Upgrading Video Card - Need Suggestions

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decripple

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Mar 11, 2006
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I have a 7800gt @ 480/1160 and I was planning on upgrading to something much better. I was looking at the 8800GTS, but I am having second thoughts since it is so expensive and power hungry. I know my PSU is big enough for it, but if I am not planning on upgrading to vista until SP1. My question is: If I have a 7800GT and I want the best framerates for the money in mostly just source engine games, which video card is most worth the money:

Sapphire X1950XT - $236.12 w/shipping before $30 MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102067

eVGA 7950GT 256MB - $220.63 w/shipping before $15 MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130074

eVGA 8800GTS - $436.12 W/shipping before $30MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130071

My system's specs:
Opteron 165 @ stock speeds w/Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu (will OC to 2.2 or more)
2GB Corsair XMS TWINX2048-3200C2PT
ASUS A8N-SLI normal
eVGA 7800GT CO @ 480/1160 stock cooler
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS
Antec P180B w/4 120mm fans @ 45 cfm each

The last question is How high can I OC my 7800GT from stock 470/1100 with just a vf900cu and ramsinks (without voltqage mods)

Please give any help you can .

Thanks.
decripple
 
I have a 7800gt @ 480/1160 and I was planning on upgrading to something much better. I was looking at the 8800GTS, but I am having second thoughts since it is so expensive and power hungry. I know my PSU is big enough for it, but if I am not planning on upgrading to vista until SP1. My question is: If I have a 7800GT and I want the best framerates for the money in mostly just source engine games, which video card is most worth the money:

Sapphire X1950XT - $236.12 w/shipping before $30 MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102067

eVGA 7950GT 256MB - $220.63 w/shipping before $15 MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130074

eVGA 8800GTS - $436.12 W/shipping before $30MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130071

My system's specs:
Opteron 165 @ stock speeds w/Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu (will OC to 2.2 or more)
2GB Corsair XMS TWINX2048-3200C2PT
ASUS A8N-SLI normal
eVGA 7800GT CO @ 480/1160 stock cooler
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS
Antec P180B w/4 120mm fans @ 45 cfm each

The last question is How high can I OC my 7800GT from stock 470/1100 with just a vf900cu and ramsinks (without voltqage mods)

Please give any help you can .

Thanks.
decripple
Click to expand...

Howdy. Honestly you still have one of the best cards you can get. Unless you go all the way to the 8800GTX you wont see much difference that "justifys" the money difference. I would save my bucks for the 8800gtx honestly. Your 7800gt is a great card still. UNLESS you sell that card and use that money towards your new card.

:)
 
I think you're fine with the 7800gt for source games. For now that is. Suck it up for a month or two until AMD shows off what its got and Nvidia brings out its mid range series. That would be a great time to upgrade. Then again sp1 might not be out for who knows how long. I have the x1950xt and can play all the source games with max settings 4xAA and 16x AF with good framerates.
Performance wise 8800>1950>7950. If you have the money by all means go with the 8800gts.
 
You should be right TBiggums but for some reason when playing Day of Defeat: Source at 1280 X 1024 resolution with all settings maxed except no AA or AF I get big troughs with my FPS from like 50-70 straight down to the 20s or lower. Maybe if I overclock my Opteron 165 from 1.8 up to 2.2 or maybe 2.4. I'll also reformat which should help.
 
That does seem kind of low for that card and cpu, considering with my cheep setup (3500+ rad.9700) i can get similar fps, but do you have HDR on?
But as of now if anything I think the drop in your fps may either be a driver problem or an issue your cpu somehow... source games are really cpu intensive. Am i wrong about that processor being fairly good for source games?
But from my experience even when i had my x1950pro i still didn't get all that "great" of fps when HDR was set on, but that was @ 1680x1050...
Sorry for my lack of solutions, just nothing really jumps out at me.🙁

One thing I know for sure though is that you should really wait a while before thinking about getting a new gpu because at that res. your card shouldn't be bottlenecking anything, I think your good, at least until prices start to come down more.
 
Another question: With the release of the 8800GTS 320MB @ about $315 shipped (BFG 8800GTS 320MB OC), is this the new, best choice? Or is it still the X1950XT? The 8800GTS 320MB still offers performance very close to that of the 640MB version, and it supports DX10 so it will be good for playing Crysis and other DX10 games on Vista.

Please give me any suggestions you have. Thanks.

decripple
 
As I said before, the Mid range 8600s are availabe if you can wait - if not, go ahead on the 8800 GTS 320MB - it can even best the X1950XTX currently.
 
neither of them, stay with yours and get all the jouice you can get out of it, then upgrade to some card form the end of nvidias 8xxx family or begining of the 9xxx ones . the same i said for nvidia is true for ati just i think the best way for you is wait
 
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