8800GTX caught in the middle of CPU upgrades

[Painman]

Heh. When I got it, it was more than my Opteron 165 could feed. It still is.

I've pulled the trigger on a Q6600, and it seems that my GTX may now not quite do it justice.

I'm in no position to splurge on a 280, but a 260 for a little over 200 bucks is tempting. It seems to thwack an 8800 with the CPU to back it up.

I have an ASUS P5Q Pro on the way to complement the Q6600, but I'm really not interested in going with crossfire -- I'm probably going to be pushing my PSU to its limit as it is, and the lower power consumption of a 260 vs. 8800 would be a good thing. I know what the upgrade merry-go-round is like, and a possible (single) GPU upgrade to complement the new CPU is as far as I'm going this time, if at all.

I game at 1900*1200, currently playing X3: Terran Conflict the most (more CPU dependent than GPU), but I also want to check out other titles soon like Fallout 3, GTA 4, beyond that, idk.

I'm getting too old for this crap... and ya know what? In my book, it's something that's good about getting old.

 

[biostud]

only upgrade if your games stutter and are unplayable

 

[daveybrat]

I would wait it out if i were you. No reason an 8800GTX shouldn't run most of today's games just fine.

Wait for the 55nm GTX series refresh coming out soon. They'll clock faster and run cooler.

 

[masteryoda34]

I sold my 8800 GTX on ebay a while ago (people are still paying like $150-200 for them) and bought a new GTX 260 instead. Didn't actually cost me much in the end to upgrade.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Painman
I game at 1900*1200, currently playing X3: Terran Conflict the most (more CPU dependent than GPU), but I also want to check out other titles soon like Fallout 3, GTA 4, beyond that, idk

At that resolution with the newer titles paired with your new rig, a GTX 260 will show a very tangible gain over the 8800GTX. I made a similar upgrade at launch and the difference is extraordinary. As masteryoda said, the 8800GTX still fetches a pretty good price on Ebay so the upgrade might not cost you much at all.

Are you planning to overclock at all? P5Q is a great overclocker and paired with a good G0 you should get some nice results. The GTX 260 c216 is quite cheap now but if you don't plan to self-overclock, you may consider one of the factory overclocked models for a bit more.

 

[Painman]

I'll be hoping to get to the 3.6 mark on the Q6600. More would be great, but I reckon 3.6 will already knock my socks off (and for now I just bought the DDR2-800 XMS that's on crazy sale @ Egg, and that might limit an OC much beyond that point).

Thanks for the feedback -- I'll see how the GTX does with its current tasks; I may still swap it, but I like the idea of waiting for a 55nm part to replace it.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Painman
I'll be hoping to get to the 3.6 mark on the Q6600. More would be great, but I reckon 3.6 will already knock my socks off (and for now I just bought the DDR2-800 XMS that's on crazy sale @ Egg, and that might limit an OC much beyond that point).

Thanks for the feedback -- I'll see how the GTX does with its current tasks; I may still swap it, but I like the idea of waiting for a 55nm part to replace it.

Sounds like a good plan. The Q6600 is pretty sweet around 3GHz but it really shines at 3.3+. I wasn't able to get it stable beyond 3.1GHz or so on my Nvidia boards but the P5Q series has been pretty much effortless. The biggest difference I found was much better Vdroop on the P5Q which gives me only .02V Vdroop at idle and exactly whats set in the BIOS under load, so 1.38V under load, no Vdroop at all. This is with Load Line Calibration enabled. It runs extremely hot though, so you'll need a really good air cooler or water if you plan to run those temps with that voltage.

 

[Painman]

No worries for cooling... I'm on H2O plus I'm looking at that big square copper heatsink over the northbridge and thinking how well my Delta 40x28mm fan will sit on top of it.

I chose the P5Q partially based on board cleanliness/how easy it would be to spot cool stuff that'll need at least a little airflow. The ASUS northbridge/fet cooler is something I can work with.

 

[nyker96]

i think you can get by for another 6 months then it's 40nm parts in June. Now that'll be a real upgrade.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Originally posted by: nyker96
i think you can get by for another 6 months then it's 40nm parts in June. Now that'll be a real upgrade.

:thumbsup: 8800GTX should hold you over until then.

 

[chynn]

I too have a 8800GTX 768M card. I use my current rig to play WoW; AoC, LOTRO, and Oblivion (occasionally because I get motion sickness from the way the screen moves around). I plan to play Fallout 3.

In my case, I am going to upgrade to an i7 965 and an Asus P6T motherboard. I have a PCP&C 1KW PSU in a CoolerMaster Stacker case so power and cooling solutions are available.

But like our friend who started this thread, I just don't see any obvious upgrades for my graphics card. All of the available solutions seem to be too big, too clumsy, too hot, and/or too noisy. The one card I thought might be interesting exhausts its heat inside the case (Palit Revolution 700) and is a power pig to boot, but it does run some awesome graphics.

The other downside to this upgrade is that I am probably going to have to switch from XP.SP3 (via "nlite") to Vista to take advantage of the 3x2G memory DIMMs I plan to use. Going to XP64 seems to be a step sideways to me but I am not an OS expert. I don't want to change my OS because I have heard both of the other OS's have "driver" issues.

I could use some assistance and suggestions from you all. I have been reading Anandtech for quite some time and respect most of the information and opinions expressed in these forums.

Thanks everyone,

 

[Leyawiin]

With a new CPU feeding your 8800 GTX (and the Q6600 and 8800 GTX isn't too bad of a match up), it'll feel like a new card. Wait until you have the new CPU and see how your games do. At this point in time I would probably wait until the next generation of cards come out before replacing it. Its really not that much slower (if it is slower at all) than today's mid range cards.

 

[Painman]

Thanks everyone, I'm sure the Q6600 will give the 'ol GTX a kick in the pants. We'll have to see how much.

And actually, despite having it on H2O, I never did OC the GTX, so there's possibly a bit of extra FPS there too, if I need it

Yep, I believe I'll wait a little while.

 

[chynn]

Yeah, me too.

Thanks everyone for helping Painman and me with our similar problems.

 

[Peelback79]

Glad to see you're all helped, but whoever said that a GTX260 for a little over 200 bucks was tempting, how's about a GTX260 for right at 200 clams. After shipping could be a little more. If you don't mind MSI, it's a sweet deal.

 

[bryanW1995]

op, I know that you've aleady decided to wait, but you might consider what peelback79 showed. If you can get the gtx 260 for $200 shipped (with no rebates either!) and sell the 8800gtx for $150 or so after shipping and ebay fees then you just spent $50 to get a HUGE gpu performance increase. your resolution and game choices dictate a gpu upgrade if you don't mind the hassle of ebay and doing the upgrade shuffle.