian Li PC-A6010 case [black]

Antec TruePower Quattro 1000w PSU

ASUS P6T-se  X58 i7 MoBo

Intel i7 920 2.66Ghz LGA1366 CPU

12G OCZ Triple [6x2G] PC12800 DDR3 Gold Ram

CoolerMaster V8 CPU Cooler [that bloody big thing]

Vantec EZ2 Sata hot-swap racks [x2][black]

1TB Seagate Sata2 7200 HD [x2] [redundancy backup/data]

500G WD Sata2 7200 HD [game backups]

250G Seagate Sata2 7200 HD [x2] [secondary/alternate OS installs in racks]

60G OCZ Summit SSD [for OS]

ACR-105 Multi card reader

LG Sata DVD-RW [x2][black]

XFX 1G GTX285 Black Edition GPU

Ahh, that explains it then. We are running quite a few same parts though. I have the same proc, same MoBo, you have more memory of course. Very nice though I must say. I've been thinking of looking into those CoolMaster units. How well do they work?

As they should....well...

the coolermaster v8 is the cooler i was using before i got the corsair h50. i think the v8 is among the top air-cooling units out there. it's definitely one of the best looking ones.

I have been running ATI cards for years, and never had a problem with DeskScpes, or any other Stardock software for that matter.  If you are having issues I would recommend sending a support e-mail with details of your issues.

What's the word here? I thought this was a three piece series. Arrival, Installation, Reveiw.

I'm using a GTS 250, a mid-range nVidia card which is about the same size as the card in the OP.  Why is it that nVidia cards are so much bigger than ATI cards?  Anyway, it seems to do the job nicely at 1680x1050.  I can see how a high power card like the 5870 might be more applicable when you get into the 2 and 3 monitor displays.

A couple of reasons: hefty import duties... then a 10% GST so the gov't gets a second chop.

Then there's the importers/suppliers/dealers who charge retailers like wounded bulls... hence the customer pays more.

Fortunately, not all suppliers are like this, and if one shops around it's possible to get some really good deals.  Take off the gov't chop and we'd be paying roughly the same as US customers (taking the exchange rate into consideration).

"What else do you recomend?? Should I cut my keyboard and monitor  cable to 100 mm so it will have better response time? that will give another 1/100 second advantage againts those pros. And maybe i should sit closer to monitor so i will see the action faster again."

There are faster gaming keyboards available. They generally are USB.

I find it odd though, USB is great for large packets but USB's scheduler can add 5ms delay per packet.

USB spec does cover some timed modes which I don't use at work.

We have one custom item that a resouce hog, so we like it to be the only one on that USB tower (controller).

I wondering how that FPS vs Refresh rate fleshed out.

Was someone impling the vertical sync can be dynamicly changed by the video card?

If the monitor is locked at 60Hz refresh, then it can only do 60fps. What gives here?

BTW: HDMI 120Hz and 240Hz TVs are just fancy footwork. HDMI link is 60Hz and they use interpolation math to create the extra frames inbetween. I heard it's great for sports but some hate it for movies.

Some lag issues are not fps related. Some TVs & LCDs have a processing pipeline that can delay the display by many frames. A 60hz frame is 16.666ms. That 120Hz/240Hz HDMI TV will definitely have a pipeline delay of 2 or more frames. A PC monitor would likley have the lowest delay.

My friends big rig home theater lagged the other TVs by several seconds. We would rush in from the patio to get a good look at the NASCAR crashes. Some home thearter rigs allow the audio to be delayed to match the screen. Maybe it's all automatic now.

ATI 5870 rocks. I never had a better card before that I know of and I won't be needing a new GPU card for many months since its also DirectX 11 compatible and I can already play DX11 games on max settings... The best thing for me is that I bought it new for only $359 from Newegg. It will of course get cheaper in time. But for its time it was a very good deal to get a card that was actually sold out on newegg in like 3 days and limited quantities. I am glad I was one of those who checked Newegg when they've had it in stock.

Been using GForce before for years, switched back to ATI. Now when ADM owns it its so much better. I am ATI again and happy about it.

OK, I will be buying one soon. The price should drop, after tax refund season, after NiVida relaeases new cards.

So lets see now, 5870, Windows 7 (for DX11) , 4G more Ram (for W7), larger monitor (to enjoy it all). That's about $1100 dollars.

the 5800 series are great cards,i have a 5850 @ 900/1200 and games runs silky smooth.