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8800 GTX died... Need advice choosing new card.

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Hello. My EVGA 8800 GTX recently crapped out on me, rendering my current computer useless. Its a 3 Ghz Core 2 Duo E6850 system, with 4 GB of DDR2-800 memory, on a EVGA 680i motherboard. I've had it for 3 years and I'm quite dissapointed that the card i spent $600 on has gone bad so quickly. I've checked the prices for a new, replacement 8800 GTX, but it looks like most places still want $300 - $500 for one. If I'm going to pay that kind of money for a card I might as well upgrade to something a lot better, right? The Radeon 5870 and GeForce GTX 470 both look to be in my price range, but I have some questions that need to be answered before I decide.

Normally I would do this research myself, but I've been reduced to using my 10 year old, Pentium 3 computer to access the internet. The connection on this thing goes out after I browse only a few pages, and then I have to restart the computer to get it going again, which makes any attempts at research extremely frustrating.

I suppose the first question would be which of the two cards offers better performance for the price? I use my computer to do a lot of extremely high resolution artwork in Photoshop, but I also like to get as many frames per second out of the games I play on it. Secondly, will there be any compatibility issues using these cards with the relatively old 680i chipset and a Core 2 Duo? Can I expect a significant improvement in performance (in games, primarily) over my old 8800 GTX, or will the older hardware I'll be pairing them with hamper the performance of these cards? Will my current 800 watt power supply be sufficient for either card?

Also recommendations on which manufacturer to buy from and which to avoid would also be helpful.

I think that's it for now. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks.

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Graphics card Master

For similar performance you can get $100 GTS250 or $130 GTS450 (new tech). With your CPU I would recommend $220 GTX460 1 GB substantial upgrade. Should not be any issues with the chip set and 800 watt PSU should be able to run all of these cards including GTX470 or HD5870 as long as it is reasonable quality.
Graphics card Master

Gaming wise, the old Core 2 Duo may not give you the absolute potential of something higher end like the GTX 470 or ATI 5870. All depends on what you're playing though, as not all games are as CPU demanding.

rolli59 is right on with his GPU recommendations though. I honestly can't see putting money into an equivalent video card (but that's me). So the $220 GTX 460 1GB is probably where I'd lean. It's definitely an upgrade from what you have/had.

What resolution do you actually use when you say extremely high? And also what resolution is your monitor?
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and, dude... go ahead and get at least a used /refurbished laptop, anything to have as a backup in case this kind of stuff happens (it will happen again at some point).
Something to get you online reliably. I mean, how will you be able to order a new card if you can't even connect properly to the internet?

Thanks for the advice guys.

@karma831: no I don't think I did. I didn't know they did that.

@jerreece: Yeah, I'd rather put money towards something that's (hopefully) significantly better. The "extremely high resolution artwork" I'm referring to are a series of what are essentially murals that I'm doing for a church. They're printed out on an adhesive vinyl wallpaper. Most of the images are 8' x 22'. The resolution ends up being about 100dpi at that size. By the time the images are done, the file sizes are all around 1GB. My monitor is 1680 x 1050.

@house70: Good idea :)  This thing is a piece of junk.

Anyway, I've got about $300 or so to put toward a new card. I'd like to get something that will finally get me 30+fps out of Crysis.
Graphics card Master

AndrewJJ said:

@jerreece: Yeah, I'd rather put money towards something that's (hopefully) significantly better. The "extremely high resolution artwork" I'm referring to are a series of what are essentially murals that I'm doing for a church. They're printed out on an adhesive vinyl wallpaper. Most of the images are 8' x 22'. The resolution ends up being about 100dpi at that size. By the time the images are done, the file sizes are all around 1GB. My monitor is 1680 x 1050.


Nice! I'm intrigued. :) 

I can't speak to benefits for image editing as I don't do much of that. Though I know that all depends on what software you're using, as some are capable of leveraging your video card and some are not.

Gaming wise however, a GTX 460 1GB should be plenty @ 1680 x 1050 for most games. Crysis in particular, all depends on what settings you actually use. I think my GTX 470 was like 32FPS @ 1920x1080 with everything turned up. That was running Crysis V1.2 I think? Don't really play Crysis anymore, so I don't recall. LOL

Realistically though, should you ever decide to do a CPU upgrade, you'll need new RAM & Motherboard as well. The 680i chipset was socket 775. For future upgrade sake, there's not much point in spending money for an older Core 2 Quad in my mind. If and when that time comes, either get an i5-760 (P55 motherboard & DDR3) or an AMD Phenom II X4 955/965 (AM3 Mobo + DDR3).
Graphics card Master

The GTX 460 1gb would be a good choice, maybe an HD5850. Anything more isn't worth it unless you will upgrade the monitor before to long. Normally I would recommend waiting for the HD6000 cards(on the 18th supposedly) but it sounds like you aren't in a position to wait.
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