Best replacement for aging 8800 GTS 640?

[Daz63]

Been out of the loop for a while and I'm having trouble reconciling performance charts to what's currently available. I'd prefer something at least as fast as the 8800, but in order of priority it's price number 1, cool running and reliable number 2, and low power draw number 3. What do you guys think?

I'll be running it on a stock Core 2 6600, with 2 gig mem on an Intel Badaxe 2 mobo, at 1680 x 1050 in Win 7. Either ATI or Nvidia is cool.

 

[skipsneeky2]

gtx650 or a 7750,could spend half and perhaps pick up a used gtx460 off ebay or something.

 

[Daz63]

About what price range are those in?

 

[PowerYoga]

If you don't need this card RIGHT NOW, you can wait until late october/nov to see how the new ATI cards stacks up in terms of price and performance.

 

[Daz63]

I'm not sure yet how quick a replacement I'll need. Had some issues last night, screen blanking and system acting odd, that I'm attributing to my GTS possibly overheating and/or dying.

 

[skipsneeky2]

About what price range are those in?

Cheapest 7750 is this MSI @$95 shipped http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127709

Cheapest gtx650 is this MSI@$99 shipped http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127703

 

[raghu78]

OP the card to buy would be HD 7770. for 105 bucks its clearly faster than GTX 650 / HD 7750. in terms of performance wrt 8800

HD 7770 > HD 5770 >= HD 4870 > 8800 GT.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/521?vs=536

www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-PCI-E...dp/B00A0HZOEA/

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161433

 

[Daz63]

Thanks for the help and the links guys! Looks like the 7770 is about the same price, 1 gig instead of 2 for memory? The 7770 is definitely faster, at least if your comparing 1 gig cards...

 

[Termie]

[EDIT] The HD7750 is about 1.5-1.75x as fast as your current card. An HD7770 is 20% faster on top of that.

You can get an HD7770 for $70AR right now, so that's the obvious choice: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131488

Just realize that you will be CPU bottlenecked by your Core 2 Duo, but with prices so close in the <$100 market, it doesn't make sense to go with a less powerful GPU, as you won't save much money, if at all. Definitely do not get a 2GB version of the HD7770, though - that's a waste of money as you can't run extreme details anyway.

 

[Daz63]

If the 7750 is about twice as fast, is there something cheaper that would be like maybe 50% faster?

 

[Termie]

If the 7750 is about twice as fast, is there something cheaper that would be like maybe 50% faster?

Yes, but it will cost you the same as the HD7770. There really aren't any gaming options below $70 at this point. Take, for example, the HD6670, which is about the same speed as your card...and $70: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121442

And actually, let me clarify - the HD7750 actually is probably between 1.5 and 1.75x faster than what you have, while the HD7770 would be very close to 2x as fast. So three cards, between 1x and 2x faster than yours, all $70. See what I'm getting at?

 

[spat55]

Why not take the card out and give it a good clean? If you clean it up the freezing will more than likely stop, but if you want more performance and all around better get a GTX 650ti or HD 7770. Should pair perfectly and if you get another 2GB of RAM you can still play most games.

 

[yacoub]

Curious to know what games you run and at what resolution.

 

[Leyawiin]

[EDIT] Definitely do not get a 2GB version of the HD7770, though - that's a waste of money as you can't run extreme details anyway.

Unless you play Skyrim. I have an ASUS HD 7770 2GB and it can run the game at 35-50 FPS on Ultra @ 1920x1200 and with just the stock HD textures it goes up to about 1600MB of VRAM used. I've seen it touch 1900 MB all while keeping playable FPS. Of course the game is somewhat of an exception and I agree all the OP needs is a 1GB model for cheaps.

 

[toyota]

you wont be playing many games smoothly with only 2gb of system ram.

 

[Daz63]

I really haven't had the time or inclination lately to do much of any gaming. I have in the past though, Crysis, Left for Dead 1 and 2, Sims 2, and such forth. I'd like to be able to tackle a current mid range game at mid range settings at least, but it's not a big deal. I would like a little horsepower under the hood though, and if the suggested cards are the cheapest gaming options then... I'm running 1680x1050 and might boost the ram as suggested.

I just want the cheapest and coolest card that outperforms the GTS. If a few dollars more gets me a much better card, so be it. Just a few dollars, mind you...

 

[Concillian]

The cards mentiones use SIGNIFICANTLY less power than a GTS8800 also... You don't really have to worry about the thermal aspect of cards at that power range. 7750 doesn't even require an external 6-pin power connector. It uses little enough power that it can be fed entirely from the PCI-e slot.

The 7770 needs external power, but doesn't use that much of it.

 

[FalseChristian]

How about 2 eVGA GTX 460 1GB? The specs are 763Mhz core, 336 shaders, 3600MHz 1GB GDDR5,32 ROPS, 56 texture units.

Pixel fillrate is 24.416 Gigapixels/sec
Texel fillrate is 42.728 Gigatexels/sec
GDDR5 bandwidth 115.2 Gigabytes/sec

How about some SLI goodness? I want $140 for both with a 30 day no-questions-asked return warranty.

 

[RaistlinZ]

7750 isn't worth your time spending money on.

You can currently get a 7770 for $69.99 after rebate. It also comes with a coupon for one free game.

And add another 2GB of system RAM while you're at it.

 

[Daz63]

Well, the 8800 bit the dust. I believe it had cooked itself. I had a 1900 gt laying around. the fan is dying and it's a wee bit long in the tooth, but it is running. So I took what I learned here and ordered a 7770. Got a gently used Saphire off eBay for 75 plus 10.

 

[PowerYoga]

upgrade your ram too. That'll probably help out more than a video card upgrade and it's about the same price.

 

[Headfoot]

The 2 gigs of RAM is going to be holding you back hard on anything modern. Bumping that to 4 gigs at least wouldn't be too expensive and will be very beneficial. If you've got an aftermarket cooler on your 6600 (Quad or Dual?) then I would overclock that as well and that should give you a perceptible increase in speed.

 

[Daz63]

All right. You guys talked me into it. I've got a couple of 2GB memory sticks on their way. I noticed AMD actually lists 4GB as the minimum for the card. I'm not sure if I believe that, but I'll believe the bump to 4GB is worth it either way.

 

[Piklar]

The HD 7770 is a good choice as is the extra 2GB ram. Are you using windows XP? The 8800 GTS 640 was a brilliant card in its day, I used to have the Asus 8800gts 640 in 2007 when I was addicted to WoW during my previous life in Sweden. Todays version of the gts 8800 640 would be something like the GTX 670/680 or GTX 770 which would require you to upgrade your entire system to avoid bottlenecking..

 

[Daz63]

Switched to Win 7 from XP while I was still using the 8800. Got the 7770 today and installed it. Sweet little card, so far I'm very happy. Now I've just got to get that new ram in. The 7770 is idling at about only 32 C.