GPU upgrade conundrum

[lunarwolf]

First of all I have to say I love the 8800GTX one of the best all time cards with the ATI 9800 pro. So I have no particular biais towards any specific brand. Both are quality.

Problem:
I am pondering upgrading my GPU to get better results in AoC. Considering 4 options:
- option 1 wait for system upgrade at Xmas and live with it for now (turning down some settings)
- option 2 get a second GTX for about £100
- option 3 get an ATI 4870 for about £180
- option 4 get a GTX280 for about £280

Background:
- see sig below
- I run it at 1900x1200 about 20-30 fps on avg all options maxed out incl AA 16Q. However sometimes I will get minimums of about 10-15fps (using latest 175.19 nvidia driver). Needless to say this blows, AoC is not a an FPS so not lookin for 60fps as a requirement, sustained 30fps would be sweetspot.
- I willingly admit that I am no expert, but I am sceptical about people commenting on CPU bottlenecks as I have read in many threads. When I monitor CPU usage I am never at full load on both cores (1 core will be at 100% load and the second core never goes above 20% at any time - temps never exceed 50C) No game currently supports Quad so am happy with a Duo. Furthermore I haven't seen any increase in performance in this game when running at stock or even pushing CPU to 3.3ghz. Just more fan noise and heat.

Questions:
- Latest cards use PCI-E 2.0, my board doesnt support 2.0 and there is no way in hell I am upgrading board now with new LGA sockets around the corner. Is PCI 2.0 really a must for the new cards to show an increase in performance?
- What can I expect to see on MY system as an increase in FPS with the different options.

PS - I am looking for people's constructive advice/experience with similar set-ups. Don't really care about thread going into nVidia vs ATI thread - plenty of those allready. I think/expect these cards are all really good, I just want to know which is the best option to my particular issue.

Thx for your help

 

[Vigoro]

you dont need 2.0 to run the new cards as they are backwards compatible.

 

[daz.wallace]

you dont need 2.0 to run the new cards as they are backwards compatible.

do you lose any performance though?

 

[lunarwolf]

Thx,

Sorry if I was unclear but I know that they are backwards compatible, I was really just wondering what the impact on performance was?

 

[Ice Rich]

Hmm that's a tricky one as I recently read a post of someone who went GTX>4870 and was not too impressed with the performance.

I'd say if you're looking for best value option then I would say either,

Get another GTX (£100 Upgrade)
sell your GTX and get a 4870 (£70 upgrade)

Either way your not going to see a huge performance increase based on the benchmarks i've seen. So waiting for the 4870x2 could be an option?

 

[goujon945]

That is a tough one. I think the 4870x2 would suffer significantly on a 1.1 slot.

 

[Greebo]

Although the 4870 will be an upgrade in performance I;m not sure it will be enough of a difference for you.

IMO since you have a SLI board, as a cheap fix getting a 2nd GTX for under £80 (2nd hand) would be my recommendation.

A 4870 in this review gives you 32.3 fps and a GTX280 gets 33.2 fps but 9800gtx in SLI (not really any faster than your GTX) gives 42.5 fps. The GTX280 extra performance is not worth the extra over the 4870 in AOC but in other games it perhaps is.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3354&p=4

Two 4870's in xfire give 54 fps and with the 4870x2 been touted as been 15% quicker than two 4870's in xfire I would be tempted to wait a fortnight to see how the 4870x2 matches up.

And as for cpu bottleneck, that may not apply in AOC but certainly does in other games. You see substantial increases in framerates right up to 4.5Ghz with a GTX280.

I suppose it doesn't matter with your current rig which must be gpu bottlenecked but not sure how much you might be holding back if you got a very powerful graphics card however it would still be a major boost.

And finally pci-e2 only offers a few percent difference over pci-e 1 so long as you are not using xfire (which u aren't).

 

[The_Abyss]

I plugged my new 4870 into a 1.1 board last night - all fine. It replaced a GTS 640.

I'd be tempted by the sell GTX and buy 4870 option, but to be honest, I would wait a few more weeks until the 4870X2 is released, so you can pick from the full range of options.

 

[lunarwolf]

And as for cpu bottleneck, that may not apply in AOC but certainly does in other games. You see substantial increases in framerates right up to 4.5Ghz with a GTX280.

i don't know about the GTX 280, but am surprised since for 8 and 9 series, increasing CPU clock has minimal effect if equivalent to 2.6Ghz or above

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/cpu-gpu-upgrade,review-30828.html

would be interesting to see your benchmarks that show "substantial" increases at 4.5ghz.

PS seems like i am probably gonna go with 4870x2 option as suggetsed by Abyss. seems to have some pretty stellar performance - just want to see more on temps and noise

Thx