best NVIDIA GFX to go with in an AMD FX60 system?

Hi all,

I was wondering what would be the best NVIDIA graphics card to go with an old AMD FX60 system?
[939]
motherboard: A8N32-sli
CPU: FX60
RAM: 4GB
GFX: 512 7950 GT

I know I could get up to date with technology and upgrade the whole PC but I would like to keep my current setup for a little longer. I understand that the FX60 would be the bottleneck in my current system.
BUT....

1) Would SLI 9800 GTX + or SLI 8800 GT would be over kill for the FX 60?
2) Would a single 9800 GTX+ be over kill for my old FX60?
3) Am I aiming to high and should look at 8800?? Which one would be best?

May be next year I will upgrade to a whole new PC but for now what is the best NVIDIA graphics card to go with an old AMD FX60 system?

Any advice would be most welcomed.
Thanks in advance.

yeah, don't sell that fx60 short, it's still capable of running a good gaming rig. tell us your monitor's resolution and we can make a better recommendation

With the resolution you are gaming at, a single 8800GT or 4850 should be more than enough for you.
If you got a cheap 8800GT, you could SLI it when you get a larger display.

Just to be clear.
You will probably be bottlenecked at your resolution.
As such, your GPU will not be using all of it's potential.
Therefore, you can turn up more visual effects with no drop in performance.

If I were to get a HD screen say 22" 1680x1050 /1600 x 1200
then what would be the best GFX card?

At the moe I play BF2142, COD4 and I have crysis but cannot play that with my current card. I like turning on AA and AF on games so even though I have a small res at the moe the card would need to deal with AA and AF.

I prefer the software and driver support from NVidia. I guess this is the main reason why I like NVidia. I have seen too many headaches of loading different drivers for different games with ATI. Had no problem at all with my SLI7800 and then 7950GT.

I admit though that ATI "currently" seem to have the better card mainly due to cost too. (Value for money)

i also upgraded from a 7950gt to a 8800gt with an opty180 and it made a huge difference. i game at 1680x1050 so that was really stressing the 7950gt which was a pretty good card. A single 8800gt has made a big difference (more frames at higher settings) in Company of Heroes, Orange box, crysis, dirt, cod4. old school amd cpu's can still kick some butt.

I like my FX60 which is why I do not want to get rid of it.

New questions:
1) Is SLI worth going for with the FX60?
2) ATI 4870 more powerful that NVIDIA 280? I know its cheaper.

Hey MayDay94
Just wondering if you plan to SLI that? Or is the single 8800gt more than enough?

u can make the choice, highest fps\cost
9800gtx+
ati 4850\4870
gtx 260 best choice highest cost
but ur fx60 is still a fierce compeditor u shudnt sell it short especially with 4gb 0f ram

If his CPU is going to be a serious bottleneck, it won't matter if he's playing at 640x480 or 2560x1600. If his CPU is the limiting factor, it just means his framerate at 640x480 won't be any better than it is at a higher resolution.

The 4870 is between the 260 and 280 in performance. It is also a great option for what you are looking at.

On the ATI 2x 4870 / 2x 4870 does the 2X mean multi GPU on the same card?
Would this be like the GX2 models in Nvidia? Or is this crossfire?

Dmlk... I sold my a8n32sli, my 4800x2 socket 939, 4 gigs ddr ram and actually only had to spend 20 dollars of my own money and got a q6600, 4 gigs ddr2, and a 750i nforce setup, the only reason i didnt break even was cause i got an afterparty cpu cooler, anyways my fps in crysis went up from 15-20 to 30-35 using the same 2 8800gt's, people will spend a lot on ebay for that old 939 stuff,look into it

Hi dmlk,

First rule for gaming computer.

GPU is always the biggest influence on performance. (unless the CPU is junk, but i had your system with the FX60 and had to upgrade to a Q9450 on a 64 bit OS to notice a big difference in performance with the same GPU).

I have a gtx 280 and I tried the hd 4870. For price/performance the 4870 is a great card and will play your games, but if you're a frames-per-second at highest AA, AF, and texture resolution whore like me, then the gtx 280 is the way to go.

Oh, and AFAIK, crossfire won't work on that board so you can only do SLI. IMO SLI is not worth it for your purpose and will give you more headaches than a single card.

Enjoy whatever you get.

SLI 9800 GTX+ will be much better in 90%+ of games.
For the price, consider SLI 8800GT's.
About the same or even a bit higher performance than a GTX 280 for $240 after MIR's.

Bouth the 8800GT and 9800GTX+ are based off G92 chips.
Either can make use of PhysiX.
Yes, SLIed 9800GTX+ will be faster than SLIed 8800GT's bye 10-30%.
It will also cost 2/3 more.
Either setup will give you more than enough power to run any current game at 1600x1200.

Results are taken from the multi GPU tests on Anandtech's 48X0 review.









__GTX 280 Average FPS__|__9800GTX+ SLI Average FPS__|__8800GT SLI Average FPS
==============================================================
1280x1024= 50.1 | 58.9 | 57.3
1680x1050= 75.31 | 90.11 | 84.57
1920x1200= 68.94 | 81.04 | 72.66
2560x1600= 53.5 | 59.65 | 51.93

In all honesty, if my CPU isn't bottlenecking me, I'm pretty sure you FX60 isn't bottlenecking your system. Current CPU's are so far ahead of what most companies are writing games for that you wouldn't see a huge difference in real gameplay, unless the game is multithreaded past 2 cores. If you look, most games still have minimum and recommended system req's in the single core P4 range. There are a few more recent games that require dual cores.

I myself play Mass Effect, Orange Box, FEAR, Civ4, Company of Heroes, and a few older games like rarely Doom3 or Hitman trilogy. And my system handles everything good, at 1680x1050 with usually max settings, and decent AA/AF settings. And thats on an HD3870.

You should be able to pick up an 8800gt or two on the cheap now, or even a 9600gt. An ATi HD4850 would be your best bet for the money at the moment though, as that one puts out performance close to the gtx260 on some games. Thats what I'll be upgrading to most likely once I get my quarterly bonus, that and an sb750 based mobo. Might even see if I can manage to Xfire it with the 3870, let the 3870 pull physics or AA/AF duty while the 4850 pulls the horsepower.

I have decided to stick with SLI as my mboard is SLI.
As it will be the last upgrade with this setup I thought I would get
2x 9800 GTX+ in SLI

Only question now is which make!!!
1) XFX
2) EVGA
3) BFG

I am from the UK so lifetime warranty on the XFX does not apply! GUTTED!!
I have used XFX each time but they are slightly more expensive. Not sure about EVGA or BFG but their lifetime warranty interests me a little. I have heard about their trade in project but I don't think I would use this.

What if EVGA was £10 more than BFG?
Would it still be worth that extra £10?

Make makes your preference order? 1) EVGA 2) XFX 3) BFG
Have you dealt with each of them before?

I use one 8800 gtx oc 768 with most of those games and get great performance with it. And its a BFG make!

Hey dmlk, installed a single GTX 260 last night and ran a couple tests, check it out. All the updates are in the first post. Here's the link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252918-28-update