Beatin' the Dead Horse (GFX card suggestions)

Discussion in 'Tech Talk' started by Sogetsu, Mar 10, 2010.

  1. Sogetsu
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    Hey XoO Tech-gurus,

    I know this has been talked about a lot in various threads, but I wanted to isolate it and ask more specifically.

    As some of you know (maybe like.. a handful) I have about a 1.5 - 2 year machine.
    Its great, it still runs older games good:
    (ran Aion great at medium to high ~70-100fps,
    WoW runs/ran at about 30-40fps in crowded areas on high,
    TF2 ran at about 60fps on medium to high)

    I'm really going to be needing to upgrade soon,
    but I'm slightly tight on money (not too bad).

    I have a core2duo 3.0ghz processor right now and a good Gigabyte mobo board.
    Running XP (Yeah I know, but Win 7 Pro is around 170$ - I'll get to it eventually)
    with the 3.3g cap of my 4 gigs of Ram. 8800gt 512mb eVGA card.

    Honestly, I think right now I'm going to upgrade slowly but surely, piece by piece,
    so I want to start with a new GFX card.

    I use to be an ATi guy, I had a 9800 and an x800 back in the day - solid cards.
    Switched to nVidia with my 7900gto and then my 8800.

    I've been reading a lot of Tom's, and other various hardware sites and been checking out these articles a lot
    (Graphics Cards of the Month - Hiearchy charts):
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2569-6.html

    I really don't want to switch to ATi, blame my slight fanboyism / nVidia security blanket -
    but the price/performance has been favoring the ATi cards the past few
    months it seems but I hear 'bad' things about ATi drivers, etc (aside from nVidia's latest fiasco).

    I'm looking to spend around $200 on a card, I have a 550w power supply, don't want to run SLI/X-fire really and
    I've been looking between the GTX 260 series and/or
    the Radeon 5770 (based upon that hiearchy chart up there and other articles).

    Sorry about the long post, thanks if you made it this far

    Any suggestions, constructive insights/advice - facts or experiences
    to help me solidify my decisions?
    I know nVidia's releasing their new cards
    probably at the end of the month, but they are going to have a limited supply
    and thus probably won't affect prices too much, and I know I won't be able
    to afford the new cards, so that's kinda out of the question.
     
  2. ss_hype
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    Well it looks like the ATI card is much cheaper and you have a much larger pool to choose from (at least on newegg.com) than the 260 GTX. The performance is about equal. ATI drivers have gotten much better in the past couple years. My friend has the top of the line ATI card and loves it right now. (5870 i think?) Hope this helps in your decision.
     
  3. Vandiego
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    Can you give me the model of your mobo?
     
  4. Vandiego
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    FYI if you have no USB devices, you can still run your GTX260 on a 550W PSU

    I did a generic build for you:
    Desktop Mobo
    3.0 DCx2
    4 sticks of DDR2
    GTX260
    1 HDD
    1 Optical
    4 Fans

    And I'm getting just over 500W PSU minimum consumption.
     
  5. EF2
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    ATI all the way
     
  6. Sogetsu
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    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128082

    Was going to upgrade to the Corsair 650w / 750w PSU eventually.
    They had the 650w on sell last week but I wasn't fast enough to grab it.

    P.S. Van - when will you be available next week to talk on Vent?
    I'd like to jot some things down and talk a bit easier. I'm off Mon-Tues next week.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2010
  7. Rubius
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    GTX 260 is only slightly better than an 8800GTX (as in 2-4 more FPS). The 260 uses a smaller die so produces less heat and requires less power.

    So since you've got an 8800GT, what I'm saying is you won't get a phenomenal upgrade, but enough to notice a difference. Think going from an 8800GT to an 8800GTX.

    Personally I'd get either an ATi 5870, GTX285 or GTX295. They cost more though :p

    Just a quick note, a single USB device can only use up to 2.5W of power, so it's pretty negligible unless you have more than 5 of them.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2010
  8. Sogetsu
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    Yeah, I don't really want to spend $300+ on a Graphics card.
    The 260 has more processing power (218 as opposed to 112), albeit similar clock rates
    - so I thought it would perform a bit better.

    The 8800 is a great card, one of nVidia's best.
    I just feel that I won't be able to run games very well (such as BC2 whenever I get it)
    and all my other pieces of hardware seem to be 'decent'.
     
  9. Rubius
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    I'll be trying my 8800GTX against a new configuration soon. I'll let you know if it performs well with BFBC2.
     
  10. Vandiego
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    Well your mobo can run a Yorkfield without any issues if you can find a 9770 I'd get that since they can OC up to 3.7ghz but the 9650's are really nice too:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115130&cm_re=QX9650-_-19-115-130-_-Product

    You'll need to update your Bios for a Yorkfield though, it was a release back in 08.

    Sucks that you can't do SLI with your mobo a second GPU would probably do wonders for you at this point.

    So yea, if you want a significant improvement, the 260 probably won't be the way to go, it's a simple situation of you get what you pay for, are you looking for a band-aid or a cast?

    Make sure all your components are operating at the same speed a 1600 GPU and RAM don't do crap if your board is only seeing 800. It's all relative, figure out where your choke point is and upgrade that first.
     
  11. Vandiego
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    Well, I'd assume most people have at least 2 to 5 USB devices now, heck I have 6 going on this machine alone. All the same I still wouldn't feel overly comfortable having only 50W of cushion. That number I got was the minimum required amount, I don't know how much it'd ramp up on a heavily taxed machine.

    Also, Sog, upgrading from a 550 to a 650 isn't an upgrade. A PSU is a 5 to 10 year investment, treat it as such it will last you for multiple cases and upgrades, if you're planning on running SLI in the future anything less than a 1k W PSU is just a waste. Consider you're comparing 100 for a 650 vs 150 for a 1k, long term it's in your best interest.
     
  12. Sogetsu
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    Thanks for the help everyone.

    Well your mobo can run a Yorkfield without any issues if you can find a 9770 I'd get that since they can OC up to 3.7ghz but the 9650's are really nice too:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115130&cm_re=QX9650-_-19-115-130-_-Product

    Other than having to buy a new mobo, hence why you linked that up there to
    help me utilize what parts I'm currently using (which I appreciate), would it be
    a better long-term investment to just buy a new board and one of the i7's? (920, i.e.)

    If that was the case.. Thanks again.
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2010
  13. Vandiego
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    Well the problem is if you're going to upgrade your mobo, you have to upgrade everything else, which can obviously be costly. You'll need new RAM and a CPU I'm assuming you'd go after a DDR3 board.