Can't justify upgrading 8 series card

CompletelyClueless said:
*edit* Mind, this is on DX9. I think the 8800GTS is the strongest card in existence that cannot do DX10+. which is what i kicked myself for years ago cuz i bought my card just before DX10 just came out, heh...
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Why won't your 8800 GTS run in DX10? You would have to be running windows XP for that to be the case as those cards fully support DX10.
 
And im sure its at or higher than 1280x1024
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this or not much higher, but because if you do not know your day to day native res off the top of your head, this does not inspire confidence in me. <no offense just sayin' attention to technical detail>

All i can say is on first impression my framerates on BC2 aren't much (or maybe noticably) lower than when i played Battlefield 2 when i first built my computer years ago.
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No way here, i have to disagree . I have ran hundreds of hours literaly in BF2 and prolly 20 or so in BC2 and both are installed in my current rig and they both run drasticaly different frames per second. If i still had my BF2 rig from 3 years ago with my FX-60 and DDR2 trying to power my current card it would wither in BC2 where it MAXXED BF2 vanilla.

this is further proven by my current rig medium setting aa off getting 40-50 FPS in BC2 with my and running 80+FPS or some nonsense in BF 2 maxxed out. (both in 1920x1200)

I would say there are serious nostolgia goggles in play if you think BF2 and BC2 would run similar on a 3 year old rig. (unless you ran a massive OC on a Q6600 and are playing 1280x1024 or lower., even then i say no.)

I think you need to download fraps and see for sure.
 
What if, stay with me on this, ninja stealth assassins came in and changed his config file, that way he -thinks- he's running maxed but Mr. T ninja man pity da' foo and fixed him up real good?
 
I have an 8800GT 512mb and I just bought a new 26" 1920x1200 monitor

The gameplay in Bad Company 2 is pretty good, but Borderlands, Just Cause 2, GTA IV (well, this seems to run slow no matter the system), Call of Pripyat just are barely making it at that res


Right now I'm not sure if I am going to upgrade or not, plus, if I did I'm not sure if I'd go with a 5850 or a 470 (Relatively the same price, give or take $50)
 
Right now I'm not sure if I am going to upgrade or not, plus, if I did I'm not sure if I'd go with a 5850 or a 470 (Relatively the same price, give or take $50)
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Once you upgrade to a 5850/470 won't the Q6600 start to hold it back or will so much weight be lifted off of the GPU and so much performance gained that the bottle neck formed by the CPU be less noticeable... :confused:

So many people have responded to this thread with great ideas and experiences I half expect some one to chime in with this exact spec and say "yeah, I had a Q6600 with a 8800GTS512 and upgraded to a 5850 and got a 54.6% improvement in FPS in BC2 @ 1680x 1050 ...blah blah blah "...lol
 
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. said:
I have an 8800GT 512mb and I just bought a new 26" 1920x1200 monitor

The gameplay in Bad Company 2 is pretty good, but Borderlands, Just Cause 2, GTA IV (well, this seems to run slow no matter the system), Call of Pripyat just are barely making it at that res


Right now I'm not sure if I am going to upgrade or not, plus, if I did I'm not sure if I'd go with a 5850 or a 470 (Relatively the same price, give or take $50)
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that 8800gt is really getting hammered at that res... i advice u upgrade to a 5850 or if you like a GTX400 series card... itll really help allot if you want all the eye candy turned on
 
T3ch said:
Once you upgrade to a 5850/470 won't the Q6600 start to hold it back or will so much weight be lifted off of the GPU and so much performance gained that the bottle neck formed by the CPU be less noticeable... :confused:

So many people have responded to this thread with great ideas and experiences I half expect some one to chime in with this exact spec and say "yeah, I had a Q6600 with a 8800GTS512 and upgraded to a 5850 and got a 54.6% improvement in FPS in BC2 @ 1680x 1050 ...blah blah blah "...lol
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who said a q6600 will hold a 5850 back... lol... thats like the most ridiculous thing ive heard... now if your running a e8400 and a 5850 on BC2 then hell yes that dou core is holding it back... but as long as your above 3ghz with that q6600 everything should be fine... now ofcourse it wont run as good as an i7 clocked at 4ghz... but the FPS increase isnt worth the money your guna spend on a new rig...

in my opinion as long as you have a decent quad preferablly above 3ghz then you should be good to go...
 
a Q6600 won't @ 3ghz isn't even comparable to a I7 920 at stock.
BC2 is quite CPU heavy.
If the OP is BC2 most of the time, I would go with a GTX470 due to the problem with ATI/AMD drivers and slow loads.
For the rest, HD5850 or HD5870 are best value right now.
 
dinlee23 said:
who said a q6600 will hold a 5850 back... lol... thats like the most ridiculous thing ive heard... now if your running a e8400 and a 5850 on BC2 then hell yes that dou core is holding it back... but as long as your above 3ghz with that q6600 everything should be fine... now ofcourse it wont run as good as an i7 clocked at 4ghz... but the FPS increase isnt worth the money your guna spend on a new rig...

in my opinion as long as you have a decent quad preferablly above 3ghz then you should be good to go...
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I had a q6600 with my 4870x2, when I whent to a i7 920, I gained almost 70% FPS in my fav games.

Cpu bottlenecks are far more prevalent than you lead yourself to believe, ESPECIALLY at higher resolutions.
 
who said a q6600 will hold a 5850 back... lol... thats like the most ridiculous thing ive heard
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No one said it did, I asked if it might:

....won't the Q6600 start to hold it back or...
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Besides, I think I will believe this guy that seems to be speaking of his actual experience:

...had a q6600 with my 4870x2, when I whent to a i7 920, I gained almost 70% FPS in my fav games....
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Dan_D said:
2560x1600 is almost 4x the resolution of 1920x1200.
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What metric are you going by to come up with this number? Surely not pixel count, as 2560 x 1600 technically doesn't even have twice as many pixels as 1920 x 1200.
 
See, this is why I am here talking with you lot... Cuz I don't know this stuff.


Would the Q6600 (stock speeds, I don't have a great cooler so no overclocking) really bottleneck a 5850 or 470GTX??

This is what I plan on going with eventually , and some time down the road I plan to add in a second GPU to which ever I go with. I'll keep my current case, optical drives, HDDs...
 
Just went from 2 8800gt's sli to a 5870.....UPS just rang the door bell and u know us comp geeks....my palms are sweaty and ima excited!!! can't wait to install and do some AVP and BFBC2 gaming....I am happy with my purchase, and am not looking back...At the end of the day, it's just $$, and better have fun cause u can't take it when u die.....EDIT- and btw, I just passed my RN boards, so this was a quick, spur of the moment gift to myself...Seeing as how my income just went up 2 fold, I decide to treat myself.....Later fellas! =)
 
T3ch said:
No one said it did, I asked if it might:



Besides, I think I will believe this guy that seems to be speaking of his actual experience:
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that guy better not have an SSD... lol cuz if he did then that might explain why he got a 70% performance boost... cuz in no benchmark do i see a 70% improvement from a c2q to a i7
 
Dan_D said:
Well I upgrade failry often due to the fact that I'm running a 30" panel. 2560x1600 is almost 4x the resolution of 1920x1200.
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???

1920*1200=2304000
2560*1600=4096000

4096000/2304000=1.7777777777777777777777777777778
 
dinlee23 said:
that guy better not have an SSD... lol cuz if he did then that might explain why he got a 70% performance boost... cuz in no benchmark do i see a 70% improvement from a c2q to a i7
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Never said bench mark, I said my favorite games. Didn't benchmark using a specific benchmarking application.

What I did do was FRAPS a MW2 game before my upgrade and had 35min/50max.

Installed my new i7 920, ASUS P6T, and OCZ plat 3x2gb and went up to a 55min/90+ max FPS rate.

So...?
 
Ah I see, I think he said "I play games not benchmarks!"

The old HardOCP approach: Do you upgrade to run a bench faster?
 
Shantarr.Dalrae said:
Never said bench mark, I said my favorite games. Didn't benchmark using a specific benchmarking application.

What I did do was FRAPS a MW2 game before my upgrade and had 35min/50max.

Installed my new i7 920, ASUS P6T, and OCZ plat 3x2gb and went up to a 55min/90+ max FPS rate.

So...?
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Based on first- and second-hand experiences with direct C2Q/i7 switching, I am in disbelief. 30%, maybe. If it's 70%, then in the earlier setup something was wrong.

Unless you're running at 640x480 or something.


Also, playing BFBC2 maxed is an experience like no other. I can't imagine turning the settings down.. which is why I'm glad I don't have to.

Even at stock my Q9550 isn't holding back my 5850 at all at this res.
 
I'm struggling with upgrading as well. I would hate to give up my 8800GTX SLI. I can play TF2, L4D2, Bioshock 1 and 2, Borderlands, COD4 very well at 1920x1200 4xaa 16af.
I am having performances issues with STALKER games, BC2, Shattered Horizon.

Would upgrading to a 5870/5970 be that much of an improvement on my system? Or will my processor/mobo me holding me back?
 
I have a 8800GTS 512MB @ 1920x1200 and it does the job.
8800s are great for people like me that can accept non-max settings @ good enough framerates,
I was thinking of swapping it with a 5850 but I didn't want to pair it with a 2006 CPU.

The only thing is BC2 brings it on its knees but I would need to invest in a quadcore if I really wanted good FPS for that game.
 
Island said:
EDIT- and btw, I just passed my RN boards
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Congrats, that opens up a whole new world.

To address the Q6600 question, I would not run it at stock frequency with a 5850 or 470. I mean, it will be OK, but it will not be giving you the full framerate either of those cards should. Even with the stock intel fan, you should be able to hit 3ghz stable.
 
I am going to hold out for another 9 to 15 months before I upgrade to a DX11 card. By then there will be more DX11 games out and the cards will be a lot less expensive as well as perform better than what we have now.

It will most likely be my last gpu upgrade for my current pc (the one in my sig). I am just hoping that with another gpu upgrade in about a year my q9550 setup will last another three years. By then 8 or 9 core cpu's will probably be available.
 
I'm holding out for a refresh and price drops.

I have an 8800GTX and it still plays everything at 1920x1200. However, I can not max everything. Latest case is Just Cause 2, I had to turn everything down to medium to get a decent frame rate. I want to upgrade my card and SSD. Rig is in my sig :)
 
i dont blame you thats a monster res for such an old card... lol... and the other reason is that it doesnt have DX 10.1 which has the optimizations for DX 10... so i guess you lose on that one too... but hell an SSD is better over all since all yer apps load like hot knife thru butter...
 
Hey, the 8 series really knocked it out of the park. Some amazing performance right there, and my 8800 GTS has probably the best stop cooling solution I've ever used (very quiet).

However, I do have to disagree that because of consoles you can't find anything that needs higher stuff. I've got a number of games that want more power at 1920x1200 than the 8800 could provide. Hell, Metro 2033 seems to want more than my 5870. On very high detail it is too slow to be playable. While some games are just console ports that don't need much power (they need a little more since consoles usually render at 720p internally) others kick up the detail on PCs a good bit.

So while you certainly don't need a new card, they aren't useless.
 
T3ch said:
Is the slow load in BF2BC2 only during the initial load of the map or everytime you spawn? I thought it was the initial load only.
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Wouldn't this be a software bug? I mean yes, it's a problem, but not one that couldn't be fixed fairly easily. How is that hardware related?
 
I just finally got a 5850 to replace an 8800 GTX. Jury is still out as I'm still cranking through some less demanding games, but I expect it will last me a while. Surprised to see the 5850 is actually a smaller card.

I have a Q6600 B3 by the way - running at 3.15 GHz. Hoping that doesn't create a bottleneck... but from what I'm read if there is, it would be small.
 
dinlee23 said:
i dont blame you thats a monster res for such an old card... lol... and the other reason is that it doesnt have DX 10.1 which has the optimizations for DX 10... so i guess you lose on that one too... but hell an SSD is better over all since all yer apps load like hot knife thru butter...
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TBH if I had to choose between my previous GTS 250 + my current Intel X25-M G2 160GB or my current HD 5850 + my previous Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB, I would choose the latter every time. The HD 5850 is a much bigger upgrade for gaming than my SSD is. Fortunately, I don't have to make the choice. :)
 
T3ch said:
Is the slow load in BF2BC2 only during the initial load of the map or everytime you spawn? I thought it was the initial load only.
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Definitely NOT every time you spawn. With a 58xx, when the map starts/changes, you'll sit through an excruciating long load time compared to any nvidia card. It was mentioned earlier in the thread, you'll parachute into an empty spawn with all the vehicles taken, possibly 2 flags capped or an mcom blown up. Yes, it is a software bug, but enough of a nuisance where I will hold off upgrading until they get this fixed. It's been a known issue since release, and it's been a month, yet the problem still persists. Not sure what is going on there, but I'm able to run bc2 at medium settings with my awesome 8800GTX, and it looks and plays great!
 
After seeing all these replies I feel pretty safe with upgrading my 8800GTS (G92). I am still a bit perplexed how other posters can say their 8800’s 320/640 or even the g92 w/512 can be doing so well with older hardware, when my medium quality i7 rig struggles, but I suppose in reality that falls back on preferences of individual’s and their res/FPS etc.

As others have said, I found my 8800GTS lacking in the newer games and I have been able to hold off on "upgrade-itus" impulses. Upgrading last year around this time to I-7 both let me wring the last of the life of my GPU and confirmed it is the weakest link now and responsible for my medium setting (@1920 x 1200 40-50 FPS) in BC2 with all the eye candy turned off, which I find tough to put up with. So I hope my inbound 5870 allows me to experience these maxxed out setting in BC2 that I have heard so much about. :D

Jon55 said:
Wouldn't this be a software bug? I mean yes, it's a problem, but not one that couldn't be fixed fairly easily. How is that hardware related?
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Not sure if its hardware or software but I would hate to think it is a easy fix as it shows slacking by ATI IMHO, others have said this has been a issue since the beta of BC2 and ATI has been unable to rectify the issue.:confused: More info here:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1508215
 
personally i think its awesome that you can't justify an upgrade, i'd be saving money if i was able to be like that, kudos, honestly lol
 
8800gtx is about the same performance as a hd 5770. My son wasnt too pleased when I removed the 5850, and put in a 5770. He noticed the "lag" during gameplay at times. The new high end cards far exceed the 8800gtx. It was great in it's day for sure, but that day has passed since the 4870 days...
 
Nauseous said:
i envy all you people with new hardware.
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Your rig is like the rig I have lying around that was my primary just six months ago (I had a 3000+ @ 2.4GHz and 6600 GT, rest is comparable). Still kicking and does everything well besides gaming, and I bought it way back when I joined [H]. So fret not.
 
GautLSU said:
I just finally got a 5850 to replace an 8800 GTX. Jury is still out as I'm still cranking through some less demanding games, but I expect it will last me a while. Surprised to see the 5850 is actually a smaller card.

I have a Q6600 B3 by the way - running at 3.15 GHz. Hoping that doesn't create a bottleneck... but from what I'm read if there is, it would be small.
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Yeah you'll be fine. It surprises me how much people exaggerate the effect of CPU bottlenecks. At resolutions like 1680x1050 or above and with a card that's not too high end (anything below a GTX 295/59xx for example) then one would see no noticeable difference between say an E6300 and an i7.

See: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469-8.html
 
thebomb said:
Yeah you'll be fine. It surprises me how much people exaggerate the effect of CPU bottlenecks. At resolutions like 1680x1050 or above and with a card that's not too high end (anything below a GTX 295/59xx for example) then one would see no noticeable difference between say an E6300 and an i7.
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X2. Usually the people that exaggerate the benefits of CPU scaling for gaming (not media-creation or benchmarking) have multi-GPU setups (which do benefit a fair amount), play RTSes, and/or have an i7 and need to justify their purchase/stroke their e-peen.

The people that tell it like it is usually have Core 2 or Phenom offerings.
 
Dan_D said:
2560x1600 is almost 4x the resolution of 1920x1200.
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Im thinking on going 30'' but your remark kinda scared me, pls explain how is the 2560x1600 almost 4x 1920x1200, in terms of pixels is close to 1.8x.
 
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