8800gtx. Worth it ?

[dregh]

hi all,
I need some advice on upgrading a graphics card, and would like to hear opinions from people who are good at it

I got a 1.5 year old PC. My graphics card broken down and i need to replace it..
8800gtx looks nice, but i was wondering, will my PC use all 8800gtx possibilities to it's fullest?
My specs are:
AMD Athlon 4000+
2 GB ram

So... is it worth it to put the best graphics card to this PC? Perhaps 8800gtx need a better CPU to show its best? Maybe a lower-end card would do just as good in this comp ?

 

[Track]

You should be fine. Good Luck!

 

[dsidious]

It depends on a few things you haven't told us.

1. Some games are more CPU-intensive than others and you'll hit a bottleneck faster with them. Can't think of a good example right now. Oblivion is a good example of the other type, where the video card is more important than the CPU.

2. Some motherboards have PCI-E x16 slots, others PCI-E x8. High-end video cards need an x16 slot to work at their best. By the way that also explains why AGP is on its way out.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/03/27/pci_express_scaling_analysis/

3. Your preferred screen resolution. For lower resolutions you can get exactly the same fps from cheaper cards. Also, your monitor can be a bottleneck if it's an LCD with 60 Hz refresh rate. That is, the 8800 GTX may be capable of generating 200 fps in some game at some settings but you still get only 60 frames from the monitor.

4. There was an article on Tom's some time ago which was trying to figure out which CPU's can make the 8800 GTX work at its best. I think they decided E6600 and higher. Based on that, I'd say you'll want a CPU upgrade too at some point and your 8800 GTX will work even better after that.
Apparently E6600 (at stock) is about the same as X2 6000+, by the way.

Make sure your PSU supports this video card.

The 8800 GTX may drop in price two weeks from now, if AMD really delivers the R600 and it doesn't disappoint.

 

[Track]

It depends on a few things you haven't told us.

1. Some games are more CPU-intensive than others and you'll hit a bottleneck faster with them. Can't think of a good example right now. Oblivion is a good example of the other type, where the video card is more important than the CPU.

Bottlenecks are overated. As long as u the CPU can give 60 FPS to the GPU in order for it ro render them, ur fine. Course that means that u might not need an 8800 GTX if u use a low resolution.

2. Some motherboards have PCI-E x16 slots, others PCI-E x8. High-end video cards need an x16 slot to work at their best. By the way that also explains why AGP is on its way out.

Not true. There are no motherboards with PCIe x8 slots. They are all PCIe x16 except a handful of very odd ones.
Also, only an 8800 GTX would be bottlenecked by a PCIe x8 slot, and not by all that much - pretty much no bottleneck in games released before 2007.

3. Your preferred screen resolution. For lower resolutions you can get exactly the same fps from cheaper cards. Also, your monitor can be a bottleneck if it's an LCD with 60 Hz refresh rate. That is, the 8800 GTX may be capable of generating 200 fps in some game at some settings but you still get only 60 frames from the monitor.

You will always get 60 hz. A monitor is not a bottleneck, what a stupid thing to say.
The resolution thing is true though. If u dont game at 1600x1200 or higher, buy an X1950XT.

4. There was an article on Tom's some time ago which was trying to figure out which CPU's can make the 8800 GTX work at its best. I think they decided E6600 and higher. Based on that, I'd say you'll want a CPU upgrade too at some point and your 8800 GTX will work even better after that.
Apparently E6600 (at stock) is about the same as X2 6000+, by the way.

No, any Core 2 Duo can reach E6600 speeds, so u can buy any other Core 2 Duo, not just the 300$ model or up.
An E6600 is not the same as a 6000+, its better. Thats beside the fact that the E6600 can overclock and the 6000+ is already overclocked to the max and runs hot as hell.

 

[dregh]

thanks for replies
Well, my old video card was x1800XT and it did the job pretty well.
And the games I play are mainly mmorpg's, like EverQuest2 and Vanguard: SOH.
I don't know why, but i always play at same resolution as my desktop 1024 x 768, i never make it higher.
I wasn't able to play EQ2 at the highest graphics settings with my x1800xt.

And when i think now, 8800gtx probably isn't worth it... it won't make such a huge difference since i'm not upgrading my CPU. (Athlon 4000+)
Probably x1950xt would make a better choice...

Thanks again

 

[Heyyou27]

Do you play Oblivion? If yes, you'd see a HUGE performance gain.

 

[Track]

I agree. For 1024x768 u dont need an 8800 GTX.

Although if u were to get one.. u could play F.E.A.R. with 16xQAA, wich is mighty cool although i cant tell the difference between 4xAA and 16xQAA and thats on a lower resolution aswell.