"Upgrading" 8800 GTS.

growly89 · 9 Jul 2013 at 15:56

I'm not sure this is even possible with my budget, I've been looking for myself but I've just come to a grinding halt and decided i actually need some help. By the looks of things on my budget i can't upgrade at all :eek:

For anyone that wouldn't mind helping me out my budget, well it's questionable for now as I've literally no money only what's in my PayPal (£30, losing your job sucks). And perhaps more if everything sells well on eBay. But in this case if it's at all possible I'd like to just "Pretend" that the PayPal balance is all i have (As the money from eBay sales would come in handy elsewhere). Is it possible to upgrade my 8800 GTS with only a £30 budget? System is running an i3 550 @ ~3.2, 8GB ram. I had my heart set on a GTX 780 until Sh!t hit the fan, scaled back to what i thought was being realistic to the 680, shortly the 650 because of events and such....but couldn't even find a decent one at a 2nd hand price.

TLDR; Need an upgrade for around the £30 if at all possible, max stretch is £50. System: i3, 8gb ram. Needs to: Handle daily streaming without overheating or causing too much fps issues (my 8800 handles fine for streaming but gets far too hot). I'm not concerned about low-med-high settings as it needs to be scaled for streaming anyway.

linktoinsanity · 9 Jul 2013 at 16:27

Something like an ATI 6670? I have one of these in my work PC, which I got for £35, nothing spectacular but gets decent fps in World of Tanks over my lunch break and does everything else fine. Basically, something around the ATI 6670 or equivalent NVidia should do the job.

Bad luck on losing your job mate. I wish you all the best in finding a new one.

teppic · 9 Jul 2013 at 16:38

Your best bet for ~£30 is the 6670, as above. It'll outperform your card and run cool.

You may find a second hand 6770 for about £40, and maybe a 7750 for just under £50.

arc@css · 9 Jul 2013 at 16:41

Yeah, a second hand 6670 GDDR5 version is a good shout.

growly89 · 9 Jul 2013 at 16:47

Chuffed with the fast replies, and thanks Insanity

Tonester0011 · 9 Jul 2013 at 16:49

I bought a 5770 not so long ago for £35, should perform slightly better than the 6670.

growly89 · 9 Jul 2013 at 17:08

N'aww only trouble is i can't seem to find any of the cards mentioned at a decent price

Perhaps im looking in the wrong places?

teppic · 9 Jul 2013 at 17:11

You will have more luck on various forums - ebay is often ridiculously overpriced for these cards. The 6670 is probably the most available as it's still on sale.

synixx · 9 Jul 2013 at 17:56

For £50 you could get a second hand 6850 and for £30 a second hand 5770.

growly89 · 9 Jul 2013 at 19:23

This just went on sale Leadtek WinFast Nvidia GTX 650 1024MB GDDR5 AT £64 delivered and with 3 year warranty.
Not heard of leadtek but a 650 was the card that i set out to stretch for if possible. Is £60 the lowest i'll see it? And is leadtek any good? Thanks for your answers so far been looking hard on forums for the cards mentioned lol

Holdon Tight · 9 Jul 2013 at 19:46

Know how you feel mate, I lost my job a while ago. Got one now, however I have a gtx 460 sat doing nothing......

teppic · 9 Jul 2013 at 20:05

£64 isn't bad for a 650. I'd prefer to go with a 7770, it's a much better card. They tend to be £80 new though, but second hand may come down to £50.

Thumpsta · 9 Jul 2013 at 20:43

Does the 7770 from here get the games that you could sell?

Menty · 9 Jul 2013 at 20:56

growly89 said:
This just went on sale Leadtek WinFast Nvidia GTX 650 1024MB GDDR5 AT £64 delivered and with 3 year warranty.
Not heard of leadtek but a 650 was the card that i set out to stretch for if possible. Is £60 the lowest i'll see it? And is leadtek any good? Thanks for your answers so far been looking hard on forums for the cards mentioned lol

I had a Leadtek 8800GT some years ago and it was very good.
Not sure what Leadtek are like these days though.

growly89 · 9 Jul 2013 at 21:05

Thumpsta said:
Does the 7770 from here get the games that you could sell?

It seems that farcry 3 comes free with a 7770 but not sure which, as it doesnt say

teppic · 9 Jul 2013 at 21:09

If the 7770 came with the mega bundle you'd be sorted.

I think as you had your heart set on a high end card, I would look for a 7750 at least, overclocked it'll give nice performance. If you're willing to go to £65 you're bound to find a second hand 7770, maybe even 7790.

growly89 · 9 Jul 2013 at 23:05

Looks like the aim would be the 7770, it beats a standard GTX 650 by a long shot runs cooler and demands a whole lot less power. And it's not massively out-beaten by the 650 Ti. With that in mind getting the 7770 i would gain more than i had initially set out for(from the 650). And it's worthless spending a lot more to gain very little in terms of the jump from the 7770 to the Ti, so i think i shall save up my pennies for a 7770 thanks everyone for your answers and help

and yeah it's taken since my initial post to come to this conclusion....too busy playing games xD

growly89 · 10 Jul 2013 at 18:11

Spotted a HD 7770 black edition super over clocked 1GB DDR5 which im currently in talks with the buyer about, hoping to part ex some stuff toward it aswell as some cash

Is the XFX 7770 black edition a good bet

?
Im excited! Hopefully he wants a wide screen Acer monitor haha

teppic · 10 Jul 2013 at 18:20

It's hard to go wrong with a 7770, they're low power enough to run cool and fast.

Hope you get it, it'd be a good upgrade, and will let you play most games at 1080p at medium to high settings.

teppic · 10 Jul 2013 at 18:25

Here's a bit of reading for you

In Skyrim the XFX R7770 Black Edition was able to use no less than 4X MSAA plus FXAA turned on at 1920x1200 with smooth performance. This was with the new high resolution texture pack installed as well as the latest 1.4 version patch. The level of image quality at 1920x1200 with 4X MSAA plus FXAA was spectacular.

In Deus Ex: Human Revolution no video card was able to play the game at 2560x1600 with the highest in-game settings. The game was laggy, sluggish and downright unpleasant at 2560x1600. However, at 1920x1200 every video card was able to play this game at the highest possible in-game quality settings. We had SSAO turned on to the highest level and FXAA turned on as well. The XFX R7770 Black Edition performed extremely well, averaging near 50fps and delivering a great experience.

Finally, NFS: The Run played equally among the video cards as well. This game uses the Frostbite 2 engine, same as BF3. We ended up getting similar results as BF3 by being able to run at 1920x1200 with FXAA and all ultra settings. The XFX R7770 Black Edition gave us plenty of performance to run this game well at 1080p.

(hardocp review)