Upgrade ???

[paladin20]

hey guys i'm not sure what to do here.
i need to upgrade my GPU. i m looking forward to games like fallout 3, far cry 2, demi god, and i want to be able to play on as high of settings as i can. right now i have a 8800GTS 320mb. I'm not sure if i should upgrade to a 280gtx, 260gtx or go for 2 9800gtx or a 9800gx2. they are all around the same price which will i get the bes preformance out of? heat might be a issue as i do not have liquid cooling. I have a Q6600, 4GBDDR2

 

[pauldh]

To be honest, the games are not out yet, so saying which solution is best for those games is guesswork. In general SLI 9800GTX > 9800GX2 >= GTX280 > GTX 260. But lets see how SLI scales in those games and if more than 512MB mem is an advantage. Any should do very well as they are all high end solutions, but unless you can take advantage of them in a game you play now, then why not wait and see what the best bang for the buck is in those games come release.

 

[frozenlead]

Waiting until the games release is a better idea.

+1 for that.

 

[falcodakrzz]

Agreed. But if you must upgrade now, Id reccomend the 4850, excellent value. Or if you want even better performance (not needed imo) go for the 4870. Do you have a board capable of crossfire? If not i'd say the 4870 or 9800GTX+.

 

[georgep001]

yeah a 4870 should runs those games just fine unless u want overkill get a 4870x2 but by then ati will have realeased something better trust me i know i just got 2 4870s 3 days ago lol found out 4870x2 is coming ah well but if u dont wanna wait 4870 for the price is great.

 

[paladin20]

thats ture the games are not out yet. but i'm not getting for any specific game just gaming in general. so i'll rephrase. i want to upgrade and i thinking of spending $300-450 on card. obviously i'd rather pay as little as possible but i'll save money if its not a very big difference. and 2 9800gtx are about the same as a 280gtx or a 260 to save money. does the 9 series have CUDA?

 

[paladin20]

Agreed. But if you must upgrade now, Id reccomend the 4850, excellent value. Or if you want even better performance (not needed imo) go for the 4870. Do you have a board capable of crossfire? If not i'd say the 4870 or 9800GTX+.

I have an asus p5n32-e nForce 680i sli chipset so no crossfire. and i had an old AGP ATI card and i didnt like it much and had a lot of driver issues so i'm kkinda bias for nvida

 

[georgep001]

then get a 4870 its cheap and performs very well

 

[frozenlead]

I have an asus p5n32-e nForce 680i sli chipset so no crossfire. and i had an old AGP ATI card and i didnt like it much and had a lot of driver issues so i'm kkinda bias for nvida

Pretty much all of the PCIe drop-downs to the AGP platform have driver issues. I know this really well. Don't let this be your opinion on ATI. But, you do have an SLI board, so I don't recommend you get an ATI card anyway.

 

[dagger]

At the current $280 price tag, the 9800gx2 is the best bang for the buck for single card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133217
It cost the same as 4870, while performing far higher, cost much less than gtx280, while performing slightly higher. You also has the option of quad sli on your existing motherboard. While it scales horribly, 9800gx2 quad sli will still outperform a single 4870x2, which is the highest you can go on ATI's side with your motherboard. One 4870x2 cost the same as 2 9800gx2.

There's also sli two 9800gtx, which cost $180 each, and will outperform a single 9800gx2 due to higher stock core clock rate. But it would be better to just get 2 8800gts instead, since they use identical g92 cores with 128sp, and perform the same, but cost less.
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/03/geforce-9800gtx-review/12/