6800 Ultra to 7800GS

[Farmer]

Is this a worthwhile upgrade? Concerned with not only performance, but also size/power consumption/heat.

 

[Captante]

Although the 7800GS is a bit faster in most benchmarks I'd have to say its not worth it... you would be better served saving your money for an eventual PCI-E upgrade.

 

[postmortemIA]

I would think in best case the performance difference could be measured on benchmarks.

 

[Nextman916]

I did it....but then again i was in a much different position than you. I didnt have a socket 754 or 939 cpu to begin with, so i would have to buy that plus a new mobo with a budget of $300. Easy as this seems, my 6800ultra had died on me so i couldnt just buy a new cpu+agp/pci-e mobo. I would have to replace the vid card as well, but i wouldnt settle for anything less than the performance of my previous 6800ultra. At that time a 3200+ with a mobo was around $200 cash and the best vid card i could buy wouldnt outperform previous 6800ultra. So i thought about it and knowing conroe is right around the corner, i decided to get a 7800gs co for $260AR, and overclock the crap out of it to hold me over another yr or more. So all in all i got the performance gains i wanted, which is around 10-15fps in most games after overclock, even 20+ in SM3.0 games over the ultra. I also got a quiet cooler running card, that had all the 7 series purevideo enhancements, and newer driver support plus i could sit and watch how AM2 and conroe played out. Im still extremely happy about my decision, and wouldnt look back for a second. For you just get a s754 motherboard with pci-e and get a 7900gt or an x1800xt 256mb and you'll be much better off.

 

[imported_Truenofan]

y'know he could probly up is cpu a bit at that, im running the same cooler with a s939(as5 and a panaflo at 110cfm) and a few other things, and i idle at the low 30's and top out at load at 40c, so his cpu upgrade can be put on hold till a better performing cpu is within his budget. id say see what you can overclock to on the cpu if anything first, see how much of a up he gets, and if that satifies him wait till the next gen on video cards comes out. because spending 100/200 on a minor upgrade seems kinda wasteful to me.

 

[Bushman5]

get a x850xt its much faster than vboth of those cards

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: Bushman5
get a x850xt its much faster than vboth of those cards

iirc the 7800gs is faster than the x850xt

 

[Captante]

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: Bushman5
get a x850xt its much faster than vboth of those cards

iirc the 7800gs is faster than the x850xt

This is correct... although I wouldn't suggest upgrading from an X850XT to the 7800GS either, it is the fastest AGP card available.

 

[Cruise51]

It's not worth it. Wait until something better comes along or switch to PCI-E

 

[Lord Banshee]

I am not sure what CPU you are using, why not find a cheap Motherboard that has that socket and using a PCI-E. Then buy a 7900GT and spend what an extra 60 dollars a most. Then you will see a big increase in performance.

*edit*
I see you have a s754, there are a ton of s754 board with PCi-E on newegg for <=80 dollars.

So NewMobo($80) + 7900GT($260) (there is even some with 230 with MIR) = $340

7800GS($270) = $270

so extra 70 dollars...

 

[KutterMax]

Depends on your situation - but I did make the move from a 6800GT to the 7800GS.

Similar to a previous post above, my hand was forced in making the move because my 6800GT was acting up and I was getting a lot of texture errors.

I ended up putting in a BFG OC'd 7800GS and it has been rock solid. Games are running a little (not a huge difference but noticeable) bit better than on the 6800GT. The card is silent and runs cooler than the 6800GT did. Also, the card provides hardware acceleration for some video compression tasks which was bugged on the 6800GT.

Overall I'm happy with the move. My plan will be to buy a new DX10 Vista rig when they become available. My current system should hold me over easily until then.

 

[Maxspeed996]

I don't think you'll be as happy with the upgrade as you would if you waited. I upgraded to the card in my sig when Oblivion came out. Because my x700 pro agp wouldn't cut it for me. And I couldn't be happier with the card , it runs Oblivion maxed out for me at 12x10. I spent $307 for it on the Egg then , and they don't stock it now. but you can get a card with slightly lower clock speeds for like $270 on there.
Overall , if you have a decent machine , and want to stick it out maybe another year. I think it's money well spent to keep you playing for a while. I could waste a couple hundred bucks on worse things that could get me into a lot more trouble that is!! Like that Tippman paintball gun I've been looking at.......(I don't even play paintball!! LOL)

 

[Powermoloch]

You'll be better of with a new mobo, cpu and pci-e card. You had reached the end of the line in terms of performance in the AGP platforms.