would a top of the line gpu do me? or complete upgrade?

[G'ßöö]

am ready to upgrade and am interested what [H]'ers have to say if I only put a top of the line gpu in this, would it do reasonable in dx10 titles or would it be next to unplayable or??? my monitor only does 1280x1024 and am not upgrading it. was thinking of getting a 8800GTX or GTS/GT, but want above average results, not elite. (current gpu is 7800 GTX)

DFI ultra-d
FX-55 @ 3 gig
2 gig ram

Thanks in advance!

 

[Scyles]

You'll do well with a single 8800GT. The most demanding games are highly GPU bound, so I doubt that your CPU will be a big issue in a game like Crysis, even at 1280x1024.

P.S. screw DX10. Tweaked DX9 .ini's FTW

 

[Dangman]

8800GT is all that you need. Though I think the HD 3850 might be a good choice as well.

 

[G'ßöö]

thnx for the info...is a GTX a waste of $ or will it help with frame rates even a bit or? I don't mind paying the extra...

 

[Mister Natural]

I just dropped an 8800GT in my 4600+ rig and I think I've just added another year of life to it. An amazing card for the price.

 

[Dangman]

thnx for the info...is a GTX a waste of $ or will it help with frame rates even a bit or? I don't mind paying the extra...

I say its a waste of money. The GT offers about the same performance for a lot less money. Even if you wanted the fastest card available, the GTX is still not worth the extra costs

 

[farfromhome]

I say its a waste of money. The GT offers about the same performance for a lot less money. Even if you wanted the fastest card available, the GTX is still not worth the extra costs

With the caveat that it only holds true at 1680x1050 and less. At 1920x1200 and especially at 2560x1600, the GTX is still better, thanks to its much greater memory bandwidth (and more memory period). And you'd probably want to upgrade your CPU to feed the video cards at those resolutions too. Of course, at those resolutions, especially the latter, you'd probably want SLI anyway, so the fact that the OP doesn't mention SLI means that probably the GT (or GTS 512) would be plenty.

 

[Chombo]

With the caveat that it only holds true at 1680x1050 and less. At 1920x1200 and especially at 2560x1600, the GTX is still better, thanks to its much greater memory bandwidth (and more memory period). And you'd probably want to upgrade your CPU to feed the video cards at those resolutions too. Of course, at those resolutions, especially the latter, you'd probably want SLI anyway, so the fact that the OP doesn't mention SLI means that probably the GT (or GTS 512) would be plenty.

Well the fact that the OP mentioned he is bound to 1280x1024 kind of removes the need for anything better than a GTS 512.

 

[farfromhome]

Well the fact that the OP mentioned he is bound to 1280x1024 kind of removes the need for anything better than a GTS 512.

I missed that, yeah, a plain ol' 8800 GT would be plenty for that resolution.

 

[G'ßöö]

thnx 4 the info...lastly...any particular aspect about one brand that makes it a better buy than the others? just as long as it has 512 ram and whatever bundle is just fine? I buy from www.ncix.com

cheers!

EDIT: leaning towards EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GT Superclocked >> http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=26778

 

[Zinn]

drop a cheap dual core chip in and get an 8800gt!

 

[G'ßöö]

drop a cheap dual core chip in and get an 8800gt!

ya think that's worthy (price, time, results) and a big increase in frames acheived? If its only minor results I'd rather put that $ into a current cpu setup. plus, prior posts here lean towards just adding a current gpu

1 against? =)

 

[farfromhome]

I'd probably just get the graphics card first. If you're still not happy with the results, test whether it's the CPU holding you back (i.e.: overclock a bit and see if that changes anything, look at the task manager to see if the CPU is always at 100%), and if so, decide what to do next.

 

[Scyles]

thnx 4 the info...lastly...any particular aspect about one brand that makes it a better buy than the others?

Aside from overclocks, warranties and coolers, I don't believe that the boards are actually different. I think that nVidia contracts one company to make all 8800GT's.

I would not spend extra money on an overclocked card. Just download Rivatuner, move the little slider slightly to the right and blam! You're overclocked.

ya think that's worthy (price, time, results) and a big increase in frames acheived?

http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI2MiwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

CPU is likely not worth it.

 

[Zinn]

ya think that's worthy (price, time, results) and a big increase in frames acheived? If its only minor results I'd rather put that $ into a current cpu setup. plus, prior posts here lean towards just adding a current gpu

1 against? =)

If your FX55 is at 3.0ghz, you must have nice cooling on there. (water?) One of the new X2 6200s would overclock even higher, which would definitely improve your game performance. A lot of games are utilizing the extra cores in multi-core chips now, so that would improve even further. Not to mention your entire system will feel more responsive and "snappy" with the extra core in there.

 

[G'ßöö]

If your FX55 is at 3.0ghz, you must have nice cooling on there. (water?)

nope, just a zalman CNPS7000A and had to up the volts a smidge. been rock solid since it was priced @ $1100. was very happy with that since the majority seem to get less

great feedback folks. thnx

 

[trick0502]

i bet you could find an x2 and an 8800gt for about the price of a gtx

 

[Astral Abyss]

8800GT at 1280x1024. No need to waste your money on a more expensive GTS/GTX since it won't see any benefit at that resolution. But like you said, make sure it's 512MB and not the cheesy 256MB version.

As far as brands, I like EVGA for the 90 day step-up and on the ball RMA department. They also let you modify the cooling on your card without voiding the warranty. I think that's a big plus. XFX is nice for their transferable warranty so if you sell the card the person buying it can get warranty service (which helps a lot when you're selling something). Also, EVGA and XFX don't care if you overclock your card, it won't void your warranty. BFG is decent, but in my experience their RMA department isn't very tech savy and the last time I called them I got disconnected 3 times when they "switched" me to their RMA department. If I had to pick I'd go EVGA first and XFX 2nd, simply because they cater to gamers and hobbyists.

Since the only time you'll really deal with these companies is likely to be for warranty work, I thought it would make sense to talk about that. Like someone else said, these cards are all generically built and follow the Nvidia specs precisely (unless they overclock them a little). You're basically paying for a fancy sticker on the heatsink and their warranty service, should you ever need it.