Convince me NOT to buy a 8800GT ;)

Alexrose1uk · 12 Dec 2007 at 17:00

Im planning to upgrade in about a months time, when Penryn comes out, I've done all my shopping for xmas and lo and behold, I have about £300 left this month.

Having just seen Gibbo's post saying that the £170 OcUK 8800GT is now in stock, given that these are bitch to get hold of right now, especially for closer to £150, I'm very tempted to get one, as I still have money to enjoy the rest of my month, and buy the card now, rather than waiting til next month to find out they're possibly still out of stock.

On top of that, my current X1900XT is starting to be a PITA so I was thinking of chucking it on the famous auction site, or selling it to that shop which sounds like something naughty, as providing it passes thier testing fine, they'll give me about £80 for it, meaning the card would only cost me £100.

I have a 1920x1200 res screen now, and surprisingly my x1900xt will run everything on it, although crysis at medium is very very heavy on it now.

My current spec is as in sig, someone convince me my screen size or current system is going to heavily bottleneck the card, or that its not a good time to buy.

Strength of willpower fading...

ergonomics · 12 Dec 2007 at 17:01

if you're upgrading in a months time, do not buy the GT as the new high end will be out a month after.

as long as cost is no issue to you

Joop · 12 Dec 2007 at 17:03

or GT will become cheaper giving u more!

Alexrose1uk · 12 Dec 2007 at 17:07

ergonomics said:
Blah, you had to throw in that last part >.<

Cost is a definate issue, the whole system upgrade is going to cost me around £600-650, and including going out etc, I have about £300 average a month disposable income to spend. Im never going to spend more than £250 on a graphics card right now, because I simply can't really afford to throw a whole month's spare wages at a new PC part because then I won't be able to buy any games, go out etc etc, I just want good bang:buck, especially as my xmas bonuses, overtime etc won't hit til february due to the way pay works, and I ideally need to start saving up for a week away after that.

I mean, I don't mind if the GT's drop in price by £10-20 because I'll have had extra use out of the card to compensate, and right now Im not sure if the demand will drop down that much, as the prices seem to have kept rising since the cards came out.

ergonomics · 12 Dec 2007 at 17:50

just wait until the new top end is out at least. it *should* completely lower the prices of current GTX and ultra's. and if you're lucky it wont be too much (unbranded)

C64 · 12 Dec 2007 at 18:06

because the price will fall to £130 in a matter of a month

maxtoon · 12 Dec 2007 at 18:15

Alexrose1uk said:
Having just seen Gibbo's post saying that the £170 OcUK 8800GT is now in stock, given that these are bitch to get hold of right now, especially for closer to £150, I'm very tempted to get one, as I still have money to enjoy the rest of my month, and buy the card now, rather than waiting til next month to find out they're possibly still out of stock.

go for the GT when the prices are around £150 (anytime now), it's a great card and there are very few games you can't max with it. (crysis aside, no current single card solution can)

It should do you fine until well into next year.

hellforleather · 12 Dec 2007 at 19:34

i cant convince you not to, best £150 i've spent in ages!

Alexrose1uk · 12 Dec 2007 at 20:17

Hmmmm, still not sure whether to jump tbh haha I'll have to have a think about it over this evening

Possible £10-20 saving, or perhaps a month or two of faster gaming... hard one!

Dead Dog · 12 Dec 2007 at 20:36

I dont' know how much of an effect the 'new' card will have when they arrive next year, as the ones that are out now ie the gt & gts are not the high end cards ie only £170-£250 so when the new ones hit, they will be the £3-400 bad boys and as such possibly not have much of an effect on GT & GTS prices.
obviously this is just my opinion of the way I see it.

steve258 · 12 Dec 2007 at 20:38

Do you have any game that's sitting there just waiting to be played? Will you be playing lots of game this Christmas? If yes then the extra £10-£20 is worth it IMO.

Damfoose · 12 Dec 2007 at 20:49

ergonomics said:
just wait until the new top end is out at least. it *should* completely lower the prices of current GTX and ultra's. and if you're lucky it wont be too much (unbranded)

Yeh but their is allways the new kit just around the corner to wait for, Ive been doing that for the past year and ive had enough , If you wait for the new kit you will never get the machine built.

sosrandom · 12 Dec 2007 at 20:52

If you do Ill hurt you, convinced?

Smirnoff · 12 Dec 2007 at 20:54

They get very very hot so hot infact you can smell them burning ( I kid you not

I would get a new GTS seeing the huge rate at which GT's are being RMA'ed

Hen_Dawg · 12 Dec 2007 at 21:55

Smirnoff said:
They get very very hot so hot infact you can smell them burning ( I kid you not I would get a new GTS seeing the huge rate at which GT's are being RMA'ed

Really, lots of RMAs?

Alexrose1uk · 12 Dec 2007 at 21:57

steve258 said:
Do you have any game that's sitting there just waiting to be played? Will you be playing lots of game this Christmas? If yes then the extra £10-£20 is worth it IMO.

Well for one I'd quite like to play the Witcher without my pc bogging down, but that might be the system in general, same with Supreme Commander, and with a work nationwide gaming COD4 compo coming up, it might be nice to have an edge in that too

I seem to remember the other day that the GT fans were being improved (extra cm) which would affect all new batches, not sure if that affects these though.

Tooks · 12 Dec 2007 at 21:59

Smirnoff said:
They get very very hot so hot infact you can smell them burning ( I kid you not I would get a new GTS seeing the huge rate at which GT's are being RMA'ed

You can't possibly know that...

Anyway, at the OP, just buy the best card you can afford when you want/need it, and then don't worry about it.

There is always something faster/better just around the corner, and we don't know for sure when the next new cards are out.

You've just got to balance gaming fun now, vs waiting for the next big thing.

Smirnoff · 12 Dec 2007 at 22:02

The stock cooler is somewhat lacking, I've seen them running at over 110c after 10 minutes of crysis. No card is going to last long at those kinda temps.

Tooks · 12 Dec 2007 at 22:06

Smirnoff said:
The stock cooler is somewhat lacking, I've seen them running at over 110c after 10 minutes of crysis. No card is going to last long at those kinda temps.

And you're qualified to make that comment how?

If it's hitting 110c after 10 mins of Crysis, then clearly the case cooling isn't up to much, not necessarily the card.

My pair in SLI don't go over 90c in a P182 playing Crysis, and that's with GPU fans on auto, and my case fans set to medium.

Smirnoff · 12 Dec 2007 at 22:08

Tooks said:
You can't possibly know that...

We were testing one at work last week, We could smell it starting to singe as we played crysis, the RMA pile is growing quite big