Hardware Progression

[Lonz]

Well, I think it's been over 18 months since I upgraded my PC last, and I'm starting to get the urges to see if I can mak any vast improvements anywhere.

The spec now is a

Q6600
8800GTX
4GB RAM

A graphics card would be the obvious choice, but then again, the games I play at the moment are running just about fine (COD4, TF2 etc). However, I've had some great urges to buy Crysis, and thought that either an addition card or a new one might help the performance...

Apparently not. Looking at some of the figures quoted for the newer cards from ATI and nVidia, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between them and the 8800GTX. Not one to justify the money anyway.

So my question is this. Am I missing something here, or has the technology progression hit a rather large brick wall? Especially in the graphics card area. My previous upgrades had been out of date no more than 6 months after I'd bought them and were running games so much smoother than before. Granted, the games I play are no where near as demanding as the likes of Crysis and the likes, but looking at Tom's Hardware performance charts (which I always take a pinch of salt with) there really doesn't seem to be much happening...

So, the 8800GTX is around two years old as far as I can remember (at least it had been out several months before I bought it), and yet there doesn't seem to be anything groundbreaking to report in about or entice me to buy.

Am I right? Or have I been mislead by shakey performance charts? Have I been out of the loop too long? Or am I reading the wrong charts?

Or is it that we're about to, or are already in, a recession? Is there just not enough demand for people wanting to play Crysis on max settings without feeling as though their motherboard is melting under the strain?

Oh wise OCUK...enlighten me either way, please.

 

[Chimerical]

What screen size/resolution are you using?

The GT200 is brand new and awesomely complex. Granted, it isn't hugely better than the chips used in ATI's 48xx cards. Nvidia had massive problems with yields, etc.

I think Nvidia needs 55nm & 40nm to start really bumping up the clocks.

Newer cards are more powerful but like you said they're not drastically different. It isn't like 7900GTX to 8800GTX level of performance gain because basically we're at a second/third generation stage for Unified Shader Architecture cards. Its more of a progression rather than a radical overhaul.

 

[Lonz]

I see.

I'm on 1680x1050 99% of the time. So am I to draw the conclusion that it's a new technology where not all of it's capabilities have been achieved yet? Everything just seems to be dual-core cards and the like.

 

[Chimerical]

If you wait for the 55nm Nvidia GTXs, they should offer higher speed at stock.

280GTXs are awesome cards, but they're overpriced at the moment and you need a 24" to take advantage of them anyway.

If you don't already own Crysis you should buy it (get Warhead) and at least see how it runs on your system. Who knows, you might be happy with the performance?

 

[Lonz]

If you wait for the 55nm Nvidia GTXs, they should offer higher speed at stock.

280GTXs are awesome cards, but they're overpriced at the moment and you need a 24" to take advantage of them anyway.

If you don't already own Crysis you should buy it (get Warhead) and at least see how it runs on your system. Who knows, you might be happy with the performance?

The demo was woeful performance wise. Rarely got over 20FPS on max settings. And I do prefer a bit of eye-candy in my games.

 

[Chimerical]

The demo was woeful performance wise. Rarely got over 20FPS on max settings. And I do prefer a bit of eye-candy in my games.

That's odd, as I run Crysis on High via a 9600GT at 1440x900 (19" screen) with a 2.00GHz E2180 Intel CPU.

However, I was probably getting the same kind of frame rate (20fps or less), but I don't see that as bad performance.

Having said that though, the demo probably just sucks in its own right.

Try the final optimized game (Warhead supposedly runs much better than Crysis 1) possibly, with patches, etc to make a better judgement on your system's performance.

No-one is getting 60fps+ basically. 20-30fps is what everyone (with mid-range systems) expects out of Crysis. Its not like 120fps Call of Duty 4.