Humor me...

[wescrock]

This is a rediculous questions... and i know the answer... but i want to hear your opinions... im going from an ATI Radeon 9250 (PCI 256mb) to a XFX Geforce 7800GT... what do you think the boost in performance will be like?

 

[sturm]

going from a yugo (with you pushing) to a ferrari f40

 

[sulphurious]

from the wright brother's plane to the millenium falcon

 

[Beowulf021]

Like moving from handy to Jessica Alba.

 

[mpjesse]

Like moving from handy to Jessica Alba.

Buahahaha! That's the funniest thing I've seen all day.

-mpjesse

 

[mpjesse]

Like going from dial-up to 6Mbps cable.

 

[Samsa]

Like moving from handy to Jessica Alba.

:lol:

I don't know if there's a better comparison than this.

 

[godmodder]

To be realistic, you'll get to see more effects with smoother framerates but the actual gameplay experience won't change much.
When I buyed my geforce 6800GT, I was used to a geforce 2 MX 400 but it didn't change the whole experience that much. Sure, I could now program on shader model 3 etc..., but I was seriously dissappointed by the performance difference. It may sound rather strange, but if you got a decent processor and mobo, you can just about play anything even with a pretty low-end videocard (geforce 2 and higher).
The GPU just isn't the bottleneck when you disable AA and AF.

In short: low- to mid-end videocard --> good bang for the buck
high-range videocard --> more effects + AA&AF bells&whistles
SLI rig --> waste of money

 

[Samsa]

To be realistic, you'll get to see more effects with smoother framerates but the actual gameplay experience won't change much.
When I buyed my geforce 6800GT, I was used to a geforce 2 MX 400 but it didn't change the whole experience that much. Sure, I could now program on shader model 3 etc..., but I was seriously dissappointed by the performance difference. It may sound rather strange, but if you got a decent processor and mobo, you can just about play anything even with a pretty low-end videocard (geforce 2 and higher).
The GPU just isn't the bottleneck when you disable AA and AF.

In short: low- to mid-end videocard --> good bang for the buck
high-range videocard --> more effects + AA&AF bells&whistles
SLI rig --> waste of money

Hrm, I was preparing a somewhat outraged reply to this post. But I want to know first what kinds of games wescrock intends to play with this new video card.

If he wants to play almost any serious 3D rendered games, this upgrade will see massive performance changes. Even with AA and AF off. The reason I say this is because the 9250 only supports DirectX 8.0 and many games these days virtually require DirectX 9.0c support to have a modestly enjoyable experience. (i.e. Not fraught with extreme choppiness or occasional crashes.) The exception to this rule has been Half-Life 2, which was developed with older hardware in mind.

Fear not, wescrock, the 7800 GT, if you bought for between $280 - $350 is a good value for its price, as it performs much better than any other card at that price range.

Edit: I might have agreed with you in the past godmodder, but the shift to 3D these days is dominating the world of video cards and video games. And why not buy a card that allows you to enjoy games as they can be enjoyed if its fairly affordable? There's nothing sinful about ringing bells and blowing whistles.

 

[godmodder]

I'm only talking about my own experiences... no dramatic gain in performance