Quick recommendation for 8800 GT replacement

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brettjrob

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
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My six-year-old 8800 GT appears to be on its deathbed after serving me well for quite a few years. I don't do a lot of gaming these days, and the 8800 was sufficient for what I did.

What I'd like in the replacement:
- At least as fast for gaming as the 8800 GT
- As quiet/power efficient as possible
- Price under $100; closer to $50 would be ideal
- As many outputs as possible for future-proofing

I haven't looked at video cards at all for half a decade at least, so I figured it might be easiest just to ask here: what suits me best? A cursory glance at Amazon suggests the GT 610 or GT 630 fall within my price range on the NVIDIA side, but I'd like to verify that these wouldn't be a downgrade from the 8800 GT in any facet. If so, other suggestions are welcome.
 
Definitely do not expect to play games on a 610 or 630. I'd second the 650 suggestion, that's the entry level imo.
 
The cheapest card sold today that will match the performance of your old 8800GT is the GT 640. If you don't mind a rebate, this one is in your price range:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127686

The 630 is a re-badged 40nm Fermi part, and sucks down twice the power of the GT 640. It's about 30-40% slower than your 8800GT.

The GT 610 is slower than integrated graphics.
 
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If you don't mind a MIR, either a 7770 or 7790 can be had at or under $100, and would be a big upgrade.
 
I'd look for a used GeForce GTX 660, or a used Radeon 6870. (GF660 is faster) They are both near the top of your price range, but nothing cheaper than them are worth buying.
 
Thanks for the responses. It's pretty disheartening to find that half a decade after I bought the 8800 GT for ~$100, you basically have to spend the same amount to avoid a big decrease in performance. I'm not shocked, though. It looks like the GTX650 may be my best bet.
 
Well, I assume that's because it was second hand - the MSRP of the 8800GT was a lot higher than $100.
The HD7770 is at least twice as powerful for that price though, if not more.

The problem is, and always has been, once you go below the $100 price point, performance tails off exponentially.
 
There are 7790's for the same prices as a lot of 7770's. The market is so bloated. PAY CLOSE attention.
 
Well I have a 8800GT SC thats flashed to SSC if you really want to stay with old tech..

EVGA8800GT003.jpg
 
Pretty sure he's looking for more than a 2 fps gain with this upgrade.
 
A couple things:

1. I'm not really looking for an upgrade; I've just been getting frequent crashes the past couple weeks that I'm fairly sure are linked to the video card. I do so little gaming nowadays that I regard getting a replacement to be a chore and a waste of my money, so I'm definitely not looking to push the price range up to $150+ in order to get uber fps on the latest titles.

2. On pricing: my NewEgg invoice dated 8/10/2008 shows I paid $110 for this 8800 GT, and I think it had a MIR as well. It seems hard to believe that 5.5 years later, you can't find anything selling new for even 20-30% less that performs on par, but it is what it is.

A used 8800 GT for dirt cheap might be my best bet, though given all I really care about is reliability I'm a little hesitant to go that route.

If the march of GPU tech had continued on like back in the early-mid 2000s and I were able to get 4x the performance today for the same $110 I paid five years ago, I'd be a lot more excited about this "opportunity" to upgrade. :)
 
By August 2008 the GTX280 had come out, which dropped 8800 prices quite considerably, so it's conceivably he paid $110 for the card. My recollection is that in early 2008 before the new generation arrived 8800GTs (small s for plural) were selling for about £120-£140 here, which would have been about $160-200 at the time, much as it is now.
 
Confirmed that my 8800 GT is the source of my troubles, so I'll definitely be ordering something new ASAP.

Using the above answers as guidance, I did some more research/searching. There's a Radeon HD 7750 that comes to only $67 after MIR on Amazon that piqued my interest. I particularly like the low power consumption and lack of a power connector; quiet and power-sipping are great in my book these days. While obviously a step down from the 7770, will this at least offer equal-or-better performance in every area compared to an 8800 GT?

Also, thinking a bit into the future... what cards (if any) in this price range will support 4K monitors? Not in terms of good framerates; just simply support that res for everyday non-gaming use. The 7750 linked above says "max res 2560x1600" in the description, though I can't tell if that's simply a DVI limitation or the card itself. If you have to spend $250+ to get 4K output then nbd, but given it could make the difference between having to upgrade again a few years down the road, I might as well consider it.
 
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brettjrob said:
Confirmed that my 8800 GT is the source of my troubles, so I'll definitely be ordering something new ASAP.

Using the above answers as guidance, I did some more research/searching. There's a Radeon HD 7750 that comes to only $67 after MIR on Amazon that piqued my interest. I particularly like the low power consumption and lack of a power connector; quiet and power-sipping are great in my book these days. While obviously a step down from the 7770, will this at least offer equal-or-better performance in every area compared to an 8800 GT?
Click to expand...
The HD 7750 will be faster than that 8800GT by roughly 30 to 50% at the least. But at $98 shipped (I don't factor in MIR until they're actually in your hands), it's a tad too pricey since the faster HD 7770 coss only $8 more:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161414
brettjrob said:
Also, thinking a bit into the future... what cards (if any) in this price range will support 4K monitors? Not in terms of good framerates; just simply support that res for everyday non-gaming use. The 7750 linked above says "max res 2560x1600" in the description, though I can't tell if that's simply a DVI limitation or the card itself. If you have to spend $250+ to get 4K output then nbd, but given it could make the difference between having to upgrade again a few years down the road, I might as well consider it.
Click to expand...
It's a combination of DVI limitation and that card. In order to use 4K display, you need a video card that supports the latest DisplayPort revision. The HIS card I linked above actually supports 4K displays since it has the latest DisplayPort revision.
 
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six years is impressive.

my geforce2 gts lasted almost that long. but I paid 500 dollars for it when it first came out.
then it got replaced by a radeon 9800 pro many years later. I wonder how long an r9 290x would last today.

one thing I discovered is power consumption costs. for a person like you, getting the more efficient card might now be worthwhile, since it can consume more than a hundred bucks' worth of electricity in six years. but at the gtx 650 or radeon 7700 level, is not much power compared to the high end ones.
 
I have 57K hours on a XFX 8800GTS and least that on a Abit 4200ti.

The 8800 I used AS on the GPU and ceramique on the RAM, 4200 I replaced the dinky fan with a beefier one.
Could be one reason they are still kicking.

If not overclocked and the fan does not die they should last half a decade or more.
 
xorbe said:
When will the last 8800GT finally die? lol
Click to expand...

It might be a while. I'm still running SLI on my EVGA 680i/QX9300....lol. Rock solid to this day.

Although, this thread pulled me in. Looking for up to date options that will beat 8800 GTX SLI.
 
I have a Geforce 8800GS and I ordered a MSI N640-1GD5/LP. The Futuremark web site shows the GT 640 GDDR5 as more powerful than the GTX 650. (Of course, I mean I didn't order the GT 640 DDR3.)
 
25E5V said:
It might be a while. I'm still running SLI on my EVGA 680i/QX9300....lol. Rock solid to this day.

Although, this thread pulled me in. Looking for up to date options that will beat 8800 GTX SLI.
Click to expand...

i can see those 8800's lasting you... but damn.. that mobo was buggy as hell! Had tons of trouble with mine and an early death. :mad:
 
Scheibler1 said:
I always wanted that cooler back in the day!
Click to expand...


It was the cooler made for the 7800GTX but you had to cut it down as it was to long to make it fit the 8800GT .. It really keeps it cool and it overclocked really well with it as the card would go much higher then SSC clocks.
 
fanboy said:
Well I have a 8800GT SC thats flashed to SSC if you really want to stay with old tech..

EVGA8800GT003.jpg
Click to expand...

lol looks like the end of the cooler was cut with a hacksaw.....maybe even a little short?
 
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