changing my 8800gts 320mb to a ati card

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Guest

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Is there any point in changing my 8800gts to a ati 4850 or 4870?? I can only play crysis on medium settings, would i notice a big performance boost?
is the 8800 bottlenecking my comp??

My specs are
amd x2 6000+ 3,1 ghz 89w
2 gb kingston hyperx 800mhz cl4
Asus m2n
500w antec truepower psu
soundblaster xtreemegamer
seagate barracuda
 
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homerdog

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I upgraded from a 320MB GTS to a 512MB 8800GT and it made a big difference in Crysis. I can play it smoothly now at all high settings at 1440x900.

Yesterday I ordered this factory OCed GTX260. I would have preferred a 1GB HD4870 but I got this card for $239.99, $199.99 AR and that was too good of a deal to pass up :p. Very high settings here I come!

Now to answer your question: [strike]I don't think it would[/strike] *It could be* worth it to upgrade to a 4850, but a 4870 makes *more* sense if you like Crysis as much as I do. You will be able to play Crysis on high-very high settings with an HD4870 depending on the resolution. I suppose your processor will bottleneck it in some cases but overall it would be a worthwhile upgrade. Keep in mind the 1GB version appears to make a big difference in Crysis, even at low resolutions:
crysis.jpg

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3415&p=4

*Edited*
 
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IndigoMoss

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It depends, is Crysis the only game that suffers, or are there other games that are giving you performance issues. Also, what resolution is your display?

If there are a lot of games that you feel are suffering in performance, then a 4850 might just do the trick for you.
 
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homerdog

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Okay I got lost making that post and confused myself into thinking Vulvaboy had a 512MB 8800GT. 320MB 8800GTS -> HD4850 would be a decent upgrade, but for Crysis I think you should get something more powerful like the HD4870 or GTX260.
 
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homerdog

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Just out of curiosity which ATI cards have you owned and why did you keep buying them?
 
jaguarskx

jaguarskx

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I mostly owned ATI cards in the past and I never had a problem with any of them.

I did notice something odd when I tested my nVidia 9600GT. I was playing back 9 different DivX files at the same time to do a quick check of the encoding qualities. After some time all the DivX files stopped displaying the video, but the sound kept playing. This happens everytime if I let the DivX files play long enough (within 30 - 40 minutes). Only way to fix it was a re-boot.

That never happened once with my Radeon X1900XT.
 
kawininjazx

kawininjazx

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There is a noticeable increase from a 320 to an HD4870. I could only play crysis on medium before, now it flies on high. And just for reference, 3dmark06- 8800gts 320mb- 12K (XP) HD4870 512mb- 16K (vista)
 
T

the_politician

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I am in the exact same spot right now with GPU upgrade-itis. I have an old 8800GTS 320 and I am looking around for decent buys to take a step up. My argument against buying right now is that I do not play any really demanding games like Crysis, so I would see very little increase in performance for $200-$250.

I was looking at the 3870, 4850 and GTX260 and I came to the conclusion that right now, it is just not worth it. I figure that sometime into the new year, there will either be something new that is really worth the upgrade or one of the aforementioned will drop in price enough to be worth it.
 
TheGreatGrapeApe

TheGreatGrapeApe

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The GTS-320 is limited in very many ways, and even the GTS-640 is a bit of a boost in ome titles. The easiest way to think of it, the GF8880GT noticeably outperforms the GTS-320 in Crysis (especially in DX10 mode) and the HD4850 equals and sometimes noticably outperforms the GF8800GT, and the HD4870 just widens the gap even larger still outperforming the GF8800GTX/9800GTX and in DX10 mode the GTX260 and occasionally the GTX280.

It'll be an upgrade, but whether it's worth it or not is a personal question only you can answer. Depends on the price and your other options, but it's a solid card for now and some future gaming until your next crossroads.

It will play Crysis better, and a few other titles better, but it's not going to be a massive difference, it's just going to let you increase either resolution or settings a notch or two.

Some people don't notice the difference between a GF6600 and GF8600GTS/HD3650 or better, whether you'll notice the difference will matter alot about you and even your gaming style too.
 
titaniumcloud

titaniumcloud

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I upgraded from my 8800GTS 320 a few months ago to a 4850. It took a little getting used to not using Nvidia drivers and RivaTuner, because I'm just using CCC. But, besides that, I noticed almost every single game is running smoother. I'd crank the settings up even on the old card, and just deal with lower framerates, but the new card helps out in that regard. I can enable AA in more games too, partly because of ATI drivers, but mainly the extra video card memory.

I've tweaked the settings in Crysis a lot, but even with the new card, there isn't much difference. Crysis likes Nvidia cards better. If you are upgrading strictly for that game, get a GTX260 instead.
 
G

Guest

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Well all other games runs just fine on high, like company of heroes (love that game) :)
But when great games like farcry 2 and fallout3 are coming i would like to get all out of them =D
i Run my games in 1280x1024, i was thinking of getting a new 22" widescreen screen.
my m2n mobo does not support pcie 2.0 is that bad??
 
C

Craxbax

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I can't speak for Crysis but I can tell you that comparing a OC'd 8800GTS 640mb, the HD4850 512mb (OC'd to 690/1000) has a noticable improvement in COD4 even though the 4850 is paired with a slower CPU (stock AMD 5600+ x2 ... the 8800GTS 640mb is in a Q6600 @ 3.4ghz rig.) Biggest difference is picture quality and smoothness. The HD 4850 on PCIe 1.0 or 1.1 is fine...really no advantage yet for PCIe 2.0 .
 
L1qu1d

L1qu1d

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8800 GTS 320 to 8800 GT is a boost to notice, so my suggestions to get the most out of your boost would be to move onto the 4870 or the 9800 GX2.

The 8800 GTS 320 is just under the 9600 GT, and 2 9600 GTs will come short of 2 8800 GTies and 2 8800 GTies will just come short 1 9800 GX2.

So the most noticeable boost would either be to go with either ht 4870 or the 9800 GX2.

THe GX2 seems to be the best price/performance ratio, while the 4870 is still in its childhood.

Although i doubt it will ever catch up to the 9800 GX2, it certainly is less of a hassle.
 
L1qu1d

L1qu1d

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Oh yeah I forgot about the old 260 GTX, very good price, soon to be direct competition to the 4850 if prices still drop. :)

 
R

rangers

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you could be right there, nvidia must have a shedload to get rid of, but in the UK right now it still costs more than the 4870
 
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