Just don't know what to do

Jono8 · 21 May 2007 at 19:45

Hi guys

I am in a predicament.My rig is an amd x2 4400,k8n-sli pro,1.5 gigs of ram,hiper 580w modular,with a 7800gtx.

I built it over a year and a half ago and it still plays games very well,however i am a bit of a graphics junky and it simply can't handle some of the more modern games (rainbow six:vegas,oblivion,medieval 2,graw) with all the options ramped up and high image quality settings.

I would like to get one of the 8800's, but im not sure which one. I will mainly be gaming at 1280x1024 but with lots of AA and AF. The 320mb gts is the obvious budget choice but i'm worried about games needing big amounts of vram for textures like ghost recon. Is the performance difference between the 640mb gts and the gtx worth the £125 ish price difference?

Also i don't want to suffer like i did with the 7800gtx when nvidia released the 7900 series soon after which was smaller faster and quieter and overall better. Should i perhaps wait for the 8900's?

I have a budget of about £200-£250 but i would be willing to save and wait if it was worth it.

Any advice would be handy

Cheers

JT

Indy500 · 21 May 2007 at 19:47

I guess the obvious solution would be 2GB of ram and an 8800GTS.

Greenboi · 21 May 2007 at 19:50

Well i game at 1280x1024 and have a 320mb GTS, i think its awesome..

Play oblivion on max, TDU on max, BF2, HL2, neverwinter nights 2, dark messiah all on max with at least 4xAA and 8xAF (in games like NWN2 which seems to just lag at times)

Very good card, if your budget doesn't allow for a 640mb id just get one of the higher end 320mb models

Hope this helped

Jono8 · 21 May 2007 at 19:51

Also will i see a huge performance difference going from a 7800gtx to a 8800 gts?

Greenboi · 21 May 2007 at 19:54

Jono8 said:
Also will i see a huge performance difference going from a 7800gtx to a 8800 gts?

Huge difference, i went from a high oc'd 7800gs and the difference was rather good!

Jono8 · 21 May 2007 at 19:56

Greenboi said:
Huge difference, i went from a high oc'd 7800gs and the difference was rather good!

Sweet. Do you think my x2 4400 will be ok with it?

jaykay · 21 May 2007 at 20:00

If you oc it to about 2.7ghz it should be fine.

Greenboi · 21 May 2007 at 20:00

dont see why not, though i noticed a huge difference when i started to overclock my E6300.. maybe if you overclocked you would squeeze more performance out of it, i got quite a big increase by overclocking my cpu, either way you will be happy, im sure

Jono8 · 21 May 2007 at 20:08

Ok so i'm thinking at the moment the 8800gts 640mb (mainly because i don't want to be stuck for vram in future large textured games). They are about £225 which is perfect for my budget. My only worry now is that nvidia may release the 8900 series fairly imminently?

Greenboi · 21 May 2007 at 20:09

If i recall theres a thread further down the page thats says when theyre expected out... i think its like oct? someone correct me if im wrong but i think thats when theyre said to be coming out..

Jono8 · 21 May 2007 at 20:12

Greenboi said:
If i recall theres a thread further down the page thats says when theyre expected out... i think its like oct? someone correct me if im wrong but i think thats when theyre said to be coming out..

Hm, October? that is a while. Do you think the performance increase in the 8900 will be big?

Hedge · 21 May 2007 at 20:21

Jono8 said:
Hm, October? that is a while. Do you think the performance increase in the 8900 will be big?

I think if you were to resell your card shortly before, you wouldnt really lose a massive amount

Jono8 · 21 May 2007 at 20:22

Hedge said:
I think if you were to resell your card shortly before, you wouldnt really lose a massive amount

True. But i would imagine trying to resell it would be difficult

Jono8 · 22 May 2007 at 18:42

Ok ive found an 8800gts overclocked to 570mhz core and 1800mhz memory (pretty much gtx clock speeds) at a good price. will this be very near a gtx's performance, or at least close the gap 5-10 %?

Gerard · 22 May 2007 at 18:46

Jono8 said:
Ok ive found an 8800gts overclocked to 570mhz core and 1800mhz memory (pretty much gtx clock speeds) at a good price. will this be very near a gtx's performance, or at least close the gap 5-10 %?

Think it would be practically the same, afaik the stream proccessors don;t do anything untill dx10 games make use of them, dont think dx9 can make use of them.

Jono8 · 22 May 2007 at 18:49

Gerard said:
Think it would be practically the same, afaik the stream proccessors don;t do anything untill dx10 games make use of them, dont think dx9 can make use of them.

Interesting. I mean its is a £125 difference between this gts and the gtx so i just don't know whether its worth it.

Greenboi · 22 May 2007 at 19:01

Check my sig, i have beaten stock GTX's on 3d mark tests before now, it mostly depends on res, if you play at a higher res the gtx will come out on top...by far

Darkwave · 22 May 2007 at 19:03

Gerard said:
Think it would be practically the same, afaik the stream proccessors don;t do anything untill dx10 games make use of them, dont think dx9 can make use of them.

The GTX is still a whole different monster even if you match clocks.

Squink · 22 May 2007 at 19:05

Jono8 said:
Interesting. I mean its is a £125 difference between this gts and the gtx so i just don't know whether its worth it.

The GTX is a nuts card. Quite often you'll see a big price and small performance gap between the top card and the second top card. The GTX costs lots more but in the right game you are certainly getting what you pay for.

Jono8 · 22 May 2007 at 19:11

Hm, Well i'm stumped at what to do :confused: