What to replace the old 8800GTs with?

[MMclachlan]

Hi all,

I have a decision to make... Current system is:
Q9550 @ 3.4 & TRUE
Asus P5N-T 780i
4Gb Dominator 1066
8800GTs in Sli (650/1900 stock)
1080p Asus VH226H
Jeantech Storm 700w (please don't burn me about this one! It wasn't my first choice - honest!)

The GTs are starting to show the strain in 1080p. Although I'd say about 50% of my games I can run in HD with all the eye candy and 4xAA, others are down to 1680x1050 to get them smooth - especially important IMO for my driving games. Trouble is the GTs are still 'pretty good' in comparison with a lot that's in the market for a single card at the moment.
I live in the UK, and I reckon the 8800s (with duorbs) have got to be worth £80-100 to someone on ebay. I don't really want to spend more than £100 overall.
My master plan is currently something like this - get a single card that's better than the GTs (one that costs around £150 to 200), sell the GTs then possibly swap out the mobo later. This would be partly to give me Xfire if I go Ati and partly because the P5N-T refuses to go above 410Mhz FSB with a quad. I'm thinking X38/X48 here.
So anyway, back to the gfx - I'm looking at the HD4890 atm - it can be got here new for £155. That is nicely in my pricerange, but will it be noticably better than the GTs?

 

[hundredislandsboy]

If the 4890 does perform perform better than your sli 8800 GTS, not sure if the gain is noticeable. Does going from avg 45 fps in Crysis to 47 fps noticeable?
To really see improvement on what you have you know, you might have to go dual GTX 275s.

 

[Pailin]

your setup should beat the 4890 in some benchmarks...

seeing as what you have is pretty damn good still, I'd hold out for the next gen parts coming in a couple of months if you can wait that long


if not have a look at this:

Cheap Saphire 4890 from aria just £137.94 this week - 1 left in stock...

 

[Pailin]

just to add...


although a little more money, this might be a better buy:

Asus 4890

one of the cheapest pre OC'd ones about with 950 core, 3900MHz memory and can also up the core voltage

£164.99 for that one from overclockers

 

[coozie7]

Why are you looking for a ATI card when you have a SLI capable MB?
Would n't this make a little more sense:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-205-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1410

Just one word: This is a big card, check your case can handle it.

 

[MMclachlan]

As mentioned, the P5N-T is not great for quad overclocking so I've been thinking about changing that out for a while, and I was thinking ATi for gfx from the 'responsible consumer' standpoint just as I think they have competitive cards and could do with the custom at the moment with AMD's situation.
However I didn't realise that the 275s could be had so cheap - that's certainly worth considering.
Though as Pailin says neither probably make sense for me right now. I might hang on a little while longer for something that is a genuine upgrade but doesn't cost me several limbs!

 

[coozie7]

@ MMclachlan: Oh go on, it's only a arm! We'll even let you choose which one

 

[trkorecky]

Not to bring this too off-topic, but what driving games are you into?

On-topic: I noticed quite an increase going from an 8800GTX to a 4870 512MB. My computer also destroyed a close friend's (I sold my 8800GTX to him so he could run them in SLI, all our other hardware is the same) in every game we played as well as benchmarks.

 

[MMclachlan]

Left one.. no right.. no definitely left! I'll give you an arm if you give me a Spitfire!
@trkorecky My current cards were roughly equivalent to a 4870 back in the days of Toms Q3 '08 charts sometimes better or worse depending on game. So I need something that will be significantly better than a 4870 to make it worth it.
On the driving games I played all the CMcrae's to Dirt, Racedriver 2, Grid, Race07, GTR2. Like the rally games, sims, don't go massively on the really arcadey racers like NFS. (Although NFS Porsche Challenge was awesome!)
Thing is Dirt I have to run in 1680x1050 to be able to have 4xAA and ultra. Grid runs well in 1080p with 8xCSAA, but lags badly in the Japanese night city curcuits, so I was just looking for a little more gfx horsepower on the cheap to iron out those little annoyances, and to get ready for Dirt2, NFS Shift etc that are up and coming.

 

[coozie7]

Sorry, all out if Spitfires.
But I do have this large axe

Really, you are right to delay, new hardware is on its way and should see the prices of existing goodies fall as a result of its release.
In the meantime, try dropping the AA a bit, and look at the shadow levals, I have found both to cause a heavy frame rate penalty with 512Mb cards.

 

[cromedome]

i know this is random but i just sold my 9600gt and bought a 4890(still waiting for arrival). Will there be a noticable difference on the res 1440x900?

 

[B-Unit]

I agree, hold off and suffer the lower res in a few situations for now. As prices come down, a 5850/5870 are going to be the only single GPU cards likely to perform noticeably better.

 

[Rustyy117]

+1^ A 5850 would net you noticable performance and there starting to come back in stock and some e-tailers even have 5850/5870 promotions and price drops. A 5850 can be had for roughly £200 if you shop around alittle.

OR you could wait for nVidia to bring out their "Fermi" cards. Although you might be waiting until March. Atleast that will give you time to save up : )

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey