Should I step-up 8800GTS 512 to 9800 GTX?

As the title says...I have a evga 8800GTS 512 and am considering stepping up to the 9800GTX. It will only cost me about $40 including shipping both ways. I have read several reviews of the 9800GTX and am unsure if it is worth it to step up. I am having a hard time finding any real advantages but I don't won't to miss my only opportunity to step up since I only have a 28 more days to do so. I am also concerned since the 9800GTX uses 2 6pin PSU connections and my Corsair 620HX only has 2, so I don't see how I could go SLI with these cards if latter on I choose to. If anyone knows of any compelling reasons to step-up or to not do so I would appreciate your input.

$40 + shipping both ways? to me it isnt worth it. You get what? 675MHz vs 650? 2200MHZ ram instead of 1940MHZ?

You can overclock the GTS pretty high. I have mine at 750/1000. I might tweak with the ram a bit. I think the GTX might have the GTS in the ram speed department but really i dont think you will get a huge boost from it. Those benches are stock vs stock anways.

My charge for step up would be about $27 including shipping back to me plus about $10 to ship to them for a total of about $37. Zentahr brings up a very good point. All the benchies for the 9800gtx have been with a different and updated driver than what the 8800GTS was running when the comparisons were done. With both running the same driver I would think the performance difference would be less if not the same, but this is just my guess. I am really on the fence. Are there any other improvements over the 8800gts 512 that justify the step-up? Is the general consensus that it's not worth the cost, even if only $37?

Simple answer : NO the difference isnt noticeable

You can check my other thread on the matter and/or go directly to this review. I have no idea how the hell he got his RAM to 1100MHz ...

no.i dont think it's worth..you pay extra $$ just for the 9 series name not the performance.

Alot (if not all reviews) of the 9800gtx use older drivers for the 8800gts 512mb, which inflates the gtx scores, apparently by quite alot in crysis and cod4, plus if you oc'd just the memory on your gts you would really close the gap on a gtx. If you do step up it seems like the new gtx has good oc abilities, but otherwise it barely seems like it's worth the hassle. Of course come the time you might want to sell your stepped-up-to 9800gtx in the future to buy a new card, you would get more cash from a 9800gtx than a 8800gts 512mb, so your $40 outlay would actually be less in the long run. Of course it all comes down to the time and hassle of it all. By the way, how does it work with the step-up programme? do you have to post off your old card and wait until they recieve it and confirm it works before they dispatch the newer one to you?

Cheers

Thanks for the links Zenthar, very interesting and informative! So it appears tat using the same drivers and with a light overclock to the same specs as the 9800gtx the 8800gts 512 is actually superior in all but a few tests? How easy is it to get the 8800gts 512 to these clocks? Is it a given that all 8800gts 512's can achieve these clocks?

I don't think it is easy to get the 8800GTS's clocks to the same level as the 9800GTX, they probably modded their card and/or used insane cooling. For the GPU itself it will probably be easy, the issue will be the RAM. I've seen people OCing their GTS's RAM up to 1050Mhz at most, but never much more.

The 9800GTX is not the same as the 8800GTS; same GPU, but different manufacturing process (would be like saying a computer is the same as another based on CPU alone). But even if you are 2-3% lower than the 9800GTX it might not be worth the money or the trouble. Make the math here ... 3% of ~30 FPS is ~1FPS which is insignificant and 3% of 100FPS is 3FSP which won't be noticeable ...

do you have any gamer friends. you could brag about having the 9000 series, but that seems to be all you could do. you could buy a game with the $40.

4 questions to ask yourself:

How much disposable money do I have?
How much does fps matter to me?
How sensitive am I to noise?
How much room is there is my case for it?

I would do it...

$40 isn't a lot of money, fps always matters, don't mind the roar while gaming and it will just fit in the case.

If you can tick all the box's do it, do it now.

My card Maxes COD4 at 1680X1050 with 60FPS... I don't care about anything else. All other games play just fine.

I rethought things and you know what? I am GLAD they have a 9800GTX now. Because it is the "top dog" and it drove down the price of the 8800GTS 512 down a little bit.

Granted the 9800GTX is $330 which REALLY still is half what the 8800GTX was when it came out. I think if I didnt get the 8800GTS a few months ago and I were to buy a card now, I'd get one just because it probably OCes like a Wild Banshee. But if you are on a budget, there are so many cards under it that perform pretty darn compatibly.

Say no to GeForce 9800GTX!
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/03 [...] review/13/

That is one of the only negative reviews I have read. This one seems to praise the 9800GTX:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] page5.html

Is the difference just the overclock on the 9800GTX over the 880oGTS 512 and the 9800GTX have the newer drivers in these reviews? Can the 8800GTS 512 be easily overclocked to the sam speeds as the 9800GTX and if so , will the 9800GTX at stock speeds run cooler than the 8800GTS 512 overlcocked to the same speeds?

From the Tom's Hardware Review of the 9800GTX:

"The performance is also good enough to put the 8800 GTS 512 MB out of the running, with a little surprise: Despite an identical GPU and similar throughputs (+4% in the raw-processing-power department, +13% for memory bandwidth), the gain in actual gaming is sometimes as much as 40% (average 13%). That's because the GeForce 8 drivers were older at the time of our test, and will catch up when Nvidia finally gets around to updating them (a beta version of ForceWare 174.74 has just been released)."

So there was up to a 40% difference based solely on the overclock and drivers? We need to see a comparison review with the same drivers and the 8800GTS 512 overclocked to match the 9800GTX.

Heh yeah get it why not - BRAGING RIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!! LOOK AT ME I HAVE A REBADGED GEFORCE8

Wait for the GT100

Its on par or a lil better than the GTS, and itll oclock a lil better, has a bit better ram, but is it worth the money? For maybe 5% performance gains? Thats up to you

its worth it upgrade to 9800GTX because you get faster memory.the memory use in the GTS only rate at 2000mhz.but the GTX is rated at 2400mhz.and just stock you can overclock the memory to 2000mhz without volt mod.but the gtx standard at 2400 but nvidia underclock it to 2200mhz.

the 8800GTS CANNOT overclock to 2400 with the memory that its got.but the 9800GTX can!!!

it makes sense just to step up for that little cost.its not like back then when the GTS320 have massive gap between the 8800GTX!

I would go with the 9800gtx. Nvidias upcoming drivers should make the 9800gtx the better long term option. You can always sell your 9800gtx too since it will definitely be worth more $$$.

i cant imagine myself getting old and use a dual core OEM build desktop with intergrate graphics!lol

if sli is your goal then yes if not you really don't need it

The to 9800 will scale much better in sli and in the future. The 8800gts will not scale as well. If you woulnd need to upgrade your powersupply though then don't worry about the 9800 just stick with the 8800 and youw ill be fine. I still wish these cards had more vram though.

For 40 bucks I would do it, but then again I'm a computer addict. If you asked a crack addict if they would buy $40.00 more crack if they had the money, what do think they would say? Computer addiction aside, I would get it for 40 bucks.