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What's the state of play?

tophee

tophee

tophee

Associate
Joined
12 May 2005
Posts
460
Location
Cambridge, or somewhere else in the world
Hi,

I'm seriously considering upgrading my GPU as it is badly out of date. I'm fairly ambivalent to the red/green thing and I haven't been following the latest cards very closely. I'm not a massive FPS player, but Bioshock has got my interest and when it finally arrives - Alan Wake. So DX10 is a must.

I am aware that when released the 2900xt was not performing particularly well and Nvidia were well and truly in the lead. I also hear that the latest 7.9's from ati have improved the situation immensely. As I'm not going to be gaming at high resolution - I'm running a 1440x900 screen, what is going to give me the best performance at this resolution. I suspect there is no point in going top of the range.

Now, I'm running Vista 64 Ultimate, on a not very amazing computer. It is an intel Pentium D @ 3ghz, Abit AW8 mobo, 2g DDR2 corsair ram with an ati X800gt graphics card. Not very amazing at all - but it was all free! - I put theses bits in my akasa Eclipse. So it looks at least half decent as it's water cooled too (Zalman Reserator1 v2 so silent and sexy) Never the less, once I start upgrading bits it'll be quite a good system!

What would my best buy be?

Regards
 
HD2900XT.:p ;)

My mate just got one and for christ sake, not sure why people are saying its loud. Wow you can barely hear it and thats a first hand experiance of the card. Fantastic card. Especially since he got it for £200.:D
 
Last edited:
tophee said:
Hi,

I'm seriously considering upgrading my GPU as it is badly out of date. I'm fairly ambivalent to the red/green thing and I haven't been following the latest cards very closely. I'm not a massive FPS player, but Bioshock has got my interest and when it finally arrives - Alan Wake. So DX10 is a must.

I am aware that when released the 2900xt was not performing particularly well and Nvidia were well and truly in the lead. I also hear that the latest 7.9's from ati have improved the situation immensely. As I'm not going to be gaming at high resolution - I'm running a 1440x900 screen, what is going to give me the best performance at this resolution. I suspect there is no point in going top of the range.

Now, I'm running Vista 64 Ultimate, on a not very amazing computer. It is an intel Pentium D @ 3ghz, Abit AW8 mobo, 2g DDR2 corsair ram with an ati X800gt graphics card. Not very amazing at all - but it was all free! - I put theses bits in my akasa Eclipse. So it looks at least half decent as it's water cooled too (Zalman Reserator1 v2 so silent and sexy) Never the less, once I start upgrading bits it'll be quite a good system!

What would my best buy be?

Regards
Click to expand...

What PSU are you running on? It might have to be the first thing you upgrade. CPU/GPU, which ever one you upgrade first the other one will be holding you back a lot. The 2900pro is around the corner and could be very good. The 8800gts 320mb seems very popular here on the board.
 
My current psu is... a Tagan 480w. I think.

I get the impression from the two replies that at the resolution I'm talking about, there is nothing in it?

Oh, and yeah, cpu + mobo upgrade in the new year.
 
1440x900 is prime 8800GTS 320 territory. 2900PRO might be a good alternative, but it's still an unknown at the moment. I'd want to see some reviews before I committed to the 2900.

If you're not in a particular hurry, wait for the reviews. If you need something right now, then it's got to be the GTS320.
 
If your going to get a card go for the 8800GTS 640 or the HD2900XT.

Depending on how long your wanting to keep the card, i wouldent even think about getting the 8800 GTS 320. It may be ok for the next few months but soon after that it will start to stuggle with the lack of memory.

Your Tagen PSU should be fine powering a 8800GTS 640. Not quite sure about the HD2900XT though.
 
Zalman Reserator1 uses very little power?

The 2900 drivers have improved quiet a bit so the early reviews probably aren't a good way of judging the card. There should be new reviews of the 2900pro, and probably 2900xt to compare, in the new week or so.

The new GPU's are due out at about the same time you are thinking of upgrading your CPU/mobo. Maybe you should consider buying a 1950pro or similar until then(~£90 from Ocuk) as you will be CPU limited anyway. Even if you go for a 8800/2900 in the new year the price should have dropped covering a lot of the price of the 1950, and you can always get cash back for reselling it.
 
If I were you then I'd wait to see what these X2900 Pro's are capable off first. They will be £170 to start with but I think they could drop to around £150 after a few weeks out (maybe).

If they can get to 2900XT speeds then it will be the best buy for you I think. At 1440x900 the 8800GTS320mb version is well capable of handling games. The X2900XT is slightly faster than the 320mb and 640mb version in the mainly used DirectX9 titles so if the 2900Pro can nearly match that then for your resolution the 2900Pro would be the best buy.

The 8800 series are the better performing cards in DX10 just now but with DX10 hardly being used it's not something to worry about as both companies (AMD/ATI - Nvidia) are still perfecting the drivers.

Wait for a good review on these 2900Pro's after the release which should be in 10 days.
 
Perhaps I'll wait a few weeks. I thin the smart thing is to wait for the 2900Pros. I've probably got more than enough other things to be spending my money on - rewiring the house, central heating....

Perhaps I should get a stopgap gpu. Or just wait until the games I want come out.

Owenb... don't understand the question? It is watercooling the pc and has nothing to do with the psu?
 
Right, ignored ;)
Now the more I think about it the more I want to upgrade the whole rig.... I like the sound of quad core... no... must wait. Will wait.
Will try to stay on topic too :D
 
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