Need more powah!

M

Mr. K6

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 23, 2005
Messages
5,077
Hey all,

So due to college/work/life obliterating all my extra time, I haven't kept up much on new tech since the summer. Anyway, it seems the new nvidia part is the 8800GT, which is a fair bit faster than an 8800GTS in most situations, sometimes they're even. Anyway, I'm a big time gamer and a hobbyist, so I'm always looking to upgrade. After running the Unreal 3 demo, Crysis demo, etc., I can see that all the new games require some juice. My system is in my sig, and I'm thinking of beefing it up a little (especially after playing crysis).
Generally looking over what's available, I see my options as:
-Slap an 8800GT in here and get a little boost
-Grab an SLI board and two 8800GTs (how's SLI support for Vista 64 now?)
-Wait for something better (is there a highend G92 part right around the corner?)
-I'm not against ATi here either, so is anything worthwhile coming out of their camp?
Suggestions? Comments? Looking for some insight/advice here as I've been out of the loop.

Thanks,
Mr. K6
 
option #5: just keep the GTS, score a nice SLI board, and pick up a second hand GTS on the cheap from all the people jumping ship for a GT

the 8800GT is certainly a brilliant card, and if i was upgrading from anything below a 8800, it would be THE card to get, but spending 250 bucks for going from a 8800GTS to a GT? unless you can get at the very least 200 bucks back from the GTS, its not worth it imho

as i said, the 8800GT is a great card, but from a GTS to a GT seems to me like a relatively small upgrade.
 
None of those options are very cost effective. If you ant to do anything that will give you a worthwhile performance increase, do like Freeze said. You should be able to get a GTS for really cheap soon.
 
OMFG

i might just go SLI again

just checked a local tweaker site, and there are lots of adds for GTS320's with people complaining 190 euros is too much :)

id better sell that spare system i have lying around, cus i see a very cheap GTS320 for SLI in my future!
 
SLI of crap is still crap, though, man. 320MB is just too little of a framebuffer for high res + AA.
 
Hmmm... all good points. My basic goal was an even swap for an 8800GT (or there abouts) and an SLI board for cheap after selling my DS3P, the only real cost would be the second 8800GT, if I were to go SLI. I'm not one to really buy second-hand main components. Ninety-nine percent of the time there's nothing wrong with it, but I have the cash to go new, so I will if I can. I don't think I new 8800GTS640 would be cost effective though :p. What's a decent SLI board? I know many people liked the i680s (especially eVGAs), but how do the 650 SLIs hold up? X38 is a little expensive for me, I usually don't like spending more than ~$150 on a motherboard because I know I'll upgrade sooner than later. Still, a major part of this will be SLI performance in Vista 64. I know in the beginning it wasn't so hot, but I imagine drivers have gotten better, but by how much? Thanks for all the suggestions so far, I think I have some reading to do :cool:.

EDIT: Almost forgot, I'm playing at 1680x1050 and am an eye candy whore :p. I don't really care about AA because I think it doesn't look that great on an LCD (splitting cells makes the image very blurry), but I like to crank all the settings to max and have 16xAF.
 
Mr. K6 said:
Hmmm... all good points. My basic goal was an even swap for an 8800GT (or there abouts) and an SLI board for cheap after selling my DS3P, the only real cost would be the second 8800GT, if I were to go SLI. I'm not one to really buy second-hand main components. Ninety-nine percent of the time there's nothing wrong with it, but I have the cash to go new, so I will if I can. I don't think I new 8800GTS640 would be cost effective though :p. What's a decent SLI board? I know many people liked the i680s (especially eVGAs), but how do the 650 SLIs hold up? X38 is a little expensive for me, I usually don't like spending more than ~$150 on a motherboard because I know I'll upgrade sooner than later. Still, a major part of this will be SLI performance in Vista 64. I know in the beginning it wasn't so hot, but I imagine drivers have gotten better, but by how much? Thanks for all the suggestions so far, I think I have some reading to do :cool:.
Click to expand...

The eVGA 680i NF68-A1 is a good one :D. The 650i's aren't quite as good really. As far as Vista 64 performance, it's pretty much perfect now, as the drivers have improved greatly. I had seen one of these boards for $140 after a $20 rebate as an open-box at newegg recently, but I had already received my $220-20rebate new one a few days before :( or I'd have bit on it. If you want to get a bargain on it, keep an eye out for a couple there and see if it shows back :).

Mr. K6 said:
EDIT: Almost forgot, I'm playing at 1680x1050 and am an eye candy whore :p. I don't really care about AA because I think it doesn't look that great on an LCD (splitting cells makes the image very blurry), but I like to crank all the settings to max and have 16xAF.
Click to expand...

I play on 1680x1050 as well, looking forward very much to my pair of eVGA 8800GT 512's for SLI in a couple of days :D.
 
Sadly, I'm going to have to wait until the semester is over :(, but I'll look forward to hearing your opinion/review of the set-up. What are you running now?
 
Mr. K6 said:
Sadly, I'm going to have to wait until the semester is over :(, but I'll look forward to hearing your opinion/review of the set-up. What are you running now?
Click to expand...

I was running an 8800GTS 640 up until about 2 weeks ago, when I sold it on eBay in preparation for these cards that I knew were about to launch and had known the performance on :). I'm on an X1900GT for a couple more days until the SLI setup comes in. I'll make sure to let you know my experiences with it :)... and hey, by the time the semester's over, these are still going to be excellent values ;).
 
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