Felix Build - Massive Copper Cooling

Lookin' good. I like the intake fan behind the mobo tray.

How about some specs? Specifically, what CPU are you running?

i share the same case with you, i see you mounted the front intake fan on the top, lol. great case, i have never been able to clean the metal mesh out completely.

So you do have an i7. In that case, I'm sure you know you've got a big time GPU bottle neck in that 4870, which I suppose is a good thing because you'd see a big increase in frame rate with a bit of cash into a new video card.

Yea, if you can hold out on a new video card, you definitely should. I was just pointing out the obvious in the fact that the 4870 is tying your i7's hands behind it's back.

Quote from "B-e-t-a @ Tue Feb 08

Crysis 2 will looks great on any video card, but will be optimized to use Nvidia cards that are DX11 capable. Yes, you will want DX11, and you will want Nvidia's version of DX11.

There is ONE version of DX11, sorry, just like there's one version of openGL 4. (version does not mean revision, But rather variation)
ATI and Nvidia share tiny engineering differences and slightly different micro-coding, but ultimately you get what you pay for. you can have the most advanced hardware on the planet but, never take advantage of it due to poor drivers (look at the optimus 2x). no doubt will crysis 2 be optimized for nvidia due to sponsorship.

If you modify the DX11 application extensions or configuration settings, games will probably never run.

Think of it like this, although all intel and AMD processors are cisc based they have extremely small variations in coding, no matter how small they still result in performance change. However, both Amd and Intel both follow the cisc architecture, kind of like DX11, if DX11 is non-standard the architecture of the chip would need to change based on the different variations,
due to the way pixels and vertices are tessellated. (cisc vs risc)

Aesthetically there are no differences between "ATI's DX11" and "Nvidia's DX11".

in the end 3 factors come into play:
1. Tessellation engine, and number of them.
2. Drivers
3. Hardware/Architecture/micro-code

I think Beta meant that GeForce DX11 will look better than Radeon DX11. The differences between the two aren't normally noticeable in most games.

Felix, what make is that case?

That's what i was saying, there is one DX11 release for all gfx cards ATI, Nvidia, Intel, Matrox, and others, DX is the same for all manufacturers, and all gpu's, therefor it will look exactly the same on all of them.

Now, tessellation is another matter, i assume you are all aware of what it is and how it works, the more powerful tessellation engine will yield smoother meshes with more polygons.
As for color, all monitors, as do gfx cards work with 32 bit color, simply because there is no advantage to producing more colors, in other words we've reached the limit of color reproduction.

If you really care about visuals that much, you it would be easier to justify the purchase of an S-IPS monitor, rather than a GTX580 vs a HD6970. my PVA panel is a million time better and brighter than my TN, if you are interested i will recommend you an HP LP2475w, or you can go all out and purchase a LaCie or an NEC.

No, DX11 does not look exactly the same on every make of graphics card, nor does DX10 or DX9.