8800GT owners that upgraded to the 4850

[zod96]

Looking to hear from the 8800GT owners that upgraded to the 4850. Are you happy with the upgrade or did you find yourself regretting your choice?

 

[shangshang]

Do I regret it? A little.
First of all, all these websites and people saying that the 4850 "blows" the 8800GT out of the water... is just not true for me. While I don't deny that the 4850 is not faster, but it turns out that the increase isn't enough to make a difference for my gaming at 1600x1200. If my games @ 1600x1200 struggled with fps under the 8800GT, then they also struggle under the 4850. So in my scenario, the 4850 did not make a big impact. Now if you're gaming at a lower resolution, and the 8800GT was barely struggle but struggle, then perhaps the 4850 would make a difference!

Secondly, the heat issue. I won't spend time to discuss this as it has been discussed in here in every other thread.

Thirdly, driver stability issue. This is perhaps my biggest beef against the 4850. I was humming along fine under XP and 8800GT, games are all rocking. But with the 4850, I paid for "improved" hardware but am sitting idle because my games are not stable. And as a side effect, I've spent a load of hours trying to unsuccessfully fix all the crashes, reload drivers, and finally, in a desparate attempt, dumped XP and put on Vista.

And a month after the 4850 release, there is still no official Cat 8.7 release. Because of this, I feel that AMD was using me as a beta tester, and I'm insulted by this. I understand if AMD took 2 weeks to release drivers for a new hardware, but a month?? Unacceptable.

All these have definitely left a little bitter taste in my mouth. Next time, I will definitely think twice about buying AMD again, and I would only buy AMD if I see their new drivers release with the hardware, or buy the hardware at a huge discount. I bought the Visiontek 4850 for $150 at BB a while back, so I feel a little bit fortunate in that i'm not paying $170 for it while playing the rebate game. I feel sorry for those guys who "pre-ordered" the 4850 for $195 on fxvideocards.com though!

What I should have done was to get 2 Zotac 8800GTS G92 on Fxvideocards for $119/ea AR and Sli them together. For $240, that would have been the damn best bang for the bucks! But I bought into the 4850 hype. Oh well.

 

[AzN]

You can't satisfy everyone. Case of shangshang is that his house is like an oven with room temps in the 90F. Perhaps he needs a air conditioner than a video card. 😀

I really don't think 8800gt owners should be upgrading to 4850. 10-20% better performance just to waste money on a card? You want at least over 50% improvement to make it worth while. Only thing 4850 is better is with AA. particularity 8xAA. It's rather insignificant image differences that isn't going to make your eyes bleed.

 

[GlacierFreeze]

Originally posted by: Azn

I really don't think 8800gt owners should be upgrading to 4850. 10-20% better performance just to waste money on a card? You want at least over 50% improvement to make it worth while.

I completely agree here. Otherwise, it's a waste of money. Some people are too addicted to new hardware, so their logic disappears and their pocket book opens. Oh well, sucks for them.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Azn


I really don't think 8800gt owners should be upgrading to 4850. 10-20% better performance just to waste money on a card? You want at least over 50% improvement to make it worth while. Only thing 4850 is better is with AA. particularity 8xAA. It's rather insignificant image differences that isn't going to make your eyes bleed.

Exactly, maybe the 4870 would worth the money for an upgrade. The 4850 is a great card for those who are about to build a new system, but those who already own at least an 8800 GT, should stick with it.

 

[Captante]

I seriously considered both grabbing a used 8800GTX off FS/FT for SLI or replacing my existing GTX with a 4870 but in the end I just couldn't justify it ... not to say that either option wouldn't have resulted in a noticable performance increase, but rather the issue is that I'm not having any trouble running any game I want to play with my current rig.

Upgrading for the sake of upgrading is quite simply a waste of money.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Captante
Upgrading for the sake of upgrading is quite simply a waste of money.

That sure is true. 😛

(So says the person that 6-8 months ago built two dual-core gaming rigs, E2140 @ 3.2Ghz, Radeon X1950Pro and GT, 320GB WD HD, 20X DVD burner, 22" and 20" LCD 1680x1050 screens, and is now planning on replacing them with quad-core Q6600 @ 3.6Ghz, Radeon HD4850, 640GB HD. Old rigs had 4GB RAM and XP, new rigs might run 8GB RAM and Vista x64, not certain yet about that.)

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: Azn


I really don't think 8800gt owners should be upgrading to 4850. 10-20% better performance just to waste money on a card? You want at least over 50% improvement to make it worth while. Only thing 4850 is better is with AA. particularity 8xAA. It's rather insignificant image differences that isn't going to make your eyes bleed.

Exactly, maybe the 4870 would worth the money for an upgrade. The 4850 is a great card for those who are about to build a new system, but those who already own at least an 8800 GT, should stick with it.

The bolded section above is what I'm looking at currently. I have an 8800GT and according to reviews, in the games I currently play, the 4870 would get me FPS increases of anywhere from 25-40% or so. That's a considerable jump, considering that in my current game (The Witcher) I'm getting around 25FPS at my 19x12 settings.

I'm going to play the waiting game though and hopefully the HD4870 gets down to $250-ish in the next few weeks...especially after the 4870X2 gets released. Also want to wait for the 8.7 Catalysts to shake out and see what that does for the card.

 

[shangshang]

Originally posted by: Azn
You can't satisfy everyone. Case of shangshang is that his house is like an oven with room temps in the 90F. Perhaps he needs a air conditioner than a video card. 😀

being an "azn" (sic) living in Socal myself, I know most azn don't run their AC at 90F. Who are you fooling azy boy?

 

[Skunkwourk]

Originally posted by: shangshang

Originally posted by: Azn
You can't satisfy everyone. Case of shangshang is that his house is like an oven with room temps in the 90F. Perhaps he needs a air conditioner than a video card. 😀

being an "azn" (sic) living in Socal myself, I know most azn don't run their AC at 90F. Who are you fooling azy boy?

if you're talking about 90 outside ok I agree, but 90 degrees INSIDE? who wouldn't turn on the AC. Perhaps the 4850 wasn't a good idea for you, I have had bad experiences with Nvidia cards as well, my 6800GT lasted no more than 3 years even with a giant copper heatsink that covered both sides. Sometimes we just get "lucky" and get a bad card.

Also if you search, there were many threads complaining about heat on the 8800GT as well.

 

[zod96]

The one thing I do notice while benching my GT against the 4850 is like you said AA performance. In GRID at max settings with 8xAA 16xAF with fraps running the GT is a total slide show at 1680x1050 with those AA ana AF settings. I was getting like 15-20 fps. With the 4850 Its as smooth as butter 50-60 fps no problems. So without AA and AF I've noticed the GT and the 4850 are pretty equal. With AA and AF on the 4850 begins to kill the GT...

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

dude, i wouldn't upgrade a bmx to a bmx

 

[Chosonman]

They're basically the same performance from what I read. Not even 10% more like 2-5% difference

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Chosonman
They're basically the same performance from what I read. Not even 10% more like 2-5% difference

Its more than that, you may be thinking of the 9800GTX/+ compared to the 4850. 8800GT is more like 15-20% slower with no AA, much more than that with AA. But like others said, if you were using an 8800GT without AA and wanted higher frame rates, than the 4850 wouldn't really give you that, it'd just give you AA at a slight penalty resulting in about the same frame rates.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Captante

Upgrading for the sake of upgrading is quite simply a waste of money.

I actually tend to find that between the hot deals forum and upgrading for the sake of upgrading, I've been able to keep an up to date gaming rig while either paying very little out of my own pocket after selling the old hardware, or making a profit after doing so.

 

[zod96]

I agree with that. If you use no AA and AF in games now and have a GT like myself then getting a 4850 is not worth it. But I like alot of AA and AF in games. And in my older games the GT was fine. But when I started playing COD4, Stalker the GT would nose dive with AA and AF so I was running those games without it. Now with the 4850 I can run max AA and AF and its still faster than my GT, and the IQ is much better than the GT.

 

[imported_Un4given]

I dumped my 8800GT into my second box and couldn't be happier. I am indeed seeing a nice performance boost, and I'm finally rid of those buggy NV drivers! I've had zero issues and everything I've thrown at it has been absolutely flawless.

 

[zod96]

yeah and to be honest I would love to give Ati some much needed cash 🙂 Its nice to see Ati back in the game...

 

[shangshang]

Originally posted by: m0mentary

Originally posted by: shangshang

Originally posted by: Azn
You can't satisfy everyone. Case of shangshang is that his house is like an oven with room temps in the 90F. Perhaps he needs a air conditioner than a video card. 😀

being an "azn" (sic) living in Socal myself, I know most azn don't run their AC at 90F. Who are you fooling azy boy?

if you're talking about 90 outside ok I agree, but 90 degrees INSIDE? who wouldn't turn on the AC. Perhaps the 4850 wasn't a good idea for you, I have had bad experiences with Nvidia cards as well, my 6800GT lasted no more than 3 years even with a giant copper heatsink that covered both sides. Sometimes we just get "lucky" and get a bad card.

Also if you search, there were many threads complaining about heat on the 8800GT as well.

Oh please man, I know plenty of neighbors who don't on the AC even when it's 90F inside the house. And furthermore, Southern California Edison can and do turn off some of the ACs in those homes participating in their energy saving program. It's 90F in lots of place in Asia this time of year, and most people don't run AC because they can't afford the cost of electricity. They don't run AC at this temp even in Europe, not all places anyway. Americans are sometimes spoiled when it come to energy usage, and being the most wasteful & inefficient consumers of energy, thought like yours are typical.

But me personally, my body can cope well in 90F heat with a fan on. I'm not fat, I'm light weight, so my body has no problem coping with 90F heat. I don't even sweat. And i'm not about to turn on the AC because some stupid piece of hardware likes to run cool. I'll get rid of the hardware before I'll bend over.

2) even if my room is 90F, the temperature of the 4850 was still within operating range! It was still under 102C, the range at which the fan hits 100%. This is the specs I got by looking at the BIOS using RBE. Naturally, AMD didnt list any operating specifications on the box. But regardless, I was operating within BIOS specs. Make your opinions, your opinions don't agree with AMD's own specs.

But as it turned out, I may just have a bad card, because the fan would not spool up even when temp. hits 102-105C range! I since exchanged the card, and the fan has spooled up now, but now I'm still getting crashes due to driver issues.

 

[tigersty1e]

It is worth it now.

You can sell your 8800 GT for $100-$120 now and then buy the 4850 for ~$150.

So you essentially "upgrade" for $40. And then in 6 months time, you "upgrade" again for however much it costs to get a faster card (assuming your 4850 is still a desirable card).

The only reason it is worth it now is because the 8800 GT is worth some cash. The 9800 GT will soon replace the 8800 GT.

So in other words, if you upgrade to get a performance boost only, then it's a waste. But if you upgrade to spend your money wisely, then it is a good decision. In the end, you'll probably save some money while at the same time have the newer technology to tinker with.

 

[SickBeast]

IMO an upgrade from an 8800GT is only worthwhile if you've got an intel crossfire capable motherboard and you want to go that route down the line.

That said, if you mod the 4850 and overclock the core sky high, you can come close to 4870 performance. In that case, the upgrade is worthwhile.

I personally do not upgrade unless my performance will double.

 

[zod96]

I usually do that too, but I really really like the single slot single power connector type cards..

 

[Captante]

Originally posted by: Avalon

Originally posted by: Captante

Upgrading for the sake of upgrading is quite simply a waste of money.

I actually tend to find that between the hot deals forum and upgrading for the sake of upgrading, I've been able to keep an up to date gaming rig while either paying very little out of my own pocket after selling the old hardware, or making a profit after doing so.

I've done the same thing myself, but these days I try to wait until I'm having some kind of a performance-related problem before upgrading & right now I'm not.

Believe me I certainly understand those that give into temptation having done so many times myself!

 

[aldamon]

I sold my 8800GT for $150 in May and bought my 4850 a couple of weeks ago with the money. It was a worthwhile upgrade with AA/AF turned on. It also overclocks like mad with voltage/BIOS mods. I'm getting 4870-level performance for $150 and the 8800GT can't touch that.

 

[zod96]

Yeah it seems with AA/AF off the GT and the 4850 are equal in games. But as soon as you crank up the AA/AF the 4850 pulls way ahead...