Now the perfect time to upgrade?

[lariz]

I've been thinking about upgrading my 7900GS for a while now. I want to get a 8800GT superclock from evga. But is it the right time?

I want to be sure that after buying this new card it won't become outdated in a few months. With all this talk of Nvidia's new 9 series it really makes me nervous about buying a card.

Another thing I was thinking of doing is getting an 8800gt now and buying a second in about 7-8 months. 2 8800gt cards in SLI should be at least as powerful as a 9xxx series card? And it would cost about the same price.


What are your opinions on this?

And if I were to upgrade to the 8 series, should I go with this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130317
8800gts

or this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814150253
8800gt

the price is nearly the same, yet the gts has 640mb while the gt has 512. It's almost too good to be true.

 

[RussianSensation]

Actually I'd wager to argue it isn't. Although it's difficult to ever say what the perfect time to upgrade is since technology becomes obsolete so fast, GF8 is more than 1 year old. I would advise against SLI though. Finally, you should upgrade when the games you play start to feel slow. So if you are playing something like Call of Duty 1, Starcraft 3 and some Quake 4 then 7900GS should be sufficient. What resolution do you play at anyway? One problem though is that Nvidia tends to release top end first and mid-range later on. This implies that initially GF9s will probably cost $400-500, making somewhat of a case for 8800GT 512mb card at $260.

Don't get the 96 shader 640mb 8800GTS as it's inferior to the 112sp 8800GT 512mb card.

 

[Dadofamunky]

He's right about the GTS cards.

But is there ever a ***BAD*** time to upgrade?

Man. I just finished my new build and it smokes. I love upgrading. It's my heroin substitute. In a few months I'll probably pop a Penryn in there.

 

[zorrt]

When good videocards become affordable that just means a better card is soon to be released. When a new faster card that can play all the latest games on high graphics gets released its very expensive. So I don't think there really is a "right" time to upgrade. Just upgrade when you feel you need to.

I went from a 7900gs to 8800gt. Basically I wait until close to the end of a products lifecycle before I buy new cards because I dont like spending more than AU$300 on a videocard. However with the 8800GT I don't think u'd regret getting it anytime soon. It handles the Unreal3 engine perfectly and I believe many games will be using that engine for a while longer. Not too worried bout the Crytek engine as I don't think it'll be as popular.

Also I wouldn't SLI. Too expensive for the gains received as you need to account for power requirements and heat output.

 

[btcomm1]

That 640 MB GTS is not as good as the GT. If you want to buy a better card then the 8800GT then you should go for the NEW GTS that has 512 MB.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814121218

 

[taltamir]

right now is a bad time to upgrade. Costs are high since AMD cant compete on either video cards or CPUs. And a new generation of both video cards AND CPUs is just around the corner (probably a month or two)

 

[c5guy]

I'm just now building a new system and have been asking myself this same question.

I've moved ahead because my strategy is to buy a 680i mobo that I can upgrade to a new processor down the road if I want to and get a new 8800GTS G92 512MB screamer graphics board for now and when I need more graphics power in 6-12 mths then I'll buy a 2nd exact graphics board (and by that time they will be really cheap) and set them up in SLI mode.

C5G

 

[NXIL]

right now is a bad time to upgrade. Costs are high since AMD cant compete on either video cards or CPUs.

Hi Tal,

actually, the 8800GT is faster and cheaper than some of nVidia's more expensive cards.

The 3870 holds its own in price/performance, assuming you can find one that isn't marked up due to demand.

CPUs are a pretty incredible bargain, historically...as long as you don't go for the last 10% of speed that costs 80% more, there are many bargains to be had. Incredibly cheap quad core: q6600.

P35 chipset motherboards that overclock insanely well for about a $100: bargain.

And DDR2 memory? I keep seeing reference to the "1GB HP memory for $3 after rebate" deal.....

Hard drives: reasonable.

Hmm, the only item that has not fallen in price: MS Windows. It's accounting for a higher and higher percentage of the purchase price of a new system.

Anyway, there is always something better, cheaper, and faster coming in about a month. I sort of like to buy a step or two back, so the the price premium for brand new stuff is gone, and, bugs are worked out--P35 chipset seems rock solid stable from what I can tell, and, I do not hear too much wingeing and bleating about Core 2 Due CPUs having any issues.....

HTH

NXIL

 

[lariz]

To my knowledge the 8800gt can run crysis just fine. Now with that type of power I would assume that this card has a good time line, considering developers won't be matching crytek's engine anytime soon. Or at least I hope not...

 

[Cheex]

I live in Jamaica and I can get my 8800GTS 320MB sold for the equivalent of US$200.

I'm waiting for the GeForce 9800GTX or 9800GX2 (whichever is more attractive at release time)...but...

Should I buy an 8800GT 512MB to tide me over until then?

The eVGA SuperClocked is at $270 - $200 = $70 upgrade....


Thoughts, comments, suggestions....??