Help needed to upgrade a 3 yr old system's video card.

[commiered]

Hello everyone,
I'm new here and would like to ask for your ideas on the best price/performance option to upgrade an almost 3 year old system with a 7900GT card. I have the following:

CPU: Core2 Duo 6400 2.13ghz
RAM: 2 GB Gskill 5400
Power Supply: Antec 2.0 450W

It's an oldie but still good enough I think. Now I have a 7900GT that over the years has served well despite the artifacts on certain games, and still runs ok as I have only a 17 inch monitor that runs a max of 1280x1024 though for me the fonts are often too small so I tend to play mostly on 1024x768.

I had originally looked at the 9800GT, then when the GTS 250 came out, I thought that it would do(even if for me it seemed expensive. I live in Romania at the moment and cards cost quite more than in western countries and postage is prohibitive). Now I read that there is a ATI 4770 which seems quite promising, but I never used an ATI card before, as all the whining about driver issues with certain games made me play safe.

Oh a couple more things: What is the deal with CUDA and the PhysX in Nvidia cards? Is it useful to consider or some hype with little real benefit against ATI?
and...
Is it worth paying the extra for a 1gb card(if available) or it doesn't matter if you play at a low resolution like me?

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have little to spend, the system is 3 yrs old, and I tend to play at 1024x768 mostly.

What are your ideas?

Thankyou
Mariusz

 

[vj8usa]

Drivers aren't really an issue; both camps are pretty much equal. I'd probably look for a 4770 if I were you because of their power consumption. If by Antec 2.0 you mean Antec Smartpower 2.0, I had that same PSU and it sucked. I used it with no issues with my X1900XT for 2+ years, but it must have degraded (or maybe it just wasn't that capable to begin with) because it couldn't power my 4850.

1GB VRAM probably won't make any difference at all in most games at 1024x768.

Also, do you have a motherboard that'd let you OC? You might be able to find a cheap set of 2x2GB DDR2-800, and use that to get your CPU to higher speeds.

 

[Denithor]

4770 is your best bet but they're hard to find (even here in the US).

4830 would be an excellent second choice. Or find a cheap 9800GT or GTS 250.

512MB is more than adequate for 10x7. Or even 12x10 if you go that high.

Overclock that CPU - 2.8GHz should be a no-brainer with stock volts. But as mentioned you may need more/faster RAM and I will second the suggestion of a better PSU.

 

[commiered]

Thanks for the quick replies! @vj8usa : Yeah it's a smartpower 2.0. Funny, I had thought Antec made good PSU's. As for the MB, it's a Gigabyte P945-DS3 as I heard that it overclocks easily enough. Ram is about the only thing cheap here so I could get some and it wouldn't kill my (thin) wallet.

@ Denithor : Ironically here in Romania 9800 GT are more or less the same price as a 4770. Here you can actually find a few 4770! I have tried overclocking the CPU and seemed to respond well to 2.8. The GSKILL ram didn't need any tweaking with voltage for the time I tried it. I went back to default as the case I have is pretty packed and gets hot, especially now in summer here.

PS for both: You lucky b-stards living in the US where comp parts are so cheap I'm originally from Australia and even there I had to pay through the nose for parts, but now here in Romania it's a double whammy: high prices and low pay.

 

[vj8usa]

There are plenty of fine Antec PSUs (like some of their Earthwatts models), but they had a lot of issues with the Smartpower 2.0 line. The 4770 doesn't use much power though, so there's a good chance it'd work with your PSU. Regardless, it sounds like that's your best bet (since it's faster and uses less power than the 9800GT).

 

[commiered]

@ vj8usa. Great! I get the one Antec PSU that sucks! I have an older(prehistoric?) P4 2 ghz from 2002 that still runs fine with its Antec, so that's why I picked Antec again.

 

[Denithor]

Well - I wouldn't say that all the smartpower 2.0 units were bad - just that enough had problems that we don't recommend them around here. Yours may be just fine and work great for years to come. It's just a little suspect, especially if you're going to throw in a high performance GPU that eats a lot more power than what you had previously. Which makes the 4770 a great recommendation.

Personally the PSU is probably the one part I overspend on - I always get more than I need, not in expectation of needing more in the future, simply because I don't want to overstrain it and cause failure. When they go, they often take other (much more expensive) parts along for the ride. And trust me - it absolutely sucks having to figure out what's good and what's not when a PSU goes out, you replace it - and the system still doesn't work right.