Replace my 8800GT?

[Nitemare]

Building a new system and don't do that much gaming, but would like to play Mass Effect 2 and Dante's Inferno

XFX 8800 GT 512MB Alpha Dog

Rest of system:
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 790X
2x2GB DDR3 1600 Memory
Phenom II x4 3.1 Ghz Callisto
Razer Barracuda AC1 Sound card
2x1TB WD Caviar Black Sata2 drives

Primary OS will be Ubuntu, but will have Windows 7 for gaming

Most I would look at spending is 150 or so

 

[slag]

Radeon 5770, however, the 8800GT will play those games fine. Our system specs are similar and I have no problem playing BS2 or ME2 at 1680x1050 resolution.

 

[Nitemare]

Did see the XFX one for 160 on the egg and having a HDMI port would be nice as I currently have my TV hooked to my secondary port of my video card. Which currently results in the sound coming from my PC speakers(surround sound though)

 

[s44]

Wait. ME2 is a *much* better PC version than ME1 -- you'll get 60fps easily unless you crank AA.

 

[tweakboy]

Guys if you guide him towards ATI it will run slower then his 8800GT because you need a clean format when u change vendors between ATI and nvidia. But if you stick with nvidia , whats not broke doesnt need fixing,, buy a GTX260 896mb 216 core ,,, its 160 to 200 bones and much faster then what you have. gl If you buy a ATI then get ready to format. :0

 

[Nitemare]

It's going to be a new/fresh install so ATI/Nvidia choice is not a problem. It is a board which uses the AMD/ATI chipset so probably wired better for it.

 

[happy medium]

gtx 260 with a 25% performance increase for 214$? As fast as a gtx 275/280

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125294

or a 160$ hd5770 which will give you ~ 20% less performance then a gtx 260.

 

[blanketyblank]

For 150 you're left with either 4870, 5770, or maybe 4890(after discounts/bing).
4870 I wouldn't buy unless it was under 130. It's about the same speed as the 5770 most of the time occaisonally faster, but it's much louder and hotter.
4890 Is slightly outside of your budget but very close aroune 180. After bing cashback though it could be around 160. It will be the fastest card out of the three.
5770 can do directx11 and uses less power and can do eyefinity if you have 3 monitors and a displayport(possibly $100) otherwise just 2.

Unfortunately nvidia isn't very competitive right now since their 260s are way overpriced. I disagree with happy_medium about a 20% performance difference between stock cards. 20% is more of a maximum than an average from the reviews I've seen.

Checkout Tom's Hardware to compare some benchmarks.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...compare,1702.html?prod[3252]=on&prod[3204]=on

260 is fairly similar in most games (maybe about 10% trade blows sometimes the 5770 is faster), but 260 gets a huge boost in certain titles like Hawx and Last Remnant like twice as many fps.

 

[Enigmatic]

5770 probably your best bet.

But uh, is Dante's Inferno even coming out for PC? The Wikipedia page just lists PS3, 360 and PSP.

And depending on the resolution you're running at, an 8800 GT might even be enough for ME2. The game's system requirements have barely gone up from ME1.

 

[happy medium]

For 150 you're left with either 4870, 5770, or maybe 4890(after discounts/bing).
4870 I wouldn't buy unless it was under 130. It's about the same speed as the 5770 most of the time occaisonally faster, but it's much louder and hotter.
4890 Is slightly outside of your budget but very close aroune 180. After bing cashback though it could be around 160. It will be the fastest card out of the three.
5770 can do directx11 and uses less power and can do eyefinity if you have 3 monitors and a displayport(possibly $100) otherwise just 2.

Unfortunately nvidia isn't very competitive right now since their 260s are way overpriced. I disagree with happy_medium about a 20% performance difference between stock cards. 20% is more of a maximum than an average from the reviews I've seen.

Checkout Tom's Hardware to compare some benchmarks.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...compare,1702.html?prod[3252]=on&prod[3204]=on

260 is fairly similar in most games (maybe about 10% trade blows sometimes the 5770 is faster), but 260 gets a huge boost in certain titles like Hawx and Last Remnant like twice as many fps.

That super overclocked gtx 260 is = to a gtx 275 which is ~ = to a 4890.

But its out of his budget anyhow

 

[blanketyblank]

That super overclocked gtx 260 is = to a gtx 275 which is ~ = to a 4890.

But its out of his budget anyhow

I see. I misunderstood what you meant since you said A GTX 260 under that so seemed like you were saying 5770 < GTX 260 by 20% < GTX 260 OC by 45%.
while in my mind should be something along the lines of
5770 ?= GTX 260 (+ or - 10%) < GTX 260 OC by 20?%

 

[happy medium]

I see. I misunderstood what you meant since you said A GTX 260 under that so seemed like you were saying 5770 < GTX 260 by 20&#37; < GTX 260 OC by 45%.
while in my mind should be something along the lines of
5770 ?= GTX 260 (+ or - 10%) < GTX 260 OC by 20?%

Gtx 260 factory overclock by 20%. Exactly.

 

[edplayer]

I would say to just go ahead and start your build and use your 8800GT. Maybe you might be happy with its performance.

A 5770 is what I would consider the first upgrade worth getting over a 8800GT. But videocard prices suck right now. The 5770 is only going to get cheaper and Nvidia has new cards coming out at some point (most likely!). And it looks like we might get even newer ATi and Nvidia cards towards the end of this year/beginning of next so it might be worth waiting for.

 

[thinkwhy]

OP, I don't think you need to upgrade at all. I have almost identical system specs (PII X4 3.0ghz, 8800gt, 4GB ram), and I just played through ME2 at 1920x1080. I was very smooth and I did not notice any slowdowns.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Guys if you guide him towards ATI it will run slower then his 8800GT because you need a clean format when u change vendors between ATI and nvidia. But if you stick with nvidia , whats not broke doesnt need fixing,, buy a GTX260 896mb 216 core ,,, its 160 to 200 bones and much faster then what you have. gl If you buy a ATI then get ready to format. :0

Miss-information. You don't need to do a clean install when changing video cards. Uninstalling the drivers from add/remove programs is typically sufficient enough. There's also drivercleaner and ccleaner to clean out any lingering registry entries.

I thought dante's inferno was not coming out for PC.

Either way an 8800gt will be sufficient in either of those games, they're both console ports.

 

[blanketyblank]

Depends on your settings. The game slows down a lot with MSAA and resolution so 8800 GT stops being smooth.
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...lactic-battle-Geforce-versus-Radeon/Practice/

 

[JasonSix78]

Just noticed your board is setup for Crossfire. I would go with an ATI card so you'll have the choice to run another card along side of it in the future. That is, if you plan on running with that rig for a good while.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Depends on your settings. The game slows down a lot with MSAA and resolution so 8800 GT stops being smooth.
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...lactic-battle-Geforce-versus-Radeon/Practice/

It seems like it's doing alright at 1920x1200. It definitely chokes on AA though.

 

[TXAngel08]

Has anyone asked OP what resolution he runs at?

His 8800GT is either fine, or not, depending on that one bit of info.

At 2650x1600, he needs to upgrade. At 1600x900, upgrading would be pointless. Everything in the middle is "it depends".

At 1920x1200, personally I'd upgrade to the 5770. At 1650x1080, I'd keep the 8800GT and wait it out a bit.

My 2 cents...

 

[Nitemare]

Has anyone asked OP what resolution he runs at?

His 8800GT is either fine, or not, depending on that one bit of info.

At 2650x1600, he needs to upgrade. At 1600x900, upgrading would be pointless. Everything in the middle is "it depends".

At 1920x1200, personally I'd upgrade to the 5770. At 1650x1080, I'd keep the 8800GT and wait it out a bit.

My 2 cents...

1920x1080 on my 24" monitor. Actually, need to upgrade the hard drive first according to windows performance. I will wait out the SS drives until they go down to a respectable rate. Windows 7 is so much faster than Vista with this card though and Ubuntu is lightning fast.

 

[TXAngel08]

SSDs are nice, but pricey...

Once nVidia starts shipping, video card prices should come down... we hope anyway.

 

[NoQuarter]

SSDs are nice, but pricey...

Once nVidia starts shipping, video card prices should come down... we hope anyway.

I actually don't think video card prices are going to change.. Nvidia is going to be asking a lot for their cards, and price them accordingly above ATI's without trying to start a price war.. so ATI won't have to change their prices down until they feel like it..

 

[Joepublic2]

1920x1080 on my 24" monitor. Actually, need to upgrade the hard drive first according to windows performance. I will wait out the SS drives until they go down to a respectable rate. Windows 7 is so much faster than Vista with this card though and Ubuntu is lightning fast.

[mordin]
8800GT w/ core2duo @ 2.8, 4GB ram. ME2 runs very well 98% of the time (much better than 360) at 1600x1200 (93% of 1080p) no AA 4x AF with everything else maxed.
[/mordin]

Also, EarthwormJim was right about Dante's Inferno:

http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/07/20/ea-no-plans-for-dantes-inferno-for-pc/

 

[Nitemare]

[mordin]
8800GT w/ core2duo @ 2.8, 4GB ram. ME2 runs very well 98% of the time (much better than 360) at 1600x1200 (93% of 1080p) no AA 4x AF with everything else maxed.
[/mordin]

Also, EarthwormJim was right about Dante's Inferno:

http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/07/20/ea-no-plans-for-dantes-inferno-for-pc/

Well that sucks about Inferno, I thought it would be ported over after a few months. I think a SSD for the OS and maybe a few select programs will be the next upgrade. I haven't seen anything so far that leads me to doubt that it can not handle anything. The W7 performance score places the HD at 5.9 and everything else at 6.8 or higher.

 

[betasub]

So you are using WEI to decide what to upgrade for gaming?