Christmas gift gone bad?

[pb23r]

Hello all...first post here and hoping for some good advice.

Bought my wife a new system for Christmas and now concerned that i goofed when i selected the components. She is gamer++ (BF2 specifically) and needs/wants a system with great graphics and plenty of overall speed.

System basics: AMD X2 4400, Asus A8N-SLI Premium, 2 GB RAM, 2 * nVidia 6800GT.

Here is the question: her old computer had a great video card... nVidia 6800 Ultra. The rest of the system was 4+ years old and somewhat antiquated (other than the vid-card). So did i in fact *down-grade* her graphics set-up by going to the twin 6800GT set-up (coming from the 6800 Ultra)? Should i have ponied up the $$$ for the 7800? Should she expect improved performance / same or worse?

Us desk-jockey, spreadsheet-oriented people have it so easy!

Thanks in advance to all who respond!

 

[jpa2k4]

While not top of the line, I believe you moved in the right direction with the SLI setup. The SLI config definitely outperforms a single 6800 Ultra and on some game benchmarks even outperforms two 6800 Ultras. Of course, benchmark results are game specific.

 

[p05esto]

In my humble opinion you would have been better off with a single 7800GT than two 6800 Ultras even. Benchmarks show the single 7800 pull ahead. And it would have been cheaper too..and easier...and more compatiable.

Your graphics card matters much much much more than your other system components. A 7800 GT on an older system will essentially play the same as a 7800GT on a new system. Only with loading (10K RPM hard drive) will you notice speed improvements in my opinion. A GIG of RAM would be better than 256 as well but other than that I personally challenge anyone to really notice much diff in mobo to mobo or CPU to CPU when gaming. Sure a little...but your bang for the buck is in the graphics card by far.

 

[pb23r]

Thanks!

More or less as i suspected re. the performance. I am not really a gamer (a little NASCAR 2004, but thats about it), so it is difficult for me to really appreciate the huge hardware demands that the FPS games seem to have.

Just to to avoid any hurt feelings...is there a different video card(s) that i should investigate? She is stuck with the AMD x2 4400 and Asus mobo, but i suppose i *could* improve the vid cards (brownie points and all that...).

Any suggestions? Or just wait 6 months for the next greatest thing and go from there?

Thanks for your swift responses!

 

[p05esto]

Well, you already have a pretty sweet card. Maybe you have software/driver issues if you're noticing that the system is slower. I wouldn't think you should notice much.

I personally (limited gaming budget) would not upgrade to another card from what you have now. I'd wait till mid-summer and get the latest nVidia card or one step back as money matters to us all. Also, in a month or two a new nVidia card is coming out as well so I'd at least wait till then and catch a good price on a 7800GT or see how the latest offering stacks up.

Just give her an IOU.

 

[Rugger]

The 6800GTs should slightly outperform the 6800Ultra - especially at higher resolutions with high details enabled. You would have spent less money and gotten better performance with a single 7800GT for around $300. I'd check some benchmarks for her favorite games and look at the differences between the 6800GT SLI and the 7800GT or even X1800XT. What monitor is she using? What res/detail level is she gaming at?

Pesto:

A 7800 GT on an older system will essentially play the same as a 7800GT on a new system. Only with loading (10K RPM hard drive) will you notice speed improvements in my opinion.

Not necessarily true. A 7800GT will be bottlenecked by 2000+ CPU. The ENTIRE system is important to performance - especially in modern games. If you don't believe me then run 3DMark05 with your rig at normal speeds and then try them with only your CPU downclocked - say 3200+ vs 2200+ - and see what kind of results you get.

 

[pb23r]

"You would have spent less money and gotten better performance with a single 7800GT for around $300"

Sigh.

Oh well. I think this will work out reasonably well. Her favourite is Battlefield 2 (i think that's it...), plays online, very competitive etc etc. Its all a little much for me. Anyway, she has a Viewsonic P95f+2 (i think thats it. Definitely *not* an LCD). Doesnt overclock and generally plays at the highest resolution her set-up can handle.

One last question...is there any kind of upgraded or faster RAM available for the Asus A8N-SLI Premium? The shop that built the computer felt that it was not worth the expense. Marginal improvement etc. Is this another gaffe on my part? Hard drive is 300 MB (cant recall make) with 16 MB cache.

This is getting interesting and highly informative. And probably expensive! Many thanks!

 

[Rugger]

A tradionalist gamer - not LCDs. Memories of the good ole days - nearly brings a tear to they eye.... Tell her to crank the res to 1,920 x 1,440 and turn on some details. That SLI should be able to handle it ok - if not then turn down some of the details. Your computer shop told you the right thing about memory. You would not have gotten a noticable performance increase by buying high-end RAM - maybe a couple of percent increase. Good HDD. As mentioned earlier, you could speed up some of her load times with a Raptor, but it wouldn't increase performance during the game. If you wanted to spoil here some on down the line, then take a look at the Dell 2405FPW monitor...

 

[pb23r]

Many thanks!

 

[Rugger]

24" of widescreen gaming goodness! :shock:

 

[p05esto]

Rugger, I've got that Dell 24incher and lov her. I've seen more for my upgrade cash on that monitor than on any other single piece of hardware I've ever bought.... the monitor is what you look at ...not your CPU.

And I agree with you on total system performace being important. Just emphasizing that the GPU upgrade is what you will notice most compared to any other part.

 

[pat]

Upgrade to Wife 2.0. Don't need as much on the hardware side...

 

[Rugger]

Nothing wrong with a wife who likes your hardware.... :twisted:

 

[pat]

Agree, only problem is if you're all stuck with SOFTware ... You need emulation... VIAgra chipset help in this case

 

[Crashman]

The A64 4000+ is faster than the 4400+ in games, and cost at least $150 less. The 7800GTX is also faster than two 6800GT's, and cost less.