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Kanifee

Kanifee

Kanifee

Soldato
Joined
13 May 2007
Posts
7,004
Location
On the wagon, sorta
hi guys my first post and i been doing some wreading aswell lol!
finally decided that its time to upgrade from my barton 2600 and 9800xt so anything i buy is a great performance boost but at the minute my head is spining with the amount that is going on in the pc world.
i havnt kept up closely on the releases that have been coming for the past year or 2 i know core2 duo and am2 have arrived but as far as performance to brand relation im in the dark as i am with dx10 cards and dx9 cards furthermore when we will see dx10 games.
im looking at the price of dx9 cards and there really apealing on the other hand dx10 cards seem a safe bet for the future but if history serves a lesson by the time dx10 games come there will be a whole new line of cards blitzin the 8800's and 2900's.
if i buy a top end dx9 card is it going to cripple me in 12 months and if i buy a dx10 card becasue its not going to be a top end card will it also cripple me in 12 months.
i was thinking about going the sli route and buying a 8600gt so 6 months down the line i could purchase another 8600gt to boost performance a little and a lower price to boot but im unsure about sli it rarely seems better or cheaper to buy two to out perform one and the 8600 doesnt seem to get rave reviews according to a friend.

i know its all down to personel preferance but i need a little guidence :)
any help you could offer would be great wand cheers for taking the time.
 
Welcome to the froums :)

C2D 6420 or 2160
P35 DS3
6400 DDR2


And you can't go far wrong with a 320 MB version 8800 GTS for around 170.

This is a nice balance between price and perfromance.

You don't mention budget,resolution you game at either which fundamentally dictate the hardware you need to buy.

Avoid the 8600 GT.
 
easyrider said:
And you can't go far wrong with a 320 MB version 8800 GTS for around 170.
Click to expand...

You can when the 8800GTS 640MB is £230! :)

Well worth the little bit extra.
 
easyrider said:
All depends on the res you game at.
Click to expand...

Why do people always say this? Its rubbish. Many games that have been out for a while and no doubt more that will come out welcome 512mb or more of vram when chosing the highest resolution textures. I would think if your wanting to spend money on an 8800 it would be nice to be playing games at their full visual splendour.
 
Quick heads up for you Jono, you need to shave a line of text off your sig mate, rules are you're only allowed 4 consecutive lines. :)
 
easyrider said:
Hmm,

If thats the case then get a GTX.
Click to expand...

Well the jump to the 640MB GTS is £50. The jump to the GTX, however, is £180.

It just seems like a small outlay to cover yourself in the event of you picking up a nice big monitor in the future. :)
 
Jono8 said:
Why do people always say this? Its rubbish. Many games that have been out for a while and no doubt more that will come out welcome 512mb or more of vram when chosing the highest resolution textures. I would think if your wanting to spend money on an 8800 it would be nice to be playing games at their full visual splendour.
Click to expand...

This clearly shows you know very little about GFX cards.


If you game at 12x10 you can play games at full detail with a 320MB card just like you can with a 640mb card.

It certain test's the 320MB has shown to be quicker at certain resolutions over the 640MB version.


This is well documented
 
Tute said:
Well the jump to the 640MB GTS is £50. The jump to the GTX, however, is £180.

It just seems like a small outlay to cover yourself in the event of you picking up a nice big monitor in the future. :)
Click to expand...

If you get a monitor and want to game at 1900 + then the GTX is the only choice.

I downgraded from a GTX to a 320MB 8800 and game at 1650x 1080 with no issues.Certainly not enough to warrant spending 350 for this res.

To much emphasis is placed on Ram.

By the time games will need this ram the new cards will be out and the 8800 will be old tech.
 
easyrider said:
This clearly shows you know very little about GFX cards.


If you game at 12x10 you can play games at full detail with a 320MB card just like you can with a 640mb card.

It certain test's the 320MB has shown to be quicker at certain resolutions over the 640MB version.


This is well documented
Click to expand...

resolution is besides the point. I'm talking about texture resolution. for example. I couldnt play graw on my old 256mb 7800gtx with textures at max because it simply stuttered too much. The same with quake 4 on ultra e.t.c.

im certain within the next year games will come out that will require more than 320mb of ram to run at maximum texture settings. I'll eat my hat if i'm wrong. :p
 
It depends on his budget though. My point is that it is far easier to stretch to the 640MB GTS than all the way up to the GTX.

Plus the 640MB GTS is no slouch, it would still tear through frames at an incredible rate, not as fast as the GTX, but it's still a damn fine card. :)

I'd say in most "budgets" it's worth it losing £50 somewhere so you can add it on to pay for the 640MB GTS, however it's far harder to make room for the price of a GTX.
 
hmmm what you all say makes sense budget is tight but the most of my money will be getting poored into the graphics so the 8800 does look appealing i was going to go for either a x1950xt or hold on for a hd2600xt and stay at around the £125/£140 mark wich is what i guess these cards will retail at.
as for res 1360x1024 is about as high as i can go on my 19" so from what u say a 320mb card is about as big as i need is there as much emphasis on cpu power now as there was or is it all on the grfx card as a friend said it isnt as important for gaming as it used to be to have a monster cpu.
way i see it i can cut back a little there and if i dont go the sli route i save £25 on the mobo aswell so that helps im gonna stick in 2gb of ddr2 800 and need to up the psu and a new hard drive to as thats the main driving force for the upgrade my drive is dying and i refuse to spend money on an old dog :)
im buying from a shop as i cant order off the net (no credit card :()
so im looking to spend about £400
i know its tight but its just about doable i know ill get a little discount so it all helps lol.
 
If it were me, then I'd:

Get an E2160 due to high multi which means you can run slower RAM in 1:1.
Get 2GB of whatever the cheapest PC5300/5400 (666Mhz) RAM is as this will be fast enough.
Get a half decent motherboard with either the 965P, 975X or 650i chipset (whichever is cheapest) but make sure the board has a fair overclocking reputation (for overclocking the chip, not the board as I wouldn't exceed 1333Mhz really) and good bios options.
Get a paypal account and do a second hand DX9 card (x1900xt(x)/x1950xt(x) or 7900gt/gto/gtx) or go for the 8800GTS 320MB.

Graphics will have more of an impact in my situation as gaming is the main use for my PC (and folding - see distributed computing projects area of OCUK forums).
 
No point spending £230 on a 640mb GTS then getting rid around October/November time for the new cards, thats just wasting money, he's best of spending as little as he can for now, so may as well just get the 320mb GTS to tide him over till then, will easily cope for another 4-5 months. :)
 
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easyrider said:
I downgraded from a GTX to a 320MB 8800 and game at 1650x 1080 with no issues.Certainly not enough to warrant spending 350 for this res.
Click to expand...

I have been considering doing this myself. Personally I am not too worried about running at high res textures as I hardly notice a diff between med/high (just don't have the keenest eyes).

So you reckon it is a worthy option to run games well until end of year, after having the performance offered by the GTX?

Could probably do with the extra £100 or so I could pocket!
 
im getting a much better reply than i thaught i would and its starting to help clear things upa little i suppose pc's will never change what ever i buy will be old fashioned by the time i cross the shop door but i like the idea of spending as little as possible for now and then blow out at christmas.
 
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