Upgrade from 8800gt

[polishtom]

I have a nvidia gefore 8800gt and i have no clue which card to get. I have been looking around and I cant really decide which card is better. Im looking for a card thats around 150-200 bucks and that can run smoothly. someone please help thank you 😀

 

[pluke the 2]

Lawl @ cheese's face

 

[polishtom]

ok i have a 600 watt psu that would be enough right? and if i were to get another gtx 260 how would i be able to connect since i have enough adapters to connect one gtx 260

 

[4745454b]

Not all 600W PSUs are the same. It might have enough, but possibly not if you don't have enough plugs. The only way to tell is to look at the PSU casing and see how much power it has on the 12V rail(s).

 

[polishtom]

Not all 600W PSUs are the same. It might have enough, but possibly not if you don't have enough plugs. The only way to tell is to look at the PSU casing and see how much power it has on the 12V rail(s).

how will i determine that? i see a +12V then under it 32A and under that 384 watts and under that combined with the +3.3V and the +5V its 580W

 

[pepperman]

You probably won't be able to SLI then, but it should be fine for a single card.

 

[polishtom]

thats whack was hoping to do SLI and if i were to do it i would have to buy a new PSU correct?

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

I agree about th 9600gt, it is a downgrade essentially. I work on computers for a living on both PC's, as well as have my Apple cert. There is about a 15-20% performance difference in favor of the 8800gt vs the 9600gt if memory serves. Don't get me wrong, 9600gt is not horrible, I have one myself, but going from the 8800gt to the 9600gt is the equivalent of downgrading. If I remember right, the 8800gt has 112 stream processors vs the 64 of the 9600gt which makes up a lot of the difference.

For the PCI 1.0 vs 2.0, 2.0 might help, but I am not sure many cards actually can saturate the full bandwidth offered by 1.0-1.1. At least I believe that was the case a few months ago, but who knows with the new 5870 series. That being the case, my next upgrade for graphics will likely be a 5750 or 5770. However, the op may be able to find a cheap 4850 floating around somewhere, but at this point, I think I'd go ahead and jump to the DX 11 cards, but that is a personal preference.

 

[aznshinobi]

I completely agree with Ohiou, however about the 5750 and 5770 I'd suggest going with the 4870s or 4890s there much cheaper than the 260s at least the 4870s are. Newegg has the lowest 4870 at 124.98. The 4870s outpreform the 260s by far and match up with the 280s on some games. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4870,1964-10.html shows that. And the 4870 offers the DX 10.1 support which should be set for a while. D11 has few to no games currently but yeah. 4870 is the better buy. Rather than the 260 since its in like the same price range on Newegg.

 

[polishtom]

I completely agree with Ohiou, however about the 5750 and 5770 I'd suggest going with the 4870s or 4890s there much cheaper than the 260s at least the 4870s are. Newegg has the lowest 4870 at 124.98. The 4870s outpreform the 260s by far and match up with the 280s on some games. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4870,1964-10.html shows that. And the 4870 offers the DX 10.1 support which should be set for a while. D11 has few to no games currently but yeah. 4870 is the better buy. Rather than the 260 since its in like the same price range on Newegg.

so the 4870 out preforms the gtx 260 superclocked or not? and can you give me a link please been lookin around for the 4870 but only found it at 150

 

[pepperman]

The 4870's are roughly equal to the GTX 260 216 sp's. =on&prod[2463]=on&prod[2464]=on]http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-2009/compare,1178.html?prod[2480]=on&prod[2463]=on&prod[2464]=on

If you want a single card, you would get more for your money with a 4870, but if you want a multi-gpu, (you will need to upgrade your psu) you should go with the GTX 260 (make sure its a 216 shader model).

HD 4870- link posted above^

GTX 260 (216 shader)- $175
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127430

PSU- $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

 

[polishtom]

but why is the evga version of the 260 more then then the msi and the same with the 4870 why is the visiontek more then asus wheres the difference?

 

[pepperman]

so the 4870 out preforms the gtx 260 superclocked or not? and can you give me a link please been lookin around for the 4870 but only found it at 150

If you want a 4870, you should go with the one I posted (at least if you're going off of newegg). Since the price difference is so small, you should stick with a 1GB version over the 512 MB version.

The 4870 I posted before was $145. Here's the link again.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150436

 

[pepperman]

but why is the evga version of the 260 more then then the msi and the same with the 4870 why is the visiontek more then asus wheres the difference?

The difference is the brand. Some brands carry a better warranty, like XFX, EVGA, and BFG whose cards carry a lifetime warrany. Others don't have such warranties. Personally, I prefer XFX and EVGA.

 

[aznshinobi]

Oh, the EVGA is more expensive, also, because of brands, since more people just prefer EVGA since its the standard Nvidia brand, I THINK! Since its like how Sapphire and EVGA are exclusive to its GPU

 

[polishtom]

If you want a 4870, you should go with the one I posted (at least if you're going off of newegg). Since the price difference is so small, you should stick with a 1GB version over the 512 MB version.

The 4870 I posted before was $145. Here's the link again.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150436

whats the difference between the memory of the gtx 260 which has 2106MHz and the 4870 has 900 MHz is it the speed?
and thanks for the link

 

[pepperman]

The 2106 MHz of the GTX 260 is GDDR3 with a 448 bit interface while the 3600 MHz (900 x 4) of the 4870 is GDDR5 with a 256 bit interface. The bandwidth is very similar, I could calculate it but I'm too lazy right now, but you really can't compare the two cards that way; they're built on different architectures, so you can only look at theoretical performance differences. You're better off looking at the charts (either the ones I posted, or you can go there yourself).

 

[pepperman]

118 GB/s for the GTX 260
115.2 GB/s for the 4870

As I said, they're very close to each other

 

[polishtom]

ok so if i were to go with gtx 260 SLI i will have better preformance then the 4870

 

[polishtom]

and that 4870 has a horrible cooler!

 

[pepperman]

With SLI, yes, but just as the single card config, a pair of 4870's will perform similarly. I agree, that is a terrible cooler; to be honest, I wasn't operating at full capacity when I linked that. Unfortunately, the next best one I would recommend (based on warranty) is the ASUS Dark Knight, which costs $160.

Since you seem to want to have a multi-gpu setup, it really boils down to your mobo. The only way you can do it (without upgrading your mobo) is SLI. If you have the money now and/or you want to add another gpu later, you should go with the GTX 260. If all you want is a single GPU setup, you could get either, depending on how much you want to pay.

Dark Knight
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121291

 

[polishtom]

Yea I think I am going to go with the gtx 260 buy one then wait a few and buy a new psu and another gtx 260. Dont really want to get a new motherboard just for the corssfire. Thanks for all the help pepperman really appreciate it and to the rest of you guys.

 

[pepperman]

That's what we're here for.