Cost of DIY ViDock

Has anyone built one that did NOT have any of the parts already and if so how much did all of the parts total cost you and how much time did you invest in putting it together making it work ?? Power Supply, Nice professional looking case, etc. I am just seeing if my time and money would be better spent just purchasing the ready made Vidock for $199 without the video card. Thanks for any info. God Bless

 

I'd say that for the work involved, the ready made Vidock without the video card is a better option. The problem is, the case might not be big enough to hold the video card you want. I think the biggest you can put in there is an HD 5670 (not sure).

 

You are correct that for now, the HD5670 is the biggest video card that can fit in there, but as technology progresses, I would think better cards will be available to fit in there. God Bless

 

Enter the mitre saw...

 

US$165 2GB single-gpu HD4870 from ebay when they appear (must be quick!)
US$77-delivered PE4L
US$25 ATX PSU
+ shoebox, or a DIY enclosure
US$270 total

Or a US$250 HD5750 setup that runs off a portable 12V/80W AC adapter. The advantage there is you could use only the Internal LCD for gaming on the go as explained here. If don't need portability can do a cheap HD5770+ATX PSU for US$250.

I'd recommend the 2GB HD4870 over a 1GB HD5770 as 2GB video cards have a bandwidth sparing effect. That means more performance. There's also 2GB HD5850's but they start at US$380. Can see native x16 2.0 performance differences between a 1GB HD5770 and a 2GB HD4870 here.

ViDock2 comes only with a 12V/72W AC adapter so that power limits you to a HD5670 unless you can somehow route power externally from an ATX PSU. I'm also not sure if the ViDock2 can house double-width cards. I believe the to-be-released ViDock 4 was going to allow usage of video cards with higher power requirements.

 

Bandwidth sparing how?

 

A ATI 2GB hypermemory setup uses 1GB VRAM + 1GB system RAM. That's fine on a x16 2.0 link, but on a x1 1.0 link those system RAM<->VRAM transfers take up precious pci-e bandwidth. This is most obvious when there is many textures being rendered simultaneously, eg: DMCV4 scene 4, 3dmark vantage, or NFS Shift with many cards shown simultaneously.

Having 2GB VRAM spares those transfers. I don't have performance benchmarks to support the claim but the theory is sound.

Hoping a DIY ViDock user will go a ebay 2GB HD4870 over a 1GB HD5770 to prove the theory. That would be the best-bang-per-buck setup imho.