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upgrade from a 8800GT

davethe11

davethe11

davethe11

Associate
Joined
3 Feb 2008
Posts
2,247
Location
uk
hi folks, my system specs:

E2200 @ 2.8GHz
4GB OCZ 1066 @ 1000 MHz
Corsair HX 620W psu
Gainward Bliss 8800GT Golden Sample 512MB (670, 1675, 971)

1920 x 1200 resolution gaming


I play Civ V, Star Wars TOR, LoTRO and play a few fps games but mainly I've really started noticiing SWTOR struggling a bit (I don't like reducing resolution tbh), so I was wondering what graphics card may be a good upgrade.

I would love a 2500k setup, but it's not gonna happen for a little while, so I would like an upgrade for the system as is (maybe a new cpu if I can find a cheap second hand one). Budget is up to £150, will only go over this if there are substantial advantages (how long is a piece of string lol).

many thanks for any suggestions guys
 
Any 560ti would be a good upgrade, as would a 6950 if you can stretch that far. Might be an idea to hold on for a few more weeks though, some cards may come down in price once the 7 series cards come on stream.
 
thanks MissChief, I may upgrade my cpu if I can pick up a Q6600 second hand on MM, then invest in a card. If so my budget may come down to £120 ish, what card would be best in this range at my resolution, and how would it compare to 560ti's? I would like games to run with higher textures and a little AA, but I like smooth frame rates over any gloss at the end of the day.
 
For £120 you're looking in the range of the GTX460 (the suerclocked version is great) and the 6850 (may marginaly be better for pure gaming).
 
At 1920x1200 you are in the 2gb VRAM zone but only for a handful of titles, none of which you are currently playing. Like me you seem to upgrade your gfx card every 2-4 years, my thinking was I'll have my next card for some time so I'm going for 2gb.

Basically I would recommend the 6950 or 560TI 2gb versions, about £50 over your budget but not so much on the MM.

If that's going to far then a 560/560TI or a 6850/6870/5870 all with 1gb of VRAM.

If it was down to my choice I would have an MSI 6870 Hawk or TFII edition, sadly no longer sold on OCUK.
 
Thanks for the advice chaps, am I right in saying that the 460 are quite power hungry? I thought I read that somewhere but not sure (I have a corsair HX 620W). Future proofing may be the way to go, like you rightly say I don't upgrade very often so an investment in a 2gb card is a possibility. I think I'll begin with a cpu upgrade and then decide on a gfx card. Plenty of food for thought, thanks very much for everyone's advice.
 
I've got an overclocked GTX460 1gb and I'm running it on a Corsair 430W power supply with an i5 2500k overclocked with no problems. Your power supply is fine
 
thanks bsheep9, I'm impressed you've got that running on a 430W, the i5's are quite power efficient I take it? My knowledge is a good few years old so I'm just scratching up a little at the mo. How does an 2500k compare to, say, a Q6600 in gaming terms? Are there only a few games that really need them? (BF3 etc?).
 
I've borrowed a GTX560 and that works fine also on the corsair 430W.

I'm not sure about the Q6600, but I was using a core2duo e6300 @ 1.86ghz with the GTX460 before I upgraded to an i5 2500k. The difference was amazing, bf3 on lowest settings was giving me 18-25fps on multiplayer, I can now play it on high with around 60fps! Deus Ex: HR was 20-30fps on high before, now 60+ on ultra for example.
 
I used to have a setup almost the same as that although mine was the slightly slower e2180 but clocked to 3.2ghz. I started to find games becoming quite hit or miss. Many games any old 3ghz dual-core was enough but others really needed a quad. GTA 4 being the main example.

I went from the 8800gt to a GTX 260 to a GTX 460. Quite a big upgrade each time but it might be worth reading some CPU benchmarks for the games you want to play before you spend any money. I stupidly replaced the e2180 for yet another dual-core, an e8500 @4ghz but then bought this i5 setup 2 years ago this month. Haven't looked at a benchmark since apart from the odd 5 minutes when a new CPU gets released. Not that bothered now even 2 years in:).
 
davethe11 said:
thanks MissChief, I may upgrade my cpu if I can pick up a Q6600 second hand on MM, then invest in a card. If so my budget may come down to £120 ish, what card would be best in this range at my resolution, and how would it compare to 560ti's? I would like games to run with higher textures and a little AA, but I like smooth frame rates over any gloss at the end of the day.
Click to expand...

The 5870 is a great comparable card to an NVIDIA 560.

At the moment a Radeon 5870 will cost about £180-£200 but as mentioned previously when the 7 series comes out it could drop below your £120 mark

If you can if not try and stretch to a 6950
 
as much as I would love an i5 setup, it's cpu, mobo, ram, and gfx, which I can't do. It's the old choice of throwing a little money at old tech vs spending more on a future proofed system for another 3+ years. But if I can get a decent 775 quad with a decent overclock with a decent new gfx card, then at least the gfx card can carry over to a completely new build in the future.

If the ati cards do drop in price as speculated then this could be the time for me to invest, I suspect a few sales on the MM at this time too. The games I play aren't particularly cpu intensive (maybe Civ V, but I'm sure that game is just poorly optimised), but replacing my E2200 will be my first step I think. Thanks again for all your advice and help :)
 
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