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GSO9600xxx Upgrade Time

ussff

ussff

ussff

Associate
Joined
11 Jan 2007
Posts
287
I have a pair of budget GSO 9600xxx in SLI - they are about to be removed from my ageing / half dead skt 939 +4800... for their new home; Z77 Asrock Extreme 4, 16Gb Samsung green DDR3 (and hopefully) an i5 2500k .... :rolleyes: which I'm having kittens over.... but that's in the CPU forum :D

So, much as I'd love to replace the GSO's straight off - the new core of my budget SLI has emptied the bank account for the minute.

Will I be OK? AND ...staying on a budget theme :p IF I found some ££'s next month, what kind of leap would I get from 2x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB cos they look a mighty good price in the clearance section atm (ps - I waited untill the GSO's were sub £100 too!) ;)
 
I would not recommend GTX 460 sli as you can get a 7850 for the same price and i've seen some people on the forums have managed some outstanding overclocks which puts it roughly at 7950 stock performance.

On another note did your 4800 x2 not bottleneck your 9600 gso's?
 
synixx said:
I would not recommend GTX 460 sli as you can get a 7850 for the same price and i've seen some people on the forums have managed some outstanding overclocks which puts it roughly at 7950 stock performance.

On another note did your 4800 x2 not bottleneck your 9600 gso's?
Click to expand...

It was my first PC gaming rig :D that evolved so... bottlenecking? It did have a pair of Geforce 6800GT's in it when I cooked it up, first time around on an A8n SLI Premium... and then the games went past being able to run at High detail, so I bought the best pair of sub £100 cards I could get, and ended up on a Fatal1ty An8; Enter the GSO9600xxx :D god only knows if it all fitted together :eek:

Now I know that I should 'know' a bit more.... will the Z77 setup release some more potential in the pair of GSO's (and give them a small lease of life) and give me the breathing space - Mrs USSFF bought FEAR3 for me at Xmas... and its still in the wrapper cos it says MINIMUM SPEC x2 4800+ and I want to play it so much better than min spec....
 
synixx said:
If you plan on keeping that resolution then a single GTX460 would be perfectly fine. However I'd highly recommend getting a new screen as it really adds to the experience.
Click to expand...

I opted for 2, because I like shiny new things to match... :rolleyes: and will end up with a second one at some point as my new z77 rig is gonna have to last! But you have picked on a good point - my AG Neovo F-419 is at max... and has not been the focus of my upgrade purge!
 
Well for under £90 0n clearance;

- Core Clock: 763MHz
- Memory: 1024MB GDDR5
- Memory Clock: 3800MHz (Effective)
- Memory Interface: 256-Bit
- Processing Cores: 336
- Shader Clock: 1526MHz

...it eats my GSO for breakfast - I'll have to plant the GSO's in my new rig cos ££ are short... but I need to know that I'm buying wise for my Z77 setup - which means knowing about PCIe speeds and bottlenecks etc...
 
TropicLightning said:
I'd say you have nothing to worry about. All will be fine with your Z77.

But you will be better off going with one faster card than two slower ones.
Click to expand...

The thing about that is... what's the point of SLI / Crossfire then?

I have seen rigs on uTube reviews with 'non' matching GPU'S in SLI... brand wise, but the model matched. It makes sense to stick in a (for instance) a fast 560Ti now and get the boost in 18 months time by sticking in another... IF you can get one to the same spec? Or will any old 580 do?
 
Crossfire is usually reserved for those who want more than the fastest single card available or to a lesser degree those that bought as much of a single card as they could afford today and later need more.

It's just really not a good idea to buy two slower cards right up front. There is almost always a single card that can do the same for less money.
 
Well at least the Asrock motherboard is SLI and Crossfire ready, its more choice than I've previously had! The GSO's as a pair will have to cope for now but come upgrade time buy the best card I can afford... and add in the future to gain a performance boost! Does the 2nd gpu have to be the identical spec?
 
synixx said:
I would not recommend GTX 460 sli as you can get a 7850 for the same price and i've seen some people on the forums have managed some outstanding overclocks which puts it roughly at 7950 stock performance.

On another note did your 4800 x2 not bottleneck your 9600 gso's?
Click to expand...

GTX 460 :rolleyes: lame duck... but I've been GeForce following too long! So I've brushed up on my alternate gfx :p options and found a sweet "budget" upgrade to the GSO's

For gaming purposes there wasn't a massive leap from 6850 to 7850, whilst the 5850 (which is hard to find) holds up too... The 6850 on clearance is a Cyclone Power Edition :cool: and comes in at £107.99 where as the 7850 is twice the RAM ... its over £80 more :p I'm trying to find a 6850 Crossfire Review, cos with a little OC that could be pretty cool... especially IF I stay down at lower resolution untill I replace my monitor...
 
...lame duck may be harsh - but at dx11 the 6850 does kill off the 460 by more than a few fps from what I'm reading.

So back to the standard 6850... in crossfire playing Dirt 2 they KILL a £180 GTX 480 by 50fps @ most resolutions and at £216 for two factory overclocked cards that has to be very competative with... a 7850 that's not streets ahead of the single GPU in gaming terms?
 
A 7850 overclocked will end up with similar performance to 6850 crossfire.

It will be cooler, you get twice the VRAM for futureproofing, its cheaper and you wont have the drivers issues that plague multi gpu setups.
 
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