E6400 or 8800GTS?

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Iscarioth

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I currently have:

P4 630
2x1 Gig G.Skill HKs
MSI P6N Platinum
7900GS
RAIDMAX 580W PSU (12v=34a)

And my dilemma is between an 8800GTS and an E6400. Obviously, a 630 is a pretty bad bottleneck and the 7900gs won't cut it for the upcoming games either. But I'm thinking about buying the 8800gts and by the time I save up again, the E6420 will be out. Either way, I'm not very paitent.

Any thoughts?
 
That sounds like apples to oranges comparison.

What do you want? Capability of DX10? Either way is win-win if you don't care about DX10.

Personally I think an E6400 will bring you further.. especially when you can overclock those things to 3.5Ghz if you're good. The jump from 7900GS to 8800GTS is also immense, but it may not be worth it to you since its definitely the more expensive option.
 
I would go for the E6400, simply because your CPU would bottleneck the heck out of that videocard and you just wouldn't enjoy it accordingly to its true performance.
 
E6400. I have it and it is a great cpu. OCs very well and runs nice and cool. 8800 GTS is an excellent card, however a P4630 would just choke the system. Get a E6400 now and get a new graphic card later when next gen stuff comes.
 
I'm going to go the other way and say 8800GTS. You're right. The E6420 is a better CPU and I'd rather have that when it comes out. If you're just going to upgrade to the newer CPU in 3 months or so, you can probably go either way. I'm not sure there will be much out there directly rivaling the 8800GTS in the next three months in the price/performance category.
 
I will probably end up going with the e6400. The 8800gts will just be replaced in a few months or so when DX10 games start coming up for a card the same price.
 
What resolution do you plan on playing at? Under 1600x1200 definitely go with the E6400. Over 1600x1200 go with the 8800GTS. At 1600x1200 flip a coin.
 
Vryce said:
What resolution do you plan on playing at? Under 1600x1200 definitely go with the E6400. Over 1600x1200 go with the 8800GTS. At 1600x1200 flip a coin.
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I disagree, sure that may work with older gen games or current gen games, but soon as the OP gets a next generation game, that resolution threshold will be much much lower, like 1280 or 1024 range resolution, or even 800 if the OP can stand low resolutions like that.. It really depends how often this person wants to upgrade...
 
SuperKeijo said:
Absolutely no point in getting a 8800 gts with a pentium 4 WTF LOL
Click to expand...

Now that really added something constructive to the tread, didn't it? :rolleyes:

On topic I think that while you would maybe see the bigger immidiate improvement with the 8800GTS (AA and AS primarily) you'd be happier in the long run with the E6400. Anyways once the 8600 cards start to hit the stores you'll have a fairly cheap alternative GPU there. :)
 
if you're getting stuttering in your games, it's most likely the gpu, not the proccy. if you want to benchmark higher, the cpu would help tons. but for overall gaming smoothness, the gts is the better bet at the moment.

so, an e6400 would probably be a more worthwhile investment now as it would probably stay in your computer longer and be cheaper now.

also, let's look at the two upgrade paths

A:now e6400, later faster 8800(or 8900 or r600)

B:now 8800gts, later e6420

in 6 months, A will be faster than B in most, if not all, games. therefore, go with A, as it's the smarter choice
 
8800gts It will offer instant gratification of much higher playable details and resolutions.
If 630 is overclocked to around 4 Ghz you shouldn't have much problems from CPU bottleneck.
 
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