Looking at upgrading GFX this year, need some thoughts

Tank

Tank

Overkill Specialist
Looking at upgrading my 8800GT to something with alot more punch

so technical stuff first Rig as follows

CPU: AMD Phenom 2 955 Black Edition @ 3.2ghz
Mobo: Asus Crosshair 2 Formula nForce 780a Bios revision 2202
RAM: 4x 1gig Kingston Hyper-X ram DDR2 800
GFX: 1x Chaintech 8800GT 512mb
HDD:1x Seagate 120gb Sata
1x 250gb Seagate Sata
1x Maxtor 250gb Sata
PSU: Coolermaster Realpower PRO 850watt
Case: Coolermaster HAF 922
DVD/RW: Asus DRW2014L1T
Keyboard: Logitech g15
Mouse: Logitech MX518
Speakers: Logitech X-530 5.1
Monitor: 23" Samsung 2333SW wide
O/S: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit

my biggest worry is a cpu or ram bottleneck on something like a 5870 so i'm thinking SLI on either gtx-260's or gtx-275's, or if i could strike it lucky and score 2 gtx-280's or 285's. yes dx10 not 11 but 11 won't be truly viable til 2011...
so need some thoughts on this. and no a mobo/cpu/ram upgrade is not viable, i only have enough cash for 1 BIG or 2 viable cards for sli. in either case the possibility of a bottleneck is something i want to avoid
 
Thats a pretty neat rig there Tank.

What about getting an ATi card? maybe something like the 5xxx series? depends on the amount of cash you are going to lay on the table. I am actually not too sure how the bottleneck thing works, as far as I know you just have to make sure that it is more than 128bit memory on the GFX. :)
 
You shouldn't bottleneck a 5870 with a 955 be/4gb ram - don't worry about it too much. Just get what your budget allows - 5870 would be my first choice. In any case sli 275's will outperform a single 5870 and cost more. DX11 will definitely make a difference to games upcoming - so right now it's preferable. Just think of it as extra graphical eye candy for free.
 
anyhow thanks for all the thoughts. gonna go with the 260's and keep the 8800gt for physx
 
If I where you I would've wait for the GF100. looks like it will be better than a GTX285 according to benchmarks on guru3d.com. Also to mention is that the full product will be better than the ones they tested.

So looks good.
 
1x5870 probably won't beat 2x260 but really does it matter? You don't have the hassle of SLI, power requirements, all the rest of it, and you can play anything at any limit whatsoever.
 
checked again gonna go with a 5870.

really what's the point of going with old tech...
 
I've still got my trusty GTX280, NO GAMES warrant This kind of power.

In the past few weeks I decided to re-thermal paste my GTX280, i was silly and though i had paste and it was an empty tube and ended up ordering online which took 2 weeks to arrive (*sigh), but anyway. . . In that time, I played all my games on my Old 8800GT 512Mb....

ALL the games I have, MW2, L4D, L4D2, BF2, Fallout3, even BFBC2 Beta (squillions more, but I dont have the patience to type them all out) - all run perfectly on the 8800GT, the only difference is the Frame-Rate being displayed by my FRAPS in the corner of the screen, other than that, after re-applying themal paste and improving my Card Max Temps by -10*C, I have more frames, but absolutely NO change in gaming experience . . . . 36FPS vs 88FPS = NOTHING

Anyway, just my random ramblings. . . use it / dont use it.

I'm waiting for Fermi GTX470/480s or whatever they are going to be called, since the architecture will be something that we can hopefully get non-gaming accelleration - like the failed adobe CS4 premiere - I can only hope.

Well that's my sermon fer the day, stay tuned for another episode . . .
 
I will say wait for the Geforce 100 series to be release. Can't be that far away. Maybe that will be very. I'm also looking for that
 
Slipperyduck is kind of right lol. It did make a noticeable difference at 1920x1200 to go from a 4850 to a 260 216sp but I'm already looking to upgrade and frankly everything runs so smoothly it really isn't necessary. Oh well...
 
Slipperyduck is right. But something I dont understand is why do people have like SLI GTX280's I mean what actual difference will you see. I assume most games are well below that kind of hardware requirement. Ok, maybe if you want it at a higher resolution, but still is it worth forking out R5000 plus?
 
Rob-Dynamix said:
Slipperyduck is right. But something I dont understand is why do people have like SLI GTX280's I mean what actual difference will you see. I assume most games are well below that kind of hardware requirement. Ok, maybe if you want it at a higher resolution, but still is it worth forking out R5000 plus?
Click to expand...

I have 2 GTX280's and a seperate 9800GT for PhysX....do I notice a difference between a single GTX280 and 2 of them? It all depends on the game and the drivers, and in some games like Crysis and Modern Warfare the answer is an absolute YES. Would I pay R6000 per card? NOPE...I got them at R3000 per card and at that price it was a fantastic deal.

One thing I'm starting to really believe in MORE than SLi is to have a dedicated PhysX card like a small 9800GT or something. I've seen a massive improvement in Batman: AA and it proved to me that the technology still has a lot to offer.
 
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