Upgrading a 7800gt

[Fa11ou7]

I have an old socket 939 system that I was able to get a dual core opteron 165 for $36. It still runs 32bit xp pro pretty darn good with the single core 3200+ so with the dual core it should still be a usable system for another year or so. My problem is that for gaming, my ancient 7800gt is pretty lacking. My question is, since it is a Pci-e 1.0 should I just get a cheap 40 dollar HD 4650 (all though I can't seem to find the DDR3 versions that were in the best of sept 09 article), or should I get a radeon HD 5770 that I can use in the core i5 system that I will get someday (maybe as soon as black friday). I'm not sure how the tech advanced 5700 series would work with my old computer, xp can't use dx11 can it?

Regardless of what I do to this system, when I get my new one this will be my wife’s computer. On a very rare day she plays World of Warcraft with me so it needs to do at least that, with the 7800gt WoW gets about 30fps on low-med settings questing forget 25man raids.

My specs as best I can remember are;
Amd opteron 165 dual core
2 gigs memory
Geforce 7800 gt
400 or 450 (can’t remember) thermaltake psu
Neo4 platinum Mobo (which lets me noob OC up to 12x from the bios, via general/sergeant/commander, etc settings)

I really appreciate your guys input I’ve done probably 100 hrs or so of research on a new system but when I was able to get the opteron cpu for $36 I decided to wait a little longer, especially since I’m in school working part time.

 

[jay2tall]

ATI cards tend to fair MUCH better than nvidia cards in older systems. My buddy has a similar setup as you and had upgraded to a 4850 over a year ago and he runs very well. If you have the money for a 5770, just get it and enjoy. It will run great. Unfortunately you won't be able to use DX11 with XP, but you can always move it to another system. A 5770 runs slightly under a 4870 card. If you have the bones to spring for a 5850, you will get a better card for the future, but its all your call.

 

[Fa11ou7]

Thanks Jay I appreciate the advice =D

 

[nforce4max]

A 5770 would be a great upgrade over that 7800gt. PS the 9800gt isn't that fast unless you were to do a sli so ATI is the way to go.

 

[Fa11ou7]

I found a radeon hd 4670 on newegg for $59 so I bought that. I figured the 7800gt was due for retirement and this way I can prob max my old system out with the new GPU/CPU. I bought the system back in 2005ish so its kinda nice to get the most out of it.

 

[jay2tall]

Those cards are nice. They run with a 9600GT. I put one in a build a while back and it could run COD4 at 1680x1050 max with no AA. Not to bad for a card that doesn't need a PCI-E power cable. Enjoy man.

 

[Fa11ou7]

Thanks Jay thats good to hear. I usually run my display at 1900 x whatever since i use a 28" monitor so I thought a card with 1gb of ddr3 would be necessary. I'm actually surprised that I've lasted this long with the 7800gt. I've been running 1900x? for a year or so now and its been able to do a decent job of it, and it has 256 memory.
I pretty excited to see how the new setup is going to work I've spent about $100 total for the radeon 4670, dual core cpu and a new fan/heatsink with arctic silver. At least on paper it should be a huge upgrade over what I have.

 

[nforce4max]

You will notice the difference when playing any thing shader heavy like crysis.

 

[jay2tall]

The CPU may give you a little benefit in gaming, but will really make the PC run better overall better, not just in gaming. The 4670 does a pretty good job. Definitly should be better than the 7800gt. What brand monitor do you have if its a 1900x 28"? Just curious. I'm looking for a new monitor and am looking at a 24 or 26"

 

[Fa11ou7]

Its a crappy (but cheap) HannsG I got from Costco.com. It was ~$500 when I bought it a couple years ago I think you can get the equivalent for about $300 now. It works great with brighter tasks but in dark movies or games there is some nasty light bleeding, it actually makes an X on the screen with the light coming through on the sides, top and bottom. Its not totally unviewable but defiantly noticeable. I tried taking it apart to see if I could fix it but when I got the case off and saw all the wiring and junk I decided I could live with it instead of possibly destroying my $500 dollar monitor.

HannsG 28" Wide True 1080P with HDMI 3ms 800:1 500

With the cost of monitors and TV's anymore I've actually been toying with getting 1080p TV for a monitor and giving this one to my wife.

 

[mhughes81]

You might be shooting youself in the foot buying an ATI Card for WoW. Earlier this year I decided to upgrade my Nvidia 7900 GTO. I ended up picking up a new Sapphire HD 4830 for $90. All the research I did told me that the 4830 was a great gaming card for the price. I was running Vista x64 at the time.

Nothing in the system changed besides the video card and video drivers. I saw no improvement AT ALL in FPS on WoW going from the 7900 GTO to the HD 4830. I spent a week researching and tweaking everything that was recommended to no avail. Other FPS games on my system ran great, but WoW FPS was crap.

I went down to the local Best Buy and picked up a Nvidia 9800 GTX+. Again nothing changed in my system but the video card and video card drivers. This card made a difference and WoW had a great boost in FPS over both of the previous cards.

You don't have to believe me either, you can go to this link to the ATI forums and read it yourself (wish I went here before buying the 4830). http://forums.amd.com/game/categories.cfm?catid=229&forumid=11

Now the ATI guys seem to be having all types of problem with Aion (new MMO). I will state that I belive the hardware is fine, it's the drivers/support that is lacking on the ATI's side of the fence. Regardless I'll stick to Nvidia cards from now on.

My system specs:
AMD X2 5000+ BE @ 2.8
4 Gigs of G.SKILL PI Black DDR2-800
Gigabyte M55plus-S3G
450 Watt PSU

 

[nforce4max]

I have no problems with my x1900xt when playing wow.

 

[Fa11ou7]

Well thats kinda scary, but I don't see anyone having any unfixable problems with the 4670 so I hope it works for me. I bought the card from newegg and it had a 30 day refund policy so if it doesn't work then I will just return it. Realistically though it can't be any worse than my 7800gt card. I tried playing bioshock (the first one from 2007) and with medium settings and my 1900x1080 res I was getting about 14 fps. I know I could have dropped the res and prob pulled a few more frames but I hate playing games on less than my native rez.