Upgrade: PII 940 BE or GTX 260

Upgrade: PII 940 BE or GTX 260

  • Total voters
    27
D

Darknyt

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 10, 2004
Messages
400
Long story short, I'm at pretty much EOL on my M2N32-SLI deluxe and looking for a last hurrah.

Proc and card are close to the same price so I'm trying to decide which to upgrade first.

I mainly game and shrink dvd's on this, would be nice to get GTA IV fps up some and it never hurts to speed up DVD Shrink.

So let me know which way you vote, would I see a bigger gain in gaming by upgrading from 4600 to 940 or from 8800 GTS 640 to GTX 260. Encoding is no doubt a nod to the 940.
 
Go for the 940.

I upgraded personally from X2 4000 --> Phenom II 720 x3.

Difference was HUGE, and I really think that X2 4600 will bottle neck your GTX 260.

Perhaps save cash by going with the 720 to add for the 260 funds? Unless you need quad core.
 
+1 for the 940. While long in the tooth, your 8800GTS 640 is still viable at lower resolutions.
 
940 quad will help with shrinking/encoding dvds + boost in gaming.

8800 640 isn't THAT old.
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
+1 for the 940. While long in the tooth, your 8800GTS 640 is still viable at lower resolutions.
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You make a good point I forgot to clarify (though those sharper among us can figure out from my sig).

I game at 1680x1050 on a 20". That isn't likely to change anytime soon (not only monitor cost but rig upkeep to game at higher rez). Plus, (the horror!) I already have a 24" iMac downstairs as the "family" box for all-around use. Don't judge me - it was a gift from a brother with more $ than technical sense.
 
Darknyt said:
Long story short, I'm at pretty much EOL on my M2N32-SLI deluxe and looking for a last hurrah.

Proc and card are close to the same price so I'm trying to decide which to upgrade first.

I mainly game and shrink dvd's on this, would be nice to get GTA IV fps up some and it never hurts to speed up DVD Shrink.

So let me know which way you vote, would I see a bigger gain in gaming by upgrading from 4600 to 940 or from 8800 GTS 640 to GTX 260. Encoding is no doubt a nod to the 940.
Click to expand...

Going from a 6400+ BE to a p2 940 was a HUGE difference in gaming and multitasking.

You can expect it to double or even triple the performance of a 4600+

Have fun with your p2 940 :)
 
I made that same desicion a short while a go, I went for CPU.
New GPU's are around the corner and I'd rather just wait it out till they launch.
GTAIV is playable on Medium settings with the rig in my Sig (also using an 8800GTS).
 
I think you might be taking a gamble with a 940 since it's not listed, and neither is support for ANY Phenom II for your specific mobo and chipset in general.
I wouldn't fork out the cash unless I knew I was covered.
 
DASHlT said:
Going from a 6400+ BE to a p2 940 was a HUGE difference in gaming and multitasking.

You can expect it to double or even triple the performance of a 4600+

Have fun with your p2 940 :)
Click to expand...


i second that.. i want from a 6400+ BE @ 3.5ghz to the phenom II 940.. im using an 8800GT.. at stock speeds on the phenom II my frame avg frame rate went up 15-20fps in all my games.. when i overclocked my cpu to 3.5ghz my avg frame rate went up another 5fps in most of the multi-threaded games.. its well worth the upgrade.. at your resolution the 8800GTS is still a good card and should last you a little bit longer til you can afford a gtx 260 or ATI 4850/70..

getting a better frame rate in GTA4 is a waste.. it wont happen and the cost to even get 5 more fps isnt worth it for such a crappy console ported to pc game..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
i second that.. i want from a 6400+ BE @ 3.5ghz to the phenom II 940.. im using an 8800GT.. at stock speeds on the phenom II my frame avg frame rate went up 15-20fps in all my games.. when i overclocked my cpu to 3.5ghz my avg frame rate went up another 5fps in most of the multi-threaded games.. its well worth the upgrade.. at your resolution the 8800GTS is still a good card and should last you a little bit longer til you can afford a gtx 260 or ATI 4850/70..

getting a better frame rate in GTA4 is a waste.. it wont happen and the cost to even get 5 more fps isnt worth it for such a crappy console ported to pc game..
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Yea I agree, if you want better framerate in GTA4 for the PC, Dont bother upgrading, buy a xbox 360 and the game...
 
DASHlT said:
Yea I agree, if you want better framerate in GTA4 for the PC, Dont bother upgrading, buy a xbox 360 and the game...
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Lol, I wouldn't be to increase the fps in one game or even just games alone. This would apply across the board to all the games I'm playing - Crysis, CWH, Far Cary 2, FEAR 2, UT3, CD4, finishing Bioshock, etc, etc.

I'm an eye-candy whore so I'd like to push up details as much as I can on 1680x1050. I just know a 260 would be drug down by my 4600.

I'm leaning towards the 940 as I was when I started this poll. It's nice to see confirmation of that though. Selling my old stuff will help with the pain somewhat.
 
alg7_munif said:
PII 720 + HD 4770
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That's a little . . . peasant . . . for my palate :)

To give you an idea, I last upgraded in Oct 2006. I don't plan on waiting that long again necessarily, but that suggestion above wouldn't last very long I think.

I don't know if my pride would let me buy a $99 card. . .
 
altcon said:
I think you might be taking a gamble with a 940 since it's not listed, and neither is support for ANY Phenom II for your specific mobo and chipset in general.
I wouldn't fork out the cash unless I knew I was covered.
Click to expand...

True, not listed. But far and away the results are success. I've checked around lots of forums and found very few people who tried and failed.
 
I've confirmed personally that the 940 will work on that board as long as you run the latest BIOS version. I was able to OC mine to 3.6GHz on a 90mm fan 3-heatpipe tower cooler using the board when I did my test runs. I don't own M2N32-SLI myself but did the testing on a friend's board when he was considering a similar upgrade.

But really, alg7_munif who suggested 720BE and HD 4770 is on to something...If you're on monitor 24" or smaller this setup should rock.
 
You guys are gonna laugh at me . . . .

I had decided to go for the 940 first and was even shopping around for it.

But I ran across a poster on here who put up a link to a Fry's sale that ended today for an EVGA GTX 260 Superclocked for only $150 AR.

I jumped.

It's running in my box now and I'm just about to jump into Far Cry 2 and take her for a spin.

I'm sure I will pick up the 940 BE shortly now and just justify it to myself somehow. After almost 3 years, I sure as hell deserve an upgrade by now. I figure I'll get around 70-80 tops maybe for my old card on ebay (been tracking them and have some free games to throw in) so it's really only 70-80 net out.

Hard to beat that.
 
Darknyt said:
You guys are gonna laugh at me . . . .

I had decided to go for the 940 first and was even shopping around for it.

But I ran across a poster on here who put up a link to a Fry's sale that ended today for an EVGA GTX 260 Superclocked for only $150 AR.

I jumped.

It's running in my box now and I'm just about to jump into Far Cry 2 and take her for a spin.

I'm sure I will pick up the 940 BE shortly now and just justify it to myself somehow. After almost 3 years, I sure as hell deserve an upgrade by now. I figure I'll get around 70-80 tops maybe for my old card on ebay (been tracking them and have some free games to throw in) so it's really only 70-80 net out.

Hard to beat that.
Click to expand...


hahah now that is a deal :) grats on the new card, and the new 940 be :)

Remember to overclock the beast too :p
 
Darknyt said:
You make a good point I forgot to clarify (though those sharper among us can figure out from my sig).

I game at 1680x1050 on a 20". That isn't likely to change anytime soon (not only monitor cost but rig upkeep to game at higher rez). Plus, (the horror!) I already have a 24" iMac downstairs as the "family" box for all-around use. Don't judge me - it was a gift from a brother with more $ than technical sense.
Click to expand...

If that iMac is such an embarrassment I'll give it a good home. ;)
 
poppageek said:
If that iMac is such an embarrassment I'll give it a good home. ;)
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Heh - I just haven't ever had a nice 24" monitor so it's very impressive. although some might say I still haven't had a nice 24" monitor . . .
 
Heh - apparently God really wants me to do this upgrade all the way.

I just got a non-resident state tax refund today I completely forgot about.

It just covers my 940 purchase.

The stars have aligned, carry on.
 
Just installed the 940 after flashing the bios.

No problems at all, it's smoking fast so far.

Just shrinked a dvd in less than a 1/3 of the time it took on my X2 4600.

Wow. We'll see tomorrow how she clocks.
 
Just did the quick and dirty 10% overclock and took it from 3.0 to 3.52.

Stable so far and benching well.
 
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