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Geforce 9-series question

  • Thread starter Thread starter ~D~
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Won't be, at that res the GTX will last ages, while everyone else is having to upgrade theirs because they are at higher res, you won't be, so your saving money in the long run, and if you get the 2x, you can sell the free one for about £200. :)
 
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I think I'll use the "buy a second card or pay for half an expensive one" offer on the next-gen card that I will eventually upgrade to. So I shall only be getting one card for now.

An 512MB 8800GT seems like it will last me well till a 'real' next gen comes out, given I've seen reviews saying it can max out Call of Duty 4 at 1650 x 1080.

I'm not a regular upgrader and I don't fancy the idea of spending about ~£280 on a card as a 'stop-gap', especially one that I don't think will sell that well, given by the time I sell it, the 9800GX2 will have been out for a while, and possibly even the 9800GTX will have been out or a while (if it later turns out not to be a 'real' next gen).
 
I'd definately go for the 2xGTX's if you can get them for the price you say. I run the same res as you and have had a GTX then brought a GT but am now back to an Ultra purely down to the fact the GT did struggle at times especially if you wanted to add a bit of AA and AF.

2 GTX's for the win imo.
 
You can buy the OEM OCUK version for £240... Two of them for that price will last you a LONG time. The difference in price between a GT and GTX aint that high, and for the GTX you are getting two of them! The next highend is going to cost at least £350 when nVIDIA decides to launch it (Q3 soonest)
 
I would go the GTX one for free option. But the question is really what res you will be running at. because if its not high sli will be wasted. Monitor will dictate the graphics card.
 
Yes i would go for 2 8800 GTX's if you can.. Will hold up against a true next gen card or almost in most situations

just for the record i got a nice boost going from a gtx to 2 GT's. For a price less than a new high end card not bad at all imo.
 
LoadsaMoney said:
It makes perfect sense, theres no way hes gona find 2x 512mb GTS's for £280, that would mean getting the GTS's for £140 each, and the GTX's would be better in everything due to the bigger bus, at high res with AA/AF the GTS's aint gona touch the GTX's, id definately go that way if i was buying one GTX and getting another for free, absolute steal that. :)
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If a family member is buying him a GTX (ie: doesn't already have one to give to him) then they can just change it to a GTS instead so he only has to pay 180 for another single GTS to go with it. Complicated logic I know... ;)
 
Trunks9486 said:
Two of them for that price will last you a LONG time. The difference in price between a GT and GTX aint that high, and for the GTX you are getting two of them! The next highend is going to cost at least £350 when nVIDIA decides to launch it (Q3 soonest)
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Is this a new high end card as in new architecture? I thought it was entirely unknown when any 'real' next-gen cards would be avaliable?

Also, what do you define as a long time? I do not upgrade often at all, so I am looking to keep any set up I buy for at least 3 years (I'm still on a Radeon 9600XT now).

Is it common option that two SLIed GTX's would be equal to any proper next-gen card that nVidia (or ATI) offer in 2008?

I'm more inclined to use the family member's offer on a next-gen card when they come out, and have brand new tech, rather than use it on a year old tech. If I use the offer on a high-costing next-gen card (~£400 I'm expecting), he'll pay half of it, so in that situation, wouldn't I get one new card, that is on par (or better than) the SLIed GTXs?
 
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Well for starters i am like you, i dont upgrade often either.

Rumours on the next real nvidia card are not really reliable, what i can probably tell you with certainty is that it will take some time for it to be here with decent availability. If you don't mind the waiting then something better will always be there.

If you are talking buying a 8800GT for a stopgap then i think it's not worth it, they are not exactly cheap and performance suffers at higher resoltuions with AA/AF enabled. If you want to take the stop gap route then i suggest buying something that gives you the most bang for your buck, namely the HD3850 512 (£100-£130 depending on where you look).

The SLi set up will not be as efficient as any single card, but with nvidia releasing another SLI-on-a-stick card i HOPE that they improve their drivers.

I bought my PC on september, and was hoping at the time that G90 would be released soon so i waited, instead they gave us G92, a worse performing card at 1900x1200 than the one year old GTX, i bought the HD3850 512 and now i am waiting until something that really blows the 8800 Ultra arrives (2x performance at least).

So, yeah it depends on your priorities, i bought the HD3850 because i wanted to be able to play games NOW, rather than later. ATi 's fiasco with the R600 really screwed up the release cycle of next generation GPUs.

Edit: Yes you are correct btw on the last remark for the SLI vs Single GPU.
 
My resolution won't go higher then 1650 x 1050 for a few years, but what you say seems to make sense. I am also waiting for a card to blow away the Ultras (which is what I assume the proper next-gen cards will do).

I might take a look at the 512Mb HD3850 instead of the 8800GT as a stop gap then. To be honest I doubt I will be playing COD4 or Crysis or the lastest round of games yet because I have quite a few games that I have yet to play.

Any other suggestions of a good stop-gap card? I've heard all the other Geforce 8 cards below the 8800GT aren't so good. So in ATI the way to go as a lighter purchase before I invest heavily when a good card comes along?
 
Yes, the nVIDIA card below the 8800 series are not that great, shame really...

The 512 MB version of the X1950 PRO is good, depending on the price of course, it used to be king of the price/performance ratio so you should check it out.

The ATi X1900XT (XTX as well) and ATi X1950XT (XTX again too) are also excellent, better than the PRO but i doubt that you can find them at a reasonable price especially considering the already cheap HD3850 PRO 512.
 
How would the X1950Pro fare at 1650x1050 with AA/AF? (I'll probably be playing the likes of Quake4, SWAT4, FEAR, Gears of War, Half Life 2, Doom 3 (old I know ;p)) It's a much better price for a stopgap card, and one would be willing to get to last me till Q3-4 '08/Q1 '09
 
Quake, Doom, fear and half life should be ok i think, you might want to confirm though (Toms hardware guide?).

Swat i have no clue since i never played the game and dont know how demanding it can be. Gears of War i think is quite demanding... even for current generation video cards.

Edit: By the way, Ati is preparing to launch the HD3690 PRO(Or XT not sure). If they release that card with 512 MB and a good price it might be worth looking into it. Its basically the same core used in the HD38xx series but with half the bandwidth. Dunno how performance is going to be affected though and seeing that you are playing at relatively high res maybe its not worth waiting to check it out >_>
 
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I'd recommend you get the GTX and sell both of them. And then see what's available in March when you're about to buy your computer. If you need something to cover you, keep one GTX.
 
triggerthat said:
I'd recommend you get the GTX and sell both of them. And then see what's available in March when you're about to buy your computer. If you need something to cover you, keep one GTX.
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March is when I'd be buying all my components anyway. So as it stands it is when I'd be getting the X1950.

The problem is if I get my family member to buy the second GTX now, I wont be able to afford the new next-gen card when it emerges, so I'd rather use his help for that card and only get a single card myself in the mean time.
 
~D~ said:
The problem is if I get my family member to buy the second GTX now, I wont be able to afford the new next-gen card when it emerges, so I'd rather use his help for that card and only get a single card myself in the mean time.
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Congrats for not taking the advice of 75% of people in this thread telling you to get SLI GTX. You made the right and sensible choice.:)
 
I thought you were being sarcastic for a second there, but then I remembered your advice earlier :D

Yes, this way works out best in the long run, which is what my build is for; a long term solution.

Thank you to all for your help/opinions :)
 
Waiting, and getting next gen on launch is probably the best solution if you want a setup that will last as long as possible between upgrades
 
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