video card suggestions?

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quikt

Limp Gawd
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Sep 11, 2006
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Hey all, been out of the loop for sometime since getting a PS3. Looking to upgrade my aging but sweet 7600GT. I have a 46" LCD tv and a 22" LCD tv that I game on. I am looking for advice on what would be a good mainstream to high end video card replacement for the 7600GT? I mostly play FPS, cod, fallout3 etc. Thanks ahead of time
 
What PSU do you have? Kind of a bad idea to recommend a new GPU if your PSU can't handle it.

Also, what's your budget?
 
no point in putting a high end card with that cpu. even a modern midrange card will be held back by that 3800 X2 in many games.
 
I wouldn't bother with anything faster than a 4850, you can get them for around 100-130 bucks these days. CPU limitations are overrated in my opinion, yes a faster cpu will help but even at 1280x1024 on the same cpu you have, I can bump IQ settings high enough to tank a 4850 in some games.
 
Yoda4561 said:
I wouldn't bother with anything faster than a 4850, you can get them for around 100-130 bucks these days. CPU limitations are overrated in my opinion, yes a faster cpu will help but even at 1280x1024 on the same cpu you have, I can bump IQ settings high enough to tank a 4850 in some games.
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they are not overrated in most cases. a 3800x2 and a gtx260 would be slower than an E8400 and 8800gt in some games. its about BALANCE and putting a really powerful gpu with a slow cpu nets you no better gaming experience than having a midrange card. this has been proven over and over. heck I have personally run hundreds of benchmarks and can easily prove it to you with real numbers in any modern game. game makers put a minimum/recommended requirement for gpus AND cpus for a reason. if I lower my E8500 to 1.6 I will still have a faster cpu than the OPs 3800 X2 yet much of my performance will drastically drop off to the point that a much slower card than my gtx260 would give me the same framerate.
 
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And a 4850 is decidedly a midrange card ;) Part of the joy of having a faster than necessary video card is to push IQ settings to the limit, on a 1080P widescreen though even a 4850 will be forced to bump settings down a bit with AA turned on. 4850's are the same price as a 9600gt on newegg right now, why not get a much faster card that can handle some AA on that widescreen.
 
Yoda4561 said:
4850's are the same price as a 9600gt on newegg right now, why not get a much faster card that can really handle AA on that widescreen.
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Actually the 9600GT can be had for $77 w/o rebate:
$77 - BFG Tech BFGE96512GTOCBE GeForce 9600 GT 512MB PCI-E Video Card

The cheapest HD4850 I found at Newegg was $115 w/o rebate, $95 AR. So not really the same price.
 
Yoda4561 said:
And a 4850 is decidedly a midrange card ;) Part of the joy of having a faster than necessary video card is to push IQ settings to the limit, on a 1080P widescreen though even a 4850 will be forced to bump settings down a bit with AA turned on. 4850's are the same price as a 9600gt on newegg right now, why not get a much faster card that can handle some AA on that widescreen.
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even at 1920x1080 a 3800 X2 will not keep a 4850 fully fed. in most games he would get the SAME minimum framerate and likely close to the same average by going with a slower card. I had an 8600gt with a 5000X2 and upgraded to a 4670 and in games like Crysis, Far Cry 2, and UT3 my minimum framerate was almost exactly the same. I put that that same 4670 in my E8500 system and minimum framerates went up between 30-45% depending on the settings. a 4850 is much stronger than a 4670 and his 3800 X2 is weaker than a 5000 X2 so his gap would be even larger. its just a waste of money to put a high end card in a system that the cpu cant keep it fed. name any game and I will run some benchmarks and take screenshots if need be.
 
thanks for all the responses. psu is 700watt aspire. ive always enjoyed the mid range cards so 9600gt is a good idea. if i were to change cpu, is it worth keeping socket 939 mobo and get a faster cpu or start from scratch? off toic i know but relevant to video card purchase. price range 500-700usd. thanks again for all input
 
quikt said:
thanks for all the responses. psu is 700watt aspire. ive always enjoyed the mid range cards so 9600gt is a good idea. if i were to change cpu, is it worth keeping socket 939 mobo and get a faster cpu or start from scratch? off toic i know but relevant to video card purchase. price range 500-700usd. thanks again for all input
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a 939 cpu may be too expensive to justify the cost. if you just want a little more longevity then just go for the 9600gt now and start from scratch in the fall. if you have the money right now is actually a good time to build a decent system. there are so many good cpu and gpu options that you can easily build something really nice for cheap.
 
quikt said:
thanks for all the responses. psu is 700watt aspire. ive always enjoyed the mid range cards so 9600gt is a good idea. if i were to change cpu, is it worth keeping socket 939 mobo and get a faster cpu or start from scratch? off toic i know but relevant to video card purchase. price range 500-700usd. thanks again for all input
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ASPIRE??????

Looks like you're definitely getting a new PSU then. Aspire/Apevia PSUs are absolute pieces of shit:
[Apevia/Aspire PSU Reviews]
Apevia ATX-AS500W-BL
Apevia Warlock Power 900W
XQPack's Included 420W PSU
Aspire Beast 680W Power Supply

So I highly highly recommend getting a new PSU ASAP or when you upgrade to ANY video card from either Corsair, BFG (not their GS or MS line), or Antec (not their Basiq line). The BFG LS-550 550W PSU is a good choice at $80.

Oh and you're better off just starting off new. For example, you can get this pretty awesome combo deal:
$159 - AMD Phenom II X3 710 CPU + ASUS M3A76-CM AMD 760G mATX Motherboard Combo
 
Yoda4561 said:
If you really want to pinch pennies that's fine :p Personally I don't count rebates, and I think the performance difference is worth it. Unless someone can show me benchmarks that prove a 9600GT performs the same (or even in the same ballpark) as a 4850 with 8x AA+ transparency AA turned on I stand by the recommendation.

http://i1.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_4850_Toxic/images/quake4_1920_1200.gif

http://i1.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_4850_Toxic/images/cod4_1920_1200.gif
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so you really dont get it do you? of course you had to pick 2 games that i dont have installed.
 
I think it's a worthwhile improvement even on a 3800x2, deal :D The OP should probably upgrade his CPU/motherboard first though. I have the A8n-E which I think is pretty much identical to the SLI version except for the 2nd slot. It's a PCI-e 1.0 board, some folks have had issues when installing a PCI-e 2.0 card even though they should work together. That may be what happened to the two 4850's I had on this machine. First one was horribly unstable, the 2nd one was great for two weeks then just outright died, no post screen at all.

Edit: And pick whatever games you want. Umm... other than quake II :cool: I never gave anything slower than a 9600 a shot because I didn't think they were worth spending money on (I keep hardware for 2-4 years).
 
Yoda4561 said:
I think it's a worthwhile improvement even on a 3800x2, deal :D The OP should probably upgrade his CPU/motherboard first though. I have the A8n-E which I think is pretty much identical to the SLI version except for the 2nd slot. It's a PCI-e 1.0 board, some folks have had issues when installing a PCI-e 2.0 card even though they should work together. That may be what happened to the two 4850's I had on this machine. First one was horribly unstable, the 2nd one was great for two weeks then just outright died, no post screen at all.

Edit: And pick whatever games you want. Umm... other than quake II :cool: I never gave anything slower than a 9600 a shot because I didn't think they were worth spending money on (I keep hardware for 2-4 years).
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well here is some Fallout 3 1920x1080 15xAF 8x AA results after several runs. this is about as gpu limiting as it can get and you still see that his cpu is going to get unplayable results at times.

Fallout 3 1920x1080 15xAF 8x AA

stock E8500 at 3.16 gtx260 at 576/2000
avg 50
min 32

E8500 at 1.6(about equal to a 3800 X2)
avg 39
min 19


Far Cry 2 at 1920x1080 very high settings and 8x AA

stock E8500 at 3.16 gtx260 at 576/2000
Average Framerate: 55.73
Max. Framerate: 85.80
Min. Framerate: 38.35

E8500 at 1.6(about equal to a 3800 X2)
Average Framerate: 32.05
Max. Framerate: 49.96
Min. Framerate: 22.36

even at 1080 and with very high settings and 8x AA we can see that the cpu still makes a HUGE difference. going from 1.60-3.16 even at those gpu limited settings still boosted min framerates alone by 73%.
 
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Those are the most impressive cpu scaling benchmarks I've ever seen :) In light of that, I'll suggest upgrading the whole system, THEN getting a 4890 or Gtx275 :) *runs off to budget new phenom II parts :(*
 
Yoda4561 said:
Those are the most impressive cpu scaling benchmarks I've ever seen :) In light of that, I'll suggest upgrading the whole system, THEN getting a 4890 or Gtx275 :) *runs off to budget new phenom II parts :(*
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actually I had figured that stock E8500 and 1.60 results would both be lower. you were sorta right in that he could likely turn up AA and not take a hit. the problem though is that there were too many dips down in the 20s with the cpu clocked like that.

just imagine if I lowered the res to 1680 and turned down AA. that would result in nearly twice the framerate from doubling the cpu speed. also just think of all the people out there that try to stick even higher end cards in systems with poky cpus. :eek: :cool:
 
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