second 7800gt, 7900GTX, or wait for phsyx card?

Donz

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ok i'm running as below

athlon64 3700
ASUS A8N SLI
2gb of ram
7800GT

i have some cash to spend and need advice

do i get a second 7800GT

or

sell my existing 7800GT and get a 7900GTX

or

wait a bit and get a physx card?

or

if anyone can think of another option.....

PS don't bother saying get an ATI xxxxx1900xtxtxtx or whatever as i want to keep future options open and have an SLI mobo.











have a bit of money to spend
 

Jaffee

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Right now I think your CPU is bottlenecking your rig. Neither of your graphic upgrades options are wise right now. Here's what I would do if I were in your position.

1. Buy AMD 64 X2 3800+
2. Sell AMD 64 3700+
3. Wait 2 months (nVidia 8-series release, supposedly)
4. Buy DirectX 10 compliant 8-series card
5. Sell 7800GT.

That's what I'm doing with my 7800GT. I can survive on it until the 8-series comes out. The PhysX card isn't worth buying. Most supporting games will be out in '07, and by then the card itself will be bigger, better, and cheaper.
 

Donz

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if my 3700 is bottlenecking me now then surely a 3800 would bottleneck me more as games aren't really benefitting from the dual core setup then the fact that the individual cores on the 3800 are actually slower than my 3700?
 

Jaffee

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if my 3700 is bottlenecking me now then surely a 3800 would bottleneck me more as games aren't really benefitting from the dual core setup then the fact that the individual cores on the 3800 are actually slower than my 3700?

A. You'll be futureproof (Games will start having dual-core support, coders would be stupid not to supplement the meteoric rise in popularity of dual-core cpu's).

B. My dual-core seemed to provide a very large bonus from my 3000+ (which I had overclocked to ~2.5), but I would check benchmarks just in case. I'll look around for you, gimme about 10 minutes. :D
 

Ian

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3700+ single core is faster in gaming then 3800+ X2. A 3700+ is not a bottleneck for any single card system that cou can make today.

However Jaffee is right, you would be future proofing your comp a bit more by getting a dual core cpu, however I would get something like an Opteron 165 or X2 4400 if you were going to upgrade your cpu at all.

As for your question, do not get a second 7800 GT. If you can get a decent amount of money for your current one, then I would reccomend selling it and buying a 7900GT. Or you could just wait a few months and see what Nvidia is coming out with (if anything), and upgrade then.
 

bluntside

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If it would be possible. sell your card for a 7900gt, wait, then get a Physix card and try running it in SLI. I dont know it it will work, but it might. :twisted:
 

Jaffee

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The Ageia PhysX is a card that will be offered in both PCI and PCI-Express, but it cannot be run in SLI because..

A. It's not an nVidia GPU
B. It's not a GPU period

It's designed to be a standalone enhancement for games much like a sound card.
 

Donz

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ok, i'm gonna have about £200 to spend

if i sold my 3700 on ebay, i'd get around about £125 for it worst case.

which would give me £325 which is just enough to get me a x2 4400.

doing this would lose me 5 fps in far cry as shown here

if i bought another 7800GT and SLI'd it i'd gain 18 fps in FEAR
as shown here

if i sold my existing 7800gt, i'd get around £150 for it on ebay worst case.

which would give me £350 which is just slightly short of enough for a 7900GTX which would give me a gain of 20fps in FEAR (taken from the interactive charts + the same day meg launch article)

or i could blow my £200 on a phsyx card and it might be really nice or it might be a dead duck.....


i dinnae ken!!!
 

cleeve

Illustrious
I guess the first question is, are there any games you currently play that you can't play at settings you like with your rig?

Because if the games you play are at settings you find satisfactory to you, then upgrading is useless right now... wait until you get a game that doesn;t play the way you want it to, then upgrade for the game... wether it be physics card, or video card...
 

Sparticus

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It's very easy to get sucked into the "enthusiast Realm" of gaming. Then you drop tons on equipment that doesn't improve much on your previous equipment. That's why I save my $$$ for now and overclock the bashizznet out of my rig. :twisted:
 

Donz

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I guess the first question is, are there any games you currently play that you can't play at settings you like with your rig?

Because if the games you play are at settings you find satisfactory to you, then upgrading is useless right now... wait until you get a game that doesn;t play the way you want it to, then upgrade for the game... wether it be physics card, or video card...

if i wait i'll spend it on summin else!!!. but your point is valid, my 17inch tft only goes to 1280x1024 so i may not even benefit from the upgrade....

It's very easy to get sucked into the "enthusiast Realm" of gaming. Then you drop tons on equipment that doesn't improve much on your previous equipment. That's why I save my $$$ for now and overclock the bashizznet out of my rig.

i got sucked down that road a long time ago, infact probably when i shelled out on a rage fury maxx, now that was a graphics card ;)


i'm swaying towards the phsyx card at the moment.....
 

p05esto

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I have nothing real useful to say. If you are rich buy whatever cool and new stuff you want.

If you're a poor slob like me it's justs not worth doing so many upgrades and spending all that money. Stay a step behind and upgrade more often for the same price as buying bleeding edge but only being able to do that every few years. Don't fall for the marketing BS...a game a year old played on a year old technology is wonderfully cheap, and eventually you get to play the new games once they become old. SAVE MONEY!!!! Play just as hard!
 

enewmen

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Your PC is about as good as mine and I can play any game well. No need to panic.

I am not a big fan of SLI. Because one good card is usually better than 2 sucky/old cards.
I suggest you keep your old graphics card for now, wait a few or many months. Then you end up with a superior DX10 card and a physics card.

If you have money to spend, wait anyway because you have other bottlenecks like your CPU. Get new everything when the (64 bit and multi-core) Conroe/AM2/DX10 comes out.

If you don't do a major upgrade later, your athlon64 3700 will be like a 486 running Win NT.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
Elementary, my dear enewmen.

They invest their time into guys with lots of money (who can afford Booze, Cars, & Women), of course...

P.S. Who the hell is that guy in your avatar?
 

dmantech

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Get the 7900 GTX. However fore the prson that said that their CPU would be thr bottleneck, that's not true if you get enough RAM. I have the X2 4400+ with 2 gigs 2x 1024 (formerly 1 gig 2x 512.
and the X1900XT and there is no bottleneck here. When I had 1 gig of RAM
and playing bf2 it was ok, but with 2 gigs it's so smooth with no bumps at all.
So the CPU is not the bottleneck.
 

oenomel

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Even if you did decide to get another 7800gt good luck finding one (new at least) in the states anyway.

I say sell the 7800 get the 7900gt or gtx, and if you can (not sure about Europe) check out eVGA, cuz you have a chance to upgrade within 3mos for the difference in cost if something new comes out.

Not sure if there are other vendors that do that..
 

Jaffee

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I still don't see the point in selling the 7800 in favor of a 7900 when the 8 series and DX10 is right around the corner. It'd be a bad investment.
 
"I still don't see the point in selling the 7800 in favor of a 7900 when the 8 series and DX10 is right around the corner. It'd be a bad investment."

A good point, to be sure....

However, with Vista delayed until Jan 07, there is still the better part of a year of better performance to be had, although personally, I find a 7800GT to still be quite adequate...
 
"wait anyway because you have other bottlenecks like your CPU."

a 3700+ is a bottleneck?

By just how many frames/sec does one's FEAR 1280x960/4xAA/16xAF performance jump by bosting the the clock speed from 2.2G up to, say, 2.8GHz ?

a. 2 fps
b. 1.5 fps
c. 20 fps
Hint: "C" is quite incorrect!


I do agree, however, that there are some major gains coming with the advent of Conroe!