Will I see any noticeable improvement

[livingsacrifice]

I am getting tired of ati's driver support for many of their cards out today even though I've been running them since the 9800pro days so I decided after my last purchase of a 2900xt to go ahead and go nvidia. Another thing was I wanted to OC my 2900xt and there is very very few options for aftermarket cooling on them. A user on these forums cut me a good deal on an evga 8800gtx and while I don't exactly need it I went ahead and bought it for the sake of wanting to go back to nvidia. Now what kind of improvements should I see from this card I know it's got 768mb instead of 512mb on the 2900xt? Also power consumption should be slightly lower even though I should be fine on my 700w ocz. Maybe I will actually be able to finish crysis now as it's dreadfully painful to play on the 2900xt. I have seen a few websites that show benchmarks but they are for more older games I'm looking for some of the newer games like the ones that have just came out.

 

[SlowSpyder]

For whatever it's worth my 2900Pro hit 800mhz without breaking a sweat with stock cooling. I haven't tried to go higher yet, but I'm sure there's more left in it.

And Toms chart has both the 2900XT and the 8800GTX, so you can compare in different games at different resolutions.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/...7&model2=706&chart=275

Oh yea, I could be wrong on this, but I thought ATI had better driver support for their current cards then Nvidia... at least in Windows. How many official driver updates has Nvidia released in the last 3 months? In the last 6? I thought ATI was releasing drivers much more frequently.

 

[livingsacrifice]

Thanks for the link, definately looks like an increase on some games (some nearly double) in 1920x1200. Still, doom 3 and battlefield 2142 are a bit outdated so kind of hard to compare them since new drivers have been out and other things.

 

[geokilla]

Don't get the 8800GTX if you really want to switch over to NVIDIA. The 8800GT offers similar performance at just around $180 AR. But the performance difference between the 2900XT and the 8800GT does not justify for a "upgrade".

The 2900XT should be fine at playing Crysis. Have you tried overclocking your CPU and GPU some more? If not, just turn down the quality by a bit.

 

[Denithor]

3rd chart: HD3870 just beats 2900XT in Crysis
8800GTX beats HD3870 in Crysis

But also note that the 8800GTS-512MB beats the 8800GTX by a small margin. And will do it while running cooler and consuming less power. With better OC potential if that's an option for you. For $220 after MIR at newegg (MSI card). So it better be a REALLY good deal on the 8800GTX.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: geokilla
Don't get the 8800GTX if you really want to switch over to NVIDIA. The 8800GT offers similar performance at just around $180 AR. But the performance difference between the 2900XT and the 8800GT does not justify for a "upgrade".

The 2900XT should be fine at playing Crysis. Have you tried overclocking your CPU and GPU some more? If not, just turn down the quality by a bit.

Actually, as Denithor noted, Crysis tends to walk all over ATI cards.

 

[SickBeast]

OP, my vote is for you to do nothing until R700/GT200 come out.

I find it interesting to hear you complain about AMD's drivers. I have been running an 8800GTS pretty much since they launched, and have been generally unimpressed with nVidia's drivers. So: Don't expect much of an improvement in that regard!

You will certainly make some gains by going with a GT/GTX card, but IMO the investment on your part is definately not worth it.

You would probably gain much more by getting a cheap 3850 card to crossfire with your current setup, similar to what apoppin did. :beer:

The only good NV drivers seem to be the ones for the 9600GT, so if that is your concern, that would be the route I would go. Two of them in SLI should crush a GTX anyway, for less money.

I'm running the 9600GT's drivers on my 8800GT using a modified .inf, but I would feel more comfortable knowing that my hardware was fully supported.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
OP, my vote is for you to do nothing until R700/GT200 come out.

I find it interesting to hear you complain about AMD's drivers. I have been running an 8800GTS pretty much since they launched, and have been generally unimpressed with nVidia's drivers. So: Don't expect much of an improvement in that regard!

You will certainly make some gains by going with a GT/GTX card, but IMO the investment on your part is definately not worth it.

You would probably gain much more by getting a cheap 3850 card to crossfire with your current setup, similar to what apoppin did. :beer:

The only good NV drivers seem to be the ones for the 9600GT, so if that is your concern, that would be the route I would go. Two of them in SLI should crush a GTX anyway, for less money.

I'm running the 9600GT's drivers on my 8800GT using a modified .inf, but I would feel more comfortable knowing that my hardware was fully supported.

You can run the 174.70 drivers, they are the newest beta drivers and they run all cards.

To OP, I wouldn't buy an nVidia 8 series card expecting better driver support...AMD releases drivers every month, nVidia releases 10 different beta drivers and you never know which one to use. You can never use nVidia official drivers because they're always way outdated and not frequently updated.

If you would upgrade to a new card, I'd suggest 8800GTS 512MB instead of GTX. It's just about as fast and will overclock much better, and you can get it for $207.49 AR if you look in Hot deals.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: livingsacrifice
I am getting tired of ati's driver support for many of their cards out today even though I've been running them since the 9800pro days so I decided after my last purchase of a 2900xt to go ahead and go nvidia. Another thing was I wanted to OC my 2900xt and there is very very few options for aftermarket cooling on them. A user on these forums cut me a good deal on an evga 8800gtx and while I don't exactly need it I went ahead and bought it for the sake of wanting to go back to nvidia. Now what kind of improvements should I see from this card I know it's got 768mb instead of 512mb on the 2900xt? Also power consumption should be slightly lower even though I should be fine on my 700w ocz. Maybe I will actually be able to finish crysis now as it's dreadfully painful to play on the 2900xt. I have seen a few websites that show benchmarks but they are for more older games I'm looking for some of the newer games like the ones that have just came out.

Don't waste your money like this. Keep the 2900 XT until some newer cards appear. It doesn't worth to change it just because Crysis doesn't work great. It won't work great on the GTX either.

In my opinion an upgrade is worth doing only when you will at least double your performance. The GTX will not give you that. It will be just marginally faster then your XT . Keep your money for something better.

 

[batmang]

^^ I agree. ATI has new cards coming so keep that in mind. I'd wait it out.

 

[Wreckage]

9800GTX should be here within a week. That would be worth waiting for.

I would not wait for the R700/GT200 as there is no real consensus on when either will arrive.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
9800GTX should be here within a week. That would be worth waiting for.

I would not wait for the R700/GT200 as there is no real consensus on when either will arrive.

9800GTX isn't going to be worth waiting for. It's a slightly overclocked 8800GTS 512MB with better overclocking ability. You can get an 8800GTS 512MB right now for just over $200, meanwhile 9800GTX will cost $300+.

R700 = late Q2, June~ unless delayed
GT200 = most likely Q3-Q4, although that's not concrete.