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Nvidia 8800GT Replacement

claytow

claytow

claytow

Associate
Joined
26 Feb 2004
Posts
131
Hi Guys,

Im not an avid gamer, mainly play CS Source but on some maps im only getting 30fps, ive had the 8800GT for what seems like years but as with allot of people moneys not great at the moment.
Can anyone suggest to me what the cheapest card I can get is that is better than what I have please to push my FPS in source up a little.

I do prefer NVIDIA but would take Radeons too.

Thanks very much.
 
8800GT may be dated, but it should really handle source games at ease with high frame rate. If you are getting a bit of low frame rate on source games, you are most likely limited by your CPU rather than your 8800GT.

If you want to be sure, check your GPU usage (use MSI Afterburner) when you are getting 30fps to see if it is anywhere close to 99%...if it's not, your 8800GT are being held back by the CPU in those scenes.
 
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I ran MSI Afterburner and loaded up source, dust2 was playing and I was getting 80-90FPS, just played one round then came out and graph was around 80-90% the whole time woth peaks of 100, is that normal? or does that spell trouble at grafix mill...
 
claytow said:
I ran MSI Afterburner and loaded up source, dust2 was playing and I was getting 80-90FPS, just played one round then came out and graph was around 80-90% the whole time woth peaks of 100, is that normal? or does that spell trouble at grafix mill...
Click to expand...
When GPU is not being load back by the CPU, it should be at 99~100% at the whole time (unless you have vsync enabled). When you get GPU usage dropping lower than that, it means the CPU is not keeping up with the GPU (or think of it as the CPU is not giving the 'work' to the GPU fast enough if you prefer). During those scenes when your GPU usage drop to 80-90%, what it means is that your GPU is not being used fully due to the CPU is not fast enough to make the GPU work at 99~100% load. Upgrading the graphic card won't help with frame rate during those scenes, as the frame rate is being limited by the CPU performance...so for example let's say you got a GTX460 1GB (which is roughly twice the speed of 8800GT) with the CPU and the rest of your system on the same speed and setting, what you likely to see is in those same scenes, the GTX460 1GB would still deliver the same frame rate as the 8800GT at those scenes, but with the difference of the GTX460 1GB's GPU usage being something like 40-50% instead of 8800GT's 80-90%.

If you can overclock your CPU a bit further it would definitely help. Also not to forget that the 8800GT itself got some room for overclocking as well...most would easily do 700MHz or above on the core clock.
What CPU and motherboard are you actually using by the way?
 
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As above, CPU is Quad 6600 2.4 running at 3.0, Mobo is Abit IP35 Pro. It is at stock voltage for that overclock, but temps on load are 64 degrees and not sure how much more I can push it on the cooling that I have.

If I tried to overclock the Grafix card using Afterburner how would I go about it as Ive never done it before, what do I overclock? and in what sort of increments? do I then run a game and check for artefacts or do it some other way?
What is the top temp for a Gfx GPU to get to before its bad..

thanks very much Marine for your explanation it was most helpful.
 
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claytow said:
As above, CPU is Quad 6600 2.4 running at 3.0, Mobo is Abit IP35 Pro. It is at stock voltage for that overclock, but temps on load are 64 degrees and not sure how much more I can push it on the cooling that I have.

If I tried to overclock the Grafix card using Afterburner how would I go about it as Ive never done it before, what do I overclock? and in what sort of increments? do I then run a game and check for artefacts or do it some other way?
What is the top temp for a Gfx GPU to get to before its bad..
Click to expand...
Looking at the following topic, it would seem that some people managed to do 3.2GHz on that board with 400x8:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/244477-11-q6600-abit-ip35-help
Some managed to do it on stock voltage, may be you could too. But if it's not stable for you, then may be you could give the vcore a little bump. As long as the max temp for the CPU is below 70C it would be fine (to be honest Q6600 is a tough chip that probably can handle up to 80C without any harm, but for the peace of mind sake let's just keep the max temp under 70C). Also, as some of the guys mention in that topic that the system might refuse to boot if the memory speed is too high, so keep an eye on that...best bet is to keep it at at 800MHz (CPU 400x8, RAM 400x2).

As for overclocking the 8800GT it is even simpler. In Afterburner you just drag the core clock bar from the stock speed 600MHz to 700MHz, click "apply" and then "save" then select the profile to save to (click one of the 1 to 5 button), and that's it (if crashes in games, just lower the core clock a bit, or of it is stable, you can try put the overclock higher). I'm not sure if the 8800GT allows voltage adjustment...you could try checking the box of "unlock voltage control" and "unlock voltage monitoring" and see it is would unlock the voltage adjust bar. Also, there's an option "apply overclocking at system startup" which you can enable if you prefer, but for myself I prefer manually apply the overclock (click on the profile number and then press apply) after window is fully loaded up first. Also in settings, check the box for "Start with Windows" and "Start minimized" under general properties.

The 8800GT would be fine as long as it is under 90C.
 
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went from 8800GTS (G92) to second hand 4870X2, quite a massive boost in some applications, decent boost in others, depends on how much the game likes Crossfire. but yeah 4870X2 are pretty powerful cards that can be had for quite reasonable prices second-hand, same goes for the GTX 295 which are still pretty fast cards, equal to GTX 480 in a lot of things, again SLI dependant. tons of good second hand cars knocking about! ;)
 
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