Worth it to upgrade to 8800 gts 320 mb?

[Frostyrootbeer]

Hey guys,
I'm considering upgrading to a 320 mb GTS (from my 7800 gtx), but wondered if I would be held back by my aged processor and memory. As you can see i have a x2 4400 and 2 gigs of ram, with no overclocking, would having the card net me decent performance gains (in hl2, COH, Oblivion ETC)? I would be selling my old card to family so my actual price for the card would be around 130-150.
Thanks so much for the help,

Frosty

 

[conlan]

What resolutions do you game at?

 

[undeclared]

Well, it is a better card, but just remember that like the above poster sort of said, if the resolution you use is like 1024x768 or 1280x1024, it won't really help you much until like 1600x1200 or 1920x1200 kind of thing.. but a 7800 gtx is also still quite a powerful card, I don't care what anybody says..

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: xtwells
it won't really help you much until like 1600x1200 or 1920x1200 kind of thing..

Actually it won't help you much at those resolutions either The low amount of VRAM apparently hurts the card if you are using AA at resolutions above 1280x1024, and in some benchmarks, even the X1900XT 512 beats it.

Of course the 8800GTS 320 is still a great card, and it does offer much better perfomance and IQ at 1280x1024 than the 7800GTX.

If you want to game at resolutions above 1280x1024, like 1680x1050, or 1600x1200, you might want to consider a 8800GTS 640 (or even GTX), or wait for R600 and the G80 refreshes.

 

[Matt2]

Only get an 8800GTS 320mb if you game at 1280x1024.

 

[SickBeast]

I game at 1920x1200 on a 320mb GTS and it's *fine*.

The problems have been overblown IMO. Sure, if you add tons of AA at that resolution it will cripple the card, but really I don't notice AA above 2X at such a high resolution.

I play Far Cry, HL2, Supreme Commander, and C&C 3 at 1920x1200 w/ 4XAA and 16XAF and everything runs *very* smooth.

 

[sthaznpride17]

You might have to OC your CPU a bit. 8800's can be bottlenecked, like mine. OC up to 2.6ghz and you should be good.

 

[Frostyrootbeer]

Yeah I don't count on going up to 1900x1200 much, i'm pretty much staying with m y 19' inch (maybe a 21' in the distant, distant future). I want better performance in DOD, supreme commander and oblivion at 1280x1024. How difficult would the overclock to 2.6 be? I have little to no experience in over clocking (although I do have a zalman 9500 heatsink which would work nicely).
Thanks for the help,

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Originally posted by: sthaznpride17
You might have to OC your CPU a bit. 8800's can be bottlenecked, like mine. OC up to 2.6ghz and you should be good.

Someone's always got to say it...

Do you have any proof of this bottleneck or are you just regurgitating what others say? The only bottleneck he'll see is getting 300fps instead of 400fps in CS:S (grabbed those #s out of my butt).

 

[conlan]

Originally posted by: Frostyrootbeer
Yeah I don't count on going up to 1900x1200 much, i'm pretty much staying with m y 19' inch (maybe a 21' in the distant, distant future). I want better performance in DOD, supreme commander and oblivion at 1280x1024. How difficult would the overclock to 2.6 be? I have little to no experience in over clocking (although I do have a zalman 9500 heatsink which would work nicely).
Thanks for the help,

Yup, i'd go for the 320 then

 

[5150Joker]

You don't need a core 2 duo to be able to take advantage of an 8800 series card. I also have an X2 4400+ OC'd to 2.64 GHz and I've seen a marked increase in performance compared to my X1900XT at 1920x1080.

 

[firebyyrd]

Single core might have some trouble..

personally, using 8800GTS for las vegas at 2.4ghz, and 2.65 now.. I "seem" to see a difference. When I turn the corner, it seems "smoother" than before with a 2.4ghz clock.

I'm probably just imagining it though but hey! it still feels better.

 

[sthaznpride17]

Originally posted by: firebyyrd
Single core might have some trouble..

personally, using 8800GTS for las vegas at 2.4ghz, and 2.65 now.. I "seem" to see a difference. When I turn the corner, it seems "smoother" than before with a 2.4ghz clock.

I'm probably just imagining it though but hey! it still feels better.

You have similar specs to me. You noticed a change in the FPS when you OC'ed?

The bottleneck issue is what I have personally experienced. Source FPS is aorund 60-70 on a server with a ping of 50-60. Granted the source stress test is 160fps average, this is still a slight dissapointment to me. LoTRnline H-Res textures I get FPS in the teens up to the 30's. So yeah I do beleive that my CPU is the bottleneck. If anybody has anything to counter this please do say so, I would like to know if there is something else wrong in my system.

 

[betasub]

^Try using an off-line benchmark, rather than one that could depend on remote (non-local) factors.