upgrading cycles: e.g. 7900GS vs 8800GTS

[Dakre14]

Hi, i was thinking about buying an eVGA Geforce 8800 GTS 640MB Superclocked for about 410$ or getting a 7900 for less than half the price...
I heard that the 8600er are not so good performance/price wise.

I am gaming at 1280*1024 and would like to know what you think is better:
1. buying a highend card and don't touch it for maybe 3 years or
2. buying a card in the middle and upgrade it after a year or after 1 and a half

because the 7900 would be less than the half of the price of the 8800 i would even spend less money, but will never have a highend card for this cycle
what is your way of upgrading? and what other cards would you suggest for either of the two ways?
Thanks in advance

 

[Dakre14]

i forgot to mention that i am not only gaming at 1280*1024, but using a dual screen setup for example for playing supreme commander...

 

[jeff_2087]

I don't know how dual screen Sup Com affects performance but you should look at the 8800GTS 320mb. Much cheaper than the 640mb version and at 1280x1024 there'll be no difference.

edit: and yes, the 8600s are about as useful as an Etch-A-Sketch on a roller coaster.

 

[Dakre14]

i read that the difference between the 320MB and the 640MB version is not the resolution but more the AA/AF Settings... with them being disabled the 320MB Version can even run 1920 almost as fast as the 640er... but with AA/AF enabled the 320MB version even struggles at 1280*1024... but of course not as much as a 7900er would but again there is a huge price difference...

 

[pignoli]

Hey, I've got a 7900gs in my system at the moment, and when I bought it, it offered an astonishing amount of bang for your buck, and still does as far as I'm concerned. They seem to OC (well this one does) like a piece of cake too if that kind of thing floats your boat.

I'd be less sure about buying one now though, with DX10 parts coming into full swing. I'm looking at getting another year or so out of mine before going DX10, as the second wave of a new gen (ie what will be the 8900s and 2950s) always seems to be the sweet spot in terms of high mid range performance.

You could also consider the X1950pro, which seems to be another card that hits that price/perf sweet spot at the moment.

 

[goldragon_70]

I might be called a blasphemer, but I get good performance out of this card at those same res and it's about half the cost of an 8800GTX

 

[pignoli]

That looks like a very good deal. With the rebate it's almost down in the 7900gs price bracket, I;d say a good choice for those wanting a decent DX9 card to tide them over until the DX10 trainwreck is sorted out.

 

[testbenchdude]

I'm kind of at the crossroads as well, but nothing out there seems like it will vastly improve my performance over two 7900GTs in SLI. At least, nothing that I'm willing to spend $200-400 on. I get about 8.6k in 3dMark06 and that's OK for now...

So what are you upgrading from? I have a feeling the 7x00 line of cards' price is going to drop even more pretty soon, so you might want to wait (unless your graphics completely blow atm... lol)

 

[Dakre14]

currently i am running an AMD 2400+ with a Radeon 9800
but the E6600 is already ordered... i just need a fitting graphic card

i thought maybe an 7900 or X1950pro would be good enough until maybe 18 months and then i may get something better than a 8800gts for the money left ( approx. 200$ )

 

[goldragon_70]

you would save about $50 in newegg if you go with a x1950pro over what my previous suggestion was.

 

[jay2tall]

I might be called a blasphemer, but I get good performance out of this card at those same res and it's about half the cost of an 8800GTX

Teh x1950xt will give you the biggest bang for your buck for around $200. Once you get above that start looking at an 8800GTS 320 or 640mb. The 1950xt is a little slower than teh xtx but for the price you can't beat it. However the 8800 will walk all over the 1950 exept in price.

by the way a x1950xt would STOMP a 7900GS

 

[testbenchdude]

I might be called a blasphemer, but I get good performance out of this card at those same res and it's about half the cost of an 8800GTX

Teh x1950xt will give you the biggest bang for your buck for around $200. Once you get above that start looking at an 8800GTS 320 or 640mb. The 1950xt is a little slower than teh xtx but for the price you can't beat it. However the 8800 will walk all over the 1950 exept in price.

by the way a x1950xt would STOMP a 7900GS

So how much better is an x1950xt than a 7900GT? Just curious...

 

[goldragon_70]

I might be called a blasphemer, but I get good performance out of this card at those same res and it's about half the cost of an 8800GTX

Teh x1950xt will give you the biggest bang for your buck for around $200. Once you get above that start looking at an 8800GTS 320 or 640mb. The 1950xt is a little slower than teh xtx but for the price you can't beat it. However the 8800 will walk all over the 1950 exept in price.

by the way a x1950xt would STOMP a 7900GS

So how much better is an x1950xt than a 7900GT? Just curious...

just select the 7900GT and the x1950xt in the TH VGA charts and the game you might play and the resolution you will probably play at.


Edit: I just looked at 1280x1024 and in oblivion the x1950xt is beating the snot out of the 7900GT and in Prey and Doom3 it does a decent bit better. But it would really be better for you to check it out, since you know what games you will probably play.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

IMO at your resolution, the GF8800GTS-320 is worth thr $250 to get it, and second place is the X1950XT, with all others being out of contention as either too costly and over powered for your needs, or not enough performance for the buck and less longevity.

Sumpreme Commander is primarily CPU bound, so best to get the GF8800GTS-320 since the performance diff will be very small between even an X1950XT and GF8800GTX compared to the CPU differences, but they are there a bit (you do hit a wall a bit, like the GTS will have huge min FPS but have almost the same avg). So why not get the shiny effects of the GF8800 for only that small amount more? And I doubt a GTS-320 and GTS-640 will differen much on a game like that, and really, why pay $150 more?

To me I say GTS-320, then X1950XT.

Just my two frames' worth.

PS, check out these benchies and then tell me what you think (the 8800GTS is a GTS-320);
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce8600gts_19.html

Hey look at the two leaders. :twisted:

 

[Eviltwin17]

get the 8800gts 320mb, much cheaper than the 640mb version (around $250-300) and a much better performer than the 7900gs

 

[senor_bob]

PS, check out these benchies and then tell me what you think (the 8800GTS is a GTS-320);
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce8600gts_19.html

I flipped back a page or two in the linked article and looked at the Oblivion benches. Any idea why the 8800GTS sucked so badly at 19x12 outdoors (dead last place)? And does the GTX get bogged down as badly? Not that I care about that ultra high res mode for my own use (I'm limited to 1680x1050 on one monitor, 16x12 on the other, and have no intention of playing Oblivion on my laptop, which is 19x12 for some unknown reason), just curious.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Not sure, but it could be memory except that GF8600 is beating it with 256MB, so it is strange.

I would say at higher resolutions with things turned up the GTs-320 may crap out, but I am surprised at that result compare to the GF86GTS.

A few people here have GF8800GTS-320 and played on X1900s before the move and noticed only slight difference in performance at their settings, so I'm not sure what's going on with that benchmark, but it may or maynot be common, other benchies like those at FiringSquad don't show that, but it is the mild weakness, but IMO 320 should do better than the 256 if it were memory alone.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_8600_gts_preview/page9.asp

The main thing in my reco is for the resolution you stated, in the future should you upgrade your monitor, you may need to replace the card, but this one should do you fine on your resolution.

And no the GTX doesn't get bogged down as bad, but I think the GTS results are an anomaly a bit. The GTX has the benefit of speed and size, but it's also twice the price.

PS, off to bed going skiing tomorrow, so won't be able to answer until tomorrow night if you have anymore questions. Ciaola! 8)

 

[testbenchdude]

just select the 7900GT and the x1950xt in the TH VGA charts and the game you might play and the resolution you will probably play at.


Edit: I just looked at 1280x1024 and in oblivion the x1950xt is beating the snot out of the 7900GT and in Prey and Doom3 it does a decent bit better. But it would really be better for you to check it out, since you know what games you will probably play.

Well yeah I'm sorta dumb, I knew about that chart... Ok, thanks for the heads up. I'm checking it out now.

 

[Dakre14]

just select the 7900GT and the x1950xt in the TH VGA charts and the game you might play and the resolution you will probably play at.


Edit: I just looked at 1280x1024 and in oblivion the x1950xt is beating the snot out of the 7900GT and in Prey and Doom3 it does a decent bit better. But it would really be better for you to check it out, since you know what games you will probably play.

But you can not select the 8800GTS 320MB version there, or am i mistaken?
so is the AA/AF worth it to get the 640MB version or doesn't it look too bad even without it?

 

[Guest]

your good at that resolution. I have evga 8800gts 320Mb superclocked. and i play games at 1440x900 with all the setting at max. and still this thing is overkill. it only makes a diffrence if you go above 1600x1200 because you need more memory

 

[goldragon_70]

just select the 7900GT and the x1950xt in the TH VGA charts and the game you might play and the resolution you will probably play at.


Edit: I just looked at 1280x1024 and in oblivion the x1950xt is beating the snot out of the 7900GT and in Prey and Doom3 it does a decent bit better. But it would really be better for you to check it out, since you know what games you will probably play.

But you can not select the 8800GTS 320MB version there, or am i mistaken?
so is the AA/AF worth it to get the 640MB version or doesn't it look too bad even without it?

It's in the dual charts, but it's not in the one I linked to because you didn't say anything about crossfire or SLI. In this case it may be good to look at page 3 in this article.

In fact that link is what I would suggest you go by if you want to know what the best card at a price range is. But I haven't seen and article saying weather the aa/af is worth it on the 640mb version. Also take into account with the prices on this link that you could probably find most of the cards for a better price, like the x1950xt, which you can find for about $200 and has a mail in rebate.