Itching to upgrade...

[NickelPlate]

Hey Folks,

Ok I realize it may not be that much of an upgrade, and I know the GT200 is 3 to 6 months down the road, but newegg has the MSI 8800GTS 512 OC for $199 AR. I've been watching the auctions on fleebay for my EVGA 8800GTS 640 superclock go regularly for about $175. I have all the original box, cables and contents as well so I'm pretty confident I can recover most of the outlay for the new card.

Another compelling reason to bite is that it includes a free copy of The Witcher, which I really want to play now, that would save me another $50. Seems like a no brainer to me. Can anyone give me a good reason not to upgrade? Other games I'm currently into are FEAR and Oblivion and I game on a 19" CRT at no higher than 16x12 at 2xAA most of the time so I doubt I'll run into issues with the reduced memory and 256bit bus. Thanks.


NP

 

[MarcVenice]

I've been comtemplating stepping up from a 8800gts 320mb to a 8800gt or a 8800gts 512mb. Prices are slightly higher in Europe, or much higher, but anyways, it would cost me 30-50 euro's. I find it tempting, but I was told that at my resolution of 1680*1050 there's basicaly no difference between the 8800gts 320mb, 8800gts 640mb and the 8800gt(s) 512mb. If that's the truth, and I have still got to get myself a review with benchmarks, then stepping up isn't really worth it. But then again, with the free copy of The Witcher, you basicaly earn money. So I suppose you might as well step up ...

 

[chizow]

With a G80 GTS at 630 I don't think its worth it, but for $25-30 out of pocket when its all said and done its worth it to see for yourself. I did with a 8800GT @ 729/1000 when they first came out and didn't see enough difference to keep it. Ended up trading it + cash for the GTX I have now. The prices on those GTS and even GTX are certainly tempting but I just look back at my experience with the G92 GT and figure I can wait a few more months for GT200 or R700.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: NickelPlate
Hey Folks,

Ok I realize it may not be that much of an upgrade, and I know the GT200 is 3 to 6 months down the road, but newegg has the MSI 8800GTS 512 OC for $199 AR. I've been watching the auctions on fleebay for my EVGA 8800GTS 640 superclock go regularly for about $175. I have all the original box, cables and contents as well so I'm pretty confident I can recover most of the outlay for the new card.

Another compelling reason to bite is that it includes a free copy of The Witcher, which I really want to play now, that would save me another $50. Seems like a no brainer to me. Can anyone give me a good reason not to upgrade? Other games I'm currently into are FEAR and Oblivion and I game on a 19" CRT at no higher than 16x12 at 2xAA most of the time so I doubt I'll run into issues with the reduced memory and 256bit bus. Thanks.


NP

Well you can do it, since you aren't really loosing money and you want the game. But like others said, the GT will not give you any noticeable performance increase over your current GTS.

 

[imported_wired247]

I would do it.

Also, once you get the Witcher (as much as this might sound stupid to a lot of people) I would wait until May to play it. they are coming out with the enhanced edition which will be a free patch for owners of the game, it will basically change everything about the game from better graphics to character interactions (fixing a lot of awkwardisms). I stopped playing it in anticipation of the patch...

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: wired247
I would do it.

Also, once you get the Witcher (as much as this might sound stupid to a lot of people) I would wait until May to play it. they are coming out with the enhanced edition which will be a free patch for owners of the game, it will basically change everything about the game from better graphics to character interactions (fixing a lot of awkwardisms). I stopped playing it in anticipation of the patch...

I actually think that the game is perfect as it is. I've played it with the 1,2 patch and it has been one of the best PC gaming experiences of my life.

 

[imported_wired247]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: wired247
I would do it.

Also, once you get the Witcher (as much as this might sound stupid to a lot of people) I would wait until May to play it. they are coming out with the enhanced edition which will be a free patch for owners of the game, it will basically change everything about the game from better graphics to character interactions (fixing a lot of awkwardisms). I stopped playing it in anticipation of the patch...

I actually think that the game is perfect as it is. I've played it with the 1,2 patch and it has been one of the best PC gaming experiences of my life.

Yeah it's a good game, but I really wanted to play it after the enhanced edition comes out, and I wasn't THAT far into the game, so it is worth it for me to wait.

Plus I'm still in the middle of Bioshock, STALKER, Devil may cry 4 ... I have enough to keep me busy until the enh. ed. comes out

 

[NickelPlate]

Originally posted by: wired247
I would do it.

Also, once you get the Witcher (as much as this might sound stupid to a lot of people) I would wait until May to play it. they are coming out with the enhanced edition which will be a free patch for owners of the game, it will basically change everything about the game from better graphics to character interactions (fixing a lot of awkwardisms). I stopped playing it in anticipation of the patch...

Interesting you mention that. I've been playing the demo and decided to wait until May to buy the new edition but if I get this card I can supposedly d/l the new content when it becomes available. My trigger finger on this deal is about as shaky as it can get.

NP

 

[imported_wired247]

Yeah anyone who owns the game will be able to download the new content, according to their website.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: wired247

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: wired247
I would do it.

Also, once you get the Witcher (as much as this might sound stupid to a lot of people) I would wait until May to play it. they are coming out with the enhanced edition which will be a free patch for owners of the game, it will basically change everything about the game from better graphics to character interactions (fixing a lot of awkwardisms). I stopped playing it in anticipation of the patch...

I actually think that the game is perfect as it is. I've played it with the 1,2 patch and it has been one of the best PC gaming experiences of my life.

Yeah it's a good game, but I really wanted to play it after the enhanced edition comes out, and I wasn't THAT far into the game, so it is worth it for me to wait.

Plus I'm still in the middle of Bioshock, STALKER, Devil may cry 4 ... I have enough to keep me busy until the enh. ed. comes out

Since you have other games that can keep you occupied, it really does worth waiting for the patch. I really wonder what are the graphics enhancements, because I might be tempted to play it again, on the bad side this time.

 

[SickBeast]

Man that's actually a downgrade. You're losing 128mb of texture memory for a few ROPs and such...not a good tradeoff IMO especially considering you're paying money to do it.

 

[IcePickFreak]

I went from a g80 640mb 8800GTS to a g92 512mb on a step-up when the g92s released in december and haven't regretted it one bit (yeah I now have a BFG g92, sold the complete rig to a friend). I'm able to run the g92 at 799core/1998shader/2246memory clocks, much higher than what I was able to achieve on the g80. I got a quite noticeable boost and have been pretty much happy since proper drivers for g92 were released.
If you have the cash to play with, I'd go for it, especially if you're getting a game you want to buy anyway. Maybe put your 640mb card up first and see if there's any takers. As for the loss of 128mb of memory, I saw a decent increase even in oblivion with qarls hi-res texture pack. On the other hand if it means you're eating Ramen noodles for the next month, food > more fps.

 

[imported_wired247]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Man that's actually a downgrade. You're losing 128mb of texture memory for a few ROPs and such...not a good tradeoff IMO especially considering you're paying money to do it.

more money = more FPS. all the rest is just arguing about nomenclature. If you don't use 640MB and 512mb gives you better FPS then there's really no problem.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: wired247

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Man that's actually a downgrade. You're losing 128mb of texture memory for a few ROPs and such...not a good tradeoff IMO especially considering you're paying money to do it.

more money = more FPS. all the rest is just arguing about nomenclature. If you don't use 640MB and 512mb gives you better FPS then there's really no problem.

The cards are just so comparable that I see no reason to do it.

Say you can clock the GT at 700mhz...most G80s will easily hit 630-650mhz. To me, 50mhz on the core isn't worth it, especially in light of the fact that you lose both memory and memory bandwidth (256bit vs. 320bit).

Seriously, the difference is 10% on a good day. Plus remember that the difference dwindles at higher resolutions with more AA and such. I would never, ever upgrade a component for a 10% boost.

 

[AzN]

You have your card clocked pretty high and in AA situations it might be better. I wouldn't do it just to get 10% better. You won't notice a thing for everyday use.

 

[NickelPlate]

I'm gonna give it a shot and see how it works out. The card falls under newegg's standard return so I can always send it back if it actually runs worse than my 640 and only be out shipping, it's worth that to at least try and see. Most of the benchies I looked at that had comparisons between the two showed a pretty substantial gain running the games I play and at the res and settings I normally use, but we'll see. If it works out, I should actually profit somewhat from the deal given current ebay prices for my card and the free game. Nothing wrong with Ramen noodles :laugh: Thanks all for the comments.

NP

 

[IcePickFreak]

Creamy Chicken flavor FTW

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: NickelPlate
I'm gonna give it a shot and see how it works out. The card falls under newegg's standard return so I can always send it back if it actually runs worse than my 640 and only be out shipping, it's worth that to at least try and see. Most of the benchies I looked at that had comparisons between the two showed a pretty substantial gain running the games I play and at the res and settings I normally use, but we'll see. If it works out, I should actually profit somewhat from the deal given current ebay prices for my card and the free game. Nothing wrong with Ramen noodles :laugh: Thanks all for the comments.

NP

Good deal, let us know how you like it. For 30-40 its really not much of a gamble, especially since you wanted to play The Witcher. One thing to keep in mind though about those benches.....is that they're going to show the GTS 640MB in the worst possible light, like 500/513MHz core clocked variants up against 600-675MHz G92s. There's at least 2 reviews at FiringSquad that show the OC'd variants of the G80 GTS fare much better against G92 at higher clockspeeds. There's also quite a few reviews out there that show G92 OC'd parts show much less gain in performance for whatever reason. I found this to be the case with the 8800GT I had for about a month. 650MHz to 729MHz provided little if any improvements in performance at 1920 no AA.