8800GTX -> 260/280GTX...

[zerogear]

I am hoping someone has the experience, but I was wondering if it is worth the upgrade or not, is there a real benefit to it at all, or is it negligible?

 

[LightningRider]

You'd see a difference, but the GTX280 is at least not worth the price, maybe the GTX260 or HD4870 is, depending on what resolutions you play at etc.

 

[jim1976]

I did the upgrade from 8800gtx to 280 and I play @1920x1200 with as much filters as I can..

It depends on the resolution you play and the settings.. At <=1680x1050 I'd say keep it or take a 4870..

If you play at higher resolutions then GTX280 becomes the clear winner..

 

[zerogear]

I play on 1920x1200 (24")...

 

[chizow]

Yep, like the others said, it really depends on what resolution you play at and how fast your CPU is. At 1920x1200 I already had to turn down lots of options in most of my games and frame rates could start chugging pretty hard with an 8800GTX. With the GTX 280 I'm back to capped 60FPS with Vsync and/or 4xAA. Also the GTX 280 really needs a fast CPU to really stretch its legs. I saw a nice boost going from a PCI 1.1 board @ 3.2GHz to a PCI 2.0 board @ 3.5GHz. If you want to save money and still want a nice boost a 4870 would be a good choice at a much cheaper price.

 

[chizow]

Here's a comparison I did based on launch reviews that helped me make my purchase decision:

1920 Comparison

I'll honestly say it has made some games that were borderline unplayable at high settings playable again, like COH in DX10. Other games play much smoother, like WiC looks much better and plays much smoother. COD4 never has any frame drops below 60FPS in single or multi. Mass Effect went from 37-42FPS to 60 capped. Assassin's Creed jumped about the same.

 

[Denithor]

What motherboard do you have, will it support either SLI or CF?

If it only supports one video card your best bet is probably either GTX 260 (unless you just have cash to burn, then go for the GTX 280) or 4870 + aftermarket cooler and OC.

If you have the option to use a multiGPU setup, you can get some real power for fairly low cost these days.
SLI: Add a second 8800GTX or sell that card and buy 2x9800GTX ($400, beats GTX 280 nearly across the board).
CF: Buy 2x4850 ($350) or 2x4870 ($600, best performance you can get today at this price point).

 

[zerogear]

no SLI, but honestly, I'd rather stick with one GPU since I run multiple monitors. I was wondering, does 280GTX saturate PCI-E 1.1?

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: zerogear
no SLI, but honestly, I'd rather stick with one GPU since I run multiple monitors. I was wondering, does 280GTX saturate PCI-E 1.1?

I think it approaches saturation, although I haven't seen a test concerning this.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: zerogear
no SLI, but honestly, I'd rather stick with one GPU since I run multiple monitors. I was wondering, does 280GTX saturate PCI-E 1.1?

I don't think it fully saturates it but I do think it limits peaks, resulting in some degradation. Unfortunately I didn't run any comprehensive benches in the week I had the GTX 280 on a PCIE 1.1 board, but based on performance on a PCIE 2.0 board I'd say yes it does. I originally got the thought to upgrade based on that Tweaktown review showing x8/x8 was bottlenecking 4850 in CF. x8 2.0 is the same as x16 1.1, so that got me a bit worried. I also knew I could get more out of my Q6600 G0 with a better OC'ing board and was interested to see if an Intel chipset would get rid of residual issues I had with NV chipsets (SATA drivers, X-Fi cracking etc).

Biggest difference I noticed right away was Mass Effect running at 60FPS vs. 37-42, which was really the only game I didn't notice a huge difference compared to my 8800GTX. At first I thought it was due to PhysX drivers but apparently ME doesn't support hardware PhysX. Other option was drivers or PCI bus upgrade. Other differences were 3DMark06 scoring 14,6XX compared to 16,XXX on the new board. Lastly, I was able to get 48FPS average on DX9 High Crysis x64. On my 650i board I wasn't able to get 48FPS even on mostly Medium settings with High Textures. This was all done at the same clock speed, 3.2GHz and at 3.5GHz I'm still seeing nice scaling improvements.

 

[zerogear]

Hmm... Thanks for the information Now I have to ponder if its worth upgrading mobo/graphics card for. How is that P5Q btw?

 

[Tempered81]

I'd wait a few weeks and get a R700... It's faster than a GTX280 (supposedly) & cheaper.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: zerogear
Hmm... Thanks for the information Now I have to ponder if its worth upgrading mobo/graphics card for. How is that P5Q btw?

I really like it so far, there are *TONS* of BIOS options compared to my P6N and the overall build quality and stability is much better than my last Asus board, the P5N-E SLI. I almost swore Asus off after that experience (it killed 3 kits of RAM and completely flaky with 4GB+), but so far this board has been great with overclocking while taking care of the last few issues I had with the P6N (FSB OC on Quads, X-Fi popping in some games, SATA driver issues and performance). Still, I didn't want another LGA775 board before Nehalem, but it was certainly worth it and at a reasonable price ($160 at Newegg).