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BFG 8800 320mb OC2 GTS to HD4870 512mb/1gb?

tlrBeta

tlrBeta

tlrBeta

Soldato
Joined
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Graphics Card problems? Screen tearing etc.

As the title suggests, I am considering the upgrade. My mobo does support crossfire for later additions aswell. At the price of the card(s) they seem a good buy.


Do you think it is worth it? Will I notice the difference?


I play a wide range of fps games, mainly TF2 though. I am experiencing some ghosting issues with all games and I am hoping this may help to resolve it / boost overall gaming performance.

My setup is:

20" Widescreen Samsung 206BW (I think)
E6500 @ 2.99ghz
2gb Geil Ultra Low Latency RAM DDR2
8800GTS 320mb
Hiper 580W HPU-4M580 SLi Certified ATX2.2 PSU
Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard


All comments welcome.

Mike
 
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You should notice quite a big difference. What res are you running the games on, as i know some people dont always run full res :(
 
cant your 8800GTs 320 run TF2 full wack? im supprised. Have you tried a fresh OS install? that usally sorts out any niggling problems i have.
 
Crossfire isnt a good idea on that motherboard, not only is it pci 1.1 but when in crossfire, the second slot only works at 4x speed on a p35 chipset. On my 20" I noticed a difference going from a 3870 to 4870 (I was able to turn AA and AF with no FPS hit) so I'm sure you'll also be happy with your upgrade. If you ever wanted to grab a second though, it would be better to upgrade the motherboard to a x38/x48 chipset (both support pci 2.0 and both work at max 16x speed when in crossfire)
 
I suspect the ghosting is more likely down to the monitor (or possibly cable) than gfx card.
Have you tried it on another screen?
 
Yep I did try a CRT problem remained. I also think this problem is due to my monitor but I am unable to confirm this really. I did notice my monitor does bleed light though. At 2ms Response, I do not expect any ghosting.

I play in something like 1200 x 1024 , around that resolution. I realise that my card should keep up with that but I do get noticable fps drops. I would like to use the widescreen resolution as TF2 does support this, though this is 1650x1250? forgotten off the top of my head


I didn't realise my mobo wasnt 2.0 :-( Would the speed reduction make a big difference? The specification states
2 x PCI-E x16 (blue @ x16 mode, black @ x4 or x1 mode) supports CrossFire Technology
Click to expand...

This was a new board a few months ago :-(

Though I also found this
Crossfire with ATI cards is also supported much like with the 965P boards, in that a x16 PCIe graphics slot is paired with another x16 slot in size, but x4 PCIe electrically.
Click to expand...

Bit confusing that one
 
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The HD 4870 is a lot faster than your older card and would definitely be a nice upgrade. :)


tlrBeta said:
Yep I did try a CRT problem remained. I also think this problem is due to my monitor but I am unable to confirm this really. I did notice my monitor does bleed light though. At 2ms Response, I do not expect any ghosting.

I play in something like 1200 x 1024 , around that resolution. I realise that my card should keep up with that but I do get noticable fps drops. I would like to use the widescreen resolution as TF2 does support this, though this is 1650x1250? forgotten off the top of my head


I didn't realise my mobo wasnt 2.0 :-( Would the speed reduction make a big difference? The specification states

This was a new board a few months ago :-(

Though I also found this

Bit confusing that one
Click to expand...
For a single card you wont have any problems as it will run at PCIE 16x the problem is that the 2nd slot doesnt run at full speed and this is what will hamper you if you run Crossfire as you wont get max out of both cards, whereas x38/x48 chipsets allow both card slots to run at PCIEx16
 
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Thanks for the info & replies, I believe the best choice i still 512mb? I will more then likely go for that.

I may wait and see what happens to the price over the next few weeks though.
 
Yeah Crossfire is supported, but its a waste of time seen as the second slot only runs at 8x, which gives quite a hit on performance, the 4870 will be an absolute massive performance increase over a 320mb GTS.
 
I did this upgrade 2 weeks ago (8800GTS 320MB to 4870) and have seen huge increase in performance.;)

I upgraded to the 24" OcUK monitor about month ago and my 8800 started to struggle. Couldn’t really game at the native res on GRID so was playing at 1680x1050.

I can now play at native res 1920x1200 with max settings and lots of AA.:D

The difference at 1280x1024 may be less noticeable but should still be decent.
 
tlrBeta said:
I didn't realise my mobo wasnt 2.0 :-( Would the speed reduction make a big difference?
Click to expand...

Well I'm happily running my 4870 on a p35 motherboard, so if I ever upgrade to 2.0 I may get a few extra frames, but if I recall the difference when both run at 16x isnt much, a few fps max.
 
LoadsaMoney said:
Yeah Crossfire is supported, but its a waste of time seen as the second slot only runs at 8x, which gives quite a hit on performance, the 4870 will be an absolute massive performance increase over a 320mb GTS.
Click to expand...

Couldn't resist building a new PC loadsa? ;)
 
I assume you mean native res = default res of the monitor? = max res I assume. Though im not sure what GRID means.

I would play at max res with this card as in TF2 widescreen is supported so you get a better FOV.

But are we all agreed on the 512mb instead of 1gb?
 
Yeah 512MB is the go unless you were on say a 30" screen where the 1GB memory would be more useful and it may also future proof you card to some degree.
 
The screen size is irrelevant - it is the resolution that counts.

To the OP, I just upgraded to a 4870 yesterday from a 8800GTS 640, and overall I'm quite pleased with the results. Still trying to rebalance the colour over my monitors though - the default settings on the ATI drivers are much brighter with more bloom.
 
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