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Buy a GTX 260?

D

dr0be

Member
My current build is an 8800GT (512), Q6600, Gigabyte P35-DS4 mobo, and 4gb ddr2 800. I play pretty much every game but what I play most currently is warhammer online. During seiges with a lot of people running around my 8800GT bogs down (even on low settings at 1680x1050). I'm able to play just as fine but the frames drop pretty good.

Christmas and my birthday are coming up and I thought maybe a new vcard would be a nice upgrade. I was looking between the 9800 GTX and the GTX 260. I've been out of the hardware loop for a year about so I'm not sure if buying 1 of these would be logical or not.

My 8800GT has a Thermaltake DuOrb cooler on it so it stays very cool (under 45C). I was reading a review of the GTX260 and it gets up to 70-80C with the stock cooler which seems crazy hot. Haven't read up on the 9800GTXyet but if I did get one of these would an aftermarket cooler be a good idea?

I have a Corsair 620HX PSU so I'm not worried about not having enough power.

Just wondering what you guys would do. Keep the 8800GT and upgrade later or buy a new one now.
 
i have a friend with the same exact system as me, he has a 88000gt and i got the GTX. my card does a little better in the most newest games but in the games of early 08 and 07 both our cards do about as good, mine a little better at the higher res.

oh and yes the GTX does run 60-80ºC and only on crysis does it go above 80ºC sometimes low 90ºC

IMO i think you will be fine till maybe mid next year. if you plan to play far cry 2, theres a link in PC gaming for benchies, and the 8800gt did rather well on 1600 res. sli 8800gt seems to be as good as one gtx 280 in a lot of benchmarks ive seen.

i say its up to your wallet what you wanna do. id probably keep it and get another to take advantage of a SLI mobo
 
With the prices continuing to drop, I'm dying to upgrade out of my 88GTS(G92). But supposedly, there's an Nvidia launch around here somewhere. It was rumored to be at the end of October and that's rapidly approaching and I haven't seen anything concrete.
With another launch, price points when drop a little more. Plus, if I wait a little longer, I will have gotten a year out of my GTS. I was getting ready to buy, but this line from the recent article on the 4830 stopped me:

"Honestly, now is an amazing time for the consumer. The competition is incredibly fierce and it is entirely possible we'll see the fight heat up even more into the holiday season."

So I'm going to sit on my GTS for another month and see what happens. Far Cry 2 and Clear Skies will be a little cheaper also.
 
From 8800gt to 9800gtx+ is almost negligible ... From 8800gt to gtx260 is better, or a HD4870. But, chances are you are more CPU limited then GPU limited. Warhammer Online, let's face it, looks like crap. It's a WoW clone, and WoW looks like crap too. Many WoW players have allready come to this fora, asking why their performance sucked so bad during big raids etc. A faster CPU often eliminated their problem, not a faster GPU.
 
Originally posted by: MarcVenice
From 8800gt to 9800gtx+ is almost negligible ... From 8800gt to gtx260 is better, or a HD4870. But, chances are you are more CPU limited then GPU limited. Warhammer Online, let's face it, looks like crap. It's a WoW clone, and WoW looks like crap too. Many WoW players have allready come to this fora, asking why their performance sucked so bad during big raids etc. A faster CPU often eliminated their problem, not a faster GPU.
Click to expand...

Yeah MMOs eat CPUs for breakfast. Even WoW can still hammer a CPU if you turn everything up.
 
OP out of the two you mentioned, I would go GTX260. I've been keeping an eye on that card too, possibly as a Xmas present for self, but can't/won't spend $225 on it. Prices should be coming down too with all the competition heating up as mentioned in that quoted article so I would sit tight for the time being. Black Friday is only a month away! (hard to believe). It's not like your card sucks or anything...

If given the choice between GTX260 vs HD4870, I would still take the GTX260 and OC the core to ~ 700mhz which should be wicked fast and without all the driver and heat issues of the 4870.
 
Originally posted by: brencat
I would go GTX260. I've been keeping an eye on that card too, possibly as a Xmas present for self, but can't/won't spend $225 on it.
Click to expand...

How about for $200? You will even get Farcry2, 3DMark Vantage (Advanced) and an LED flashlight!
 
Damnit, if I could buy that, I'd buy one right now. A gtx260 runs me 250 euro's though. Today I saw a HD4870 for 170 euro's which is pretty damn cheap, figured I should go for it, but damn, the card was no longer in stock !!!

If you intend on buying Far Cry 2, might as well get that gtx260 lol 😀
 
Originally posted by: Zap
Originally posted by: brencat
I would go GTX260. I've been keeping an eye on that card too, possibly as a Xmas present for self, but can't/won't spend $225 on it.
Click to expand...

How about for $200? You will even get Farcry2, 3DMark Vantage (Advanced) and an LED flashlight!
Click to expand...
Thanks Zap -- always looking out for me and how I can spend more of my savings. Really tempting as I totally didn't see this. I'm going to pretend I didn't see it, as I really should get a new job first before spending more discretionary income (former Lehman employee 🙁 )
 
Originally posted by: MarcVenice
But, chances are you are more CPU limited then GPU limited. ..... Many WoW players have allready come to this fora, asking why their performance sucked so bad during big raids etc. A faster CPU often eliminated their problem, not a faster GPU.
Click to expand...

Definitely. Overclock that Q6600. I've seen that same thing happen more times than I can count, usually after the person had already blown a wad of money on a new video card, and was wondering why their performance hadn't increased/increased much in WoW.
 
Originally posted by: brencat


If given the choice between GTX260 vs HD4870, I would still take the GTX260 and OC the core to ~ 700mhz which should be wicked fast and without all the driver and heat issues of the 4870.
Click to expand...

As the owner of a new 4870 1gb, I have to say with using the CCC fan control heat issues arent an issue. My fan runs at 30% and I cant even hear it, idle its 47-50 degrees and gaming it hasnt surpassed 75 yet. I too was weary of buying a 4870 because of 'heat issues' however using rivatuner or CCC, which is easy as hell, totally eliminates any heat concerns. I couldn't be happier so far with the 4870 1 gb. I can play FC2 on ultra high with 4x AA at 1680x1025 just fine and no it doesnt stutter.

Oh yeah and if you can swing the ebay cashback, I got mine for 200$. Not too shabby for such a powerful card.
 
Originally posted by: amtbr
I too was weary of buying a 4870 because of 'heat issues'
Click to expand...

I thought it was the 4850 that had heat issues? Typically the 4870 uses a dual slot rear exhausting fan while the 4850 uses a cheap single slot flavor. This is similar to the 3870 and 3850 cards.
 
WoW runs fine on even an old 7600GT or 7900GS as long as you've got enough CPU & RAM to handle the lots & lots of calcs required when in large cities and/or raids.
 
Originally posted by: Denithor
WoW runs fine on even an old 7600GT or 7900GS
Click to expand...

Latest patch (version 3.0) added shadows and perhaps some other goodies. If you now want to turn everything up, you'll actually need a decent GPU.
 
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