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Video Card Upgrade Question

S

supastar1568

Senior member
ok guys, im pondering upgrading to a new vid card. I currently have a Connect3D x800xl.

Im looking to buy either a 7800GT or a 7800GTX. I play games like BF2, and will be getting AOE 3 when it comes out. The reason why I am planning to upgrade is because I currently have the money now because I have been working full time this summer. Come the next two weeks I will be starting school, and will be pressed for cash, so if there is a time to buy, it is now (for me at least).

I currently have:

Winchester 3200+
Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra 9
2GB of Corsair Value PC3200
Seagate 80GB hard drive.

My first question is

I have an 17" LCD monitor with a native resolution of 1280 x 1024. I dont plan on getting a bigger monitor any time soon, and if i do it will only be a 19". (I tend to sit pretty close to my monitor, so if i got any bigger it couldnt be too good for my eyes.) So would it be necessary to get the 7800GTX??? Because I wouldnt be playing with any resolutions higher than 1280 x 1024.

Secondly

If I were to get the 7800GT, my 3200+ (stock speeds) would obviously be my bottleneck. If I were to overclock this it would be up to a 3500+ bringing it to 2.2GHz as opposed to 2.0GHz. (Because I plan on using stock cooling).

So would the 7800GT be a wise choice for an upgrade?
 
Getting the 7800GT will get you higher frame rates vs. your x800xl when you increase the AA and AF at that resolution. You will probably want Shader 3.0 for AOE III. I still think your x800xl would be OK unless you REALLY want to spend $400 on a new card. If you already have AA @ 8x and AF @ 16x at 1280x1024 and are happy with performance, then you could probably wait until competition from ATi forces prices on the 7800 line down.
 
yea, i would probably sell my x800xl for around say 200, which would mean i would have to pay around an extra 180 for the 7800gt. I dont find that too bad of a deal.

So it is safe to say that the 7800GTX is overkill since I dont plan on ever having that big of a monitor
 
typically I advise upgrading every other generation. So if you got a x800 or 6800 series, then I think you should wait until the generation after R520 and 7800. The x800xl can certainly last that long, imo. So if it's me, I am going to have to suggest that you spend the money on something else rather then upgrade at this point, but ultimately of course the choice is yours.
 
At that resolution 7800GT the obvious choice, unless you wanna be covered in the case that you purchase a bigger monitor...anyways I would NOT buy a 7xxx series card right now, wait until ATI's new lineup comes out(whenever that is, late september?), it could be better than 7xxx series and cost less or make the 7xxx cost less.
 
That x800XL should do you justice in most games I presume. I say save your money and spend it later in the future on an aquarium. Everyone loves aquariums 🙂
 
I suggest holding off for some time until you can get the GTX for much less.

The GT is a slightly faster card but not nearly enough to warrant the price premium. The GTX may be worth it but it is still to expensive but prices are dropping pretty fast.

You should still be able to run most if not all games at 1280x1024 with some AA/AF with your X800XT and you can upgrade when you really need to and when the next gen is much less expensive.
 
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