Worth moving on from a GTX260 216SP ?

[RimBlock]

I have a Palit GTX260 core 216SP.

As this card does not support DX11 I was thinking of upgrading.

Is there anything worth considering for around 200 quid (OCUK prices please) I could upgrade to and would the upgrade make a big difference to quality of the games (any recent) graphics look significantly better ?

I have a dell 24" monitor running native at 1920*1200

Many thanks
RB

 

[angela]

HD5850 or GTX470 at this price range, will be definitely step up from GTX216, plus more Ram will be better for your resolution!

 

[cmndr_andi]

A GTX 470 or a 5850 is a good shout - on budget and performance will be ~50% higher at your resolution.

However, you may want to wait until the week of December 13th as the new AMD HD 6900 series is being released then. The 6950 may be worth a look and hopefully drive the prices of other cards down.

 

[RimBlock]

Thanks.

There is no big rush to buy at the moment as most games seem to run fine with the card I have but I have a bit of spare cash so looking at a replacement.

Looks like the smart money is on waiting for the 6900 release.

Thanks again
Rb

 

[mikeo]

Not that long since I went through this myself (IE. upgraded from a 260GTX). Bought an MSI 460 HAWK and OCd to the level I have (see sig.) it's around 50/60% faster in games (more in some older games). Though if buying now, I would go for a 470 and probably stretch to the Gigabyte SOC version.

Though as mentioned by someone else, the 260 GTX can still hold it's own in most games at the moment. Certainly nothing is currently "unplayable" in my opinion on one of these at the moment. I would recommend upgrading now only if you have money burning a hole in your pocket.

Though there are certainly some bargains to be had at the moment and remember... VAT is going up in the New Year, though I suppose it's not that big a hit.

I really only upgraded because I fancied something different. That upgrade fever struck again

 

[jms198]

Andi; The 260 listed on TPU is the 192 shader version. About a 30-35% odd increase from the 216 shader version to the 460.

@OP You should be able to get about 660 on the core with no problems and the required 1320 on the shader. These are conservative. The ram should overclock about 10% too. You should should be able to get roughly 275 speeds for free! The 65nm model also has software voltage control and a better cooler so a slight undervolt and overclock may set you up without too much heat. Unfortunately the 55nm comes with a poorer cooler and no voltage control without a potentially risky bios flash.

Personally I would hold on until it begins to struggle.

*looks into crystal ball* I think the 69ks may weigh in at over the 200 mark. Best case I think the 6950 will come in at 200.

 

[Rroff]

I would not use that TPU benchmark as any kinda indication of nVidia card performance... not only are they using pre 250+ drivers, they also for some inexplicable reason used 195.62 for testing the 200 series and lower nVidia cards - a driver version that was well known for being the worst performing of any release around that time.


As far as GTX260 to GTX470 goes - I went from GTX260 SLI (over 60% faster than a single card on average) to a single GTX470 and stock for stock they ran similiar - so your looking at a pretty decent boost. As far as GTX260 overclocking goes - most average GTX260 hit either 1458 or 1512 on the shader and between 680 and 740 on the core, memory will easily do 1152MHz with some managing 1200-1250 but best performance seems to come from 720/1440 and either 1152 or 1200 on the VRAM for some reason (unless you got a card that will hit 1550+ shader clock).

 

[RimBlock]

@OP You should be able to get about 660 on the core with no problems and the required 1320 on the shader. These are conservative. The ram should overclock about 10% too. You should should be able to get roughly 275 speeds for free! The 65nm model also has software voltage control and a better cooler so a slight undervolt and overclock may set you up without too much heat. Unfortunately the 55nm comes with a poorer cooler and no voltage control without a potentially risky bios flash.

According to GPUz I have the 55nm version which is currently running at 625/1100/1348.

Personally I would hold on until it begins to struggle.

*looks into crystal ball* I think the 69ks may weigh in at over the 200 mark. Best case I think the 6950 will come in at 200.

I think the attractiveness of waiting for the 6900 series is not to get one but to see the price reductions on the previous models hopefully enabling me to get a better model after the anticipated price drops.

I am not in the latest and greatest game anymore, that time has gone. I am happy to buy one generation and one model down from the top and save the hefty premium for brand new top of the line tech . The was of course a time when this was not the case though .

I will see what I can do with Rivatuner but have to reboot before I can use it and I am currently backing up around 150GB to a USB drive so cannot do so at the moment.

Thanks for the advice everyone
RB

 

[gurusan]

Just wait a little longer for the new cards....in the meantime OC your 260, you have a lot of headroom.

 

[dave1983]

i have changed my GTX 260 SP to a GTX460 1GB and wow the difference in gaming, for example BFBC2 max Resolution, DX11 enabled and High AA and the game runs perfectly, originally on my GTX260 it would struggle on high res but my CPU is bottlenecking so an upgrade on a Quad Core will be due soon. however there are not a lot of games out that are highly GPU intensive as most are crappy console ports and do not show the true performance gaming for PC users. also there are not a lot of games which specifically use DX11 architecture/tesselation, HAWX 2 didn't really show true potential of tesselation, However i would think Doom 4, BF3, and when HL EP3 is released that's when youll need a good gaming card.

 

[snaggster]

I went from a gtx260 216 to a gtx470, And there has been quite a differnce, Its always nice to see all settings automaticly on max when you start a new game. Also i think the 470 is alittle quiter than my old 260...

 

[nicnik]

i dont personally think it's worthy upgrade yet (260 to 470.) my 260 can still play everything at the current overclock (can push even higher without touching 60c). only a few games which im not too interested in struggle badly and needs lowering settings.

best to overclock the 260 in the mean time and see how 69xx pans out. only 2 weeks away.

 

[ahenners]

Definitely worth waiting for the 69xx series at least to see how they shake things up. Most likely it will bring price drops on current cards i.e. 6870