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Need to upgrade quick - appreciate advice pls

Gaman

Gaman

Gaman

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Joined
3 Sep 2006
Posts
69
Location
Cardiff
So I was sucked in and done over by deal of the week and am expecting delivery of the Dell 2407WFP very shortly :D

I've been slowly upgrading my rig and currently have an A64 4000+, 6600GT, 1GB RAM and am about to take delivery of a Seasonic M-12 700w (birthday coming up ;) ) Previously my PSU was the major sticking point (330W) and I was looking to move on to RAM next but my low willpower now means that a graphics card is imperative as I want to make the most of my 24" of desktop real estate :eek: :cool:

Gaming is probably my single biggest usage which currently revolves around WoW. My 6600 is obviously going to be woefully inadequate at 1920x1200 but I'm not too sure as to how previous cards I was looking at would handle it, namely mid-range cards like 7900GS. Should I instead be looking at cards in the £300 range or SLI etc? Budget is not really a problem (thankfully Christmas is coming :p ) but I've always been bang for buck orientated.

What I believe I do need is a 512MB, I've always been an nVidia man but expect the time to switch is here as everything I hear points to ATi being better although a bit more expensive.

Normally I would spend a lot of time surfing for the info but time is very short so any help or experiences you could share would really be appreciated!

Thanks
 
I don't know what mobo you have, but I would be seriously tempted to get a BFG GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) (£346 this week special offer) and sell off the 6600GT to claw back some money and still keep you within budget. Since you (and me also) have a monitor with a native resolution of 1920x1200 res, you really need to be playing as close to it as you can without losing image quality...From what I have read, the G80 line do it very well and you have a little more future proofing because they are DX10 ready.

Not sure on your existing ram and mobo, but your PSU will certainly deal with it :)

Hopefully the OCUK GPU dons will step in and give you sound advice.
 
As you're talking WoW, I'd suggest getting a X1950XT 256/512MB, my X1900XT 512MB is currently running WoW on my rig at 1920x1200 most settings maxed, with fps only really dropping right in a fully loaded Lagforge (my server is pretty old so it gets very busy), or when AOE is coming off everything during a 40man raid, and it never drops to so called unplayable fps so for 1920x1200 it'd suit you perfectly, and would only cost about £200, so you could happily keep some money for beer/other upgrade/major overhaul fund. :D
 
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If you fine spending £350, then by all means get a 8800. Otherwise X1900XT, at ideally 512MB, would be the way to go. 7900GS 'might' be a tad underpowered running 1900 x 1200 resolution, but I'll yeild to anyone who has actually tried it.

If only the 7900 GTO was at it's old price then we'd recommend that - but as it is the only very powerful 512MB card on the OCuk site for less than £350, the price has gone up. :(
 
Thanks for the quick replies, thinking about is whilst the BFG is very tempting I think I'm going to plump for the X1900XT as I can then push on with a much needed upgrade to 2GB ram as either my PSU or RAM are preventing me getting a stable OC on my A64 (3Ghz :cool: ) and even if it is the PSU with the addons I use for WoW a 2GB RAM kit will really help ;)

Only thing I'm stuck on is the only ATi 512MB OcUK have is Crossfire edition which is £90 more than the 256MB... so is the 512MB worth it?? :confused:


Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £176

HIS ATI Radeon X1900 ICEQ3 SILENT Heatpipe ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 (PCI-Express) - Retail £264
 
I'd go for the 256MB one at that price differential. They used to have 512MB ones in clearence for £205, but I guess they cleared them! (or those were denting the sales on the x1950Pro which is 'supposed' to be as fast, and so they were removed).
 
Thanks again, going for the X1950XT... was just browsing deal of the week again and found

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 XT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £179

Get in :D :cool:
 
Gaman said:
Thanks again, going for the X1950XT... was just browsing deal of the week again and found

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 XT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £179

Get in :D :cool:
Click to expand...

Good find!!

Might even be worth going for the one that is £20 more with the HIS cooler. quite quiet, if that's important.

Whatever you choose, hope it works out for you.
 
Just as a small word, install the drivers that come with the card, not off the ATI site, as I dont believe x1950XT is officially supported by Catalyst 6.11, the current official release, but will be come 6.12 (December's release).
With decent drivers, the x1950XT 256MB should be 5-10% faster than the x1900XT 256MB, perhaps a bit more as they work on them in official drivers :)
 
Yep noticed the HIS version - was evaluating my rig last night in terms of noise levels. I think it's worth the £20 especially with the new PSU should make things nice and quiet :)

Thanks for the tip Alex - I normally never bother with drivers in the box, saved me a panic during installation when things would've gone south ;)

Off to pull the trigger - thanks for all your help :cool:
 
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