Video card upgrade suggestions?

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devman

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In an attempt to get some more mileage out of my current computer and fend off the "Build a new computer" monkey, I want to upgrade the graphics.

I'm having trouble deciding if I should just ebay my current card and get an 8800GT or buy a duplicate of my current card and SLI (which would probably have to come from ebay at this point).

Current card: GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=640-P2-N821-AR

intended for the computer in my forum sig.
 
You could sell your 8800GTS to invest in the 8800GT. But, the performance difference is not that big. It will be like 10FPS faster on the 8800GT as oppose to your card. Someone asked this same question also if it was worth upgrading his 8800GTS 640. Out of the 3 that responded, 3 of them including myself would say no. If you had a card like an 8600GTS, 8600GT, HD2600XT, HD2600Pro then it would be worth the upgrade to an 8800GT. An 8800GTS 640MB is still pretty good. It exceeds most if not all the games minimum system requirements and would meet the recommended requirements as well.
 
devman said:
In an attempt to get some more mileage out of my current computer and fend off the "Build a new computer" monkey, I want to upgrade the graphics.

I'm having trouble deciding if I should just ebay my current card and get an 8800GT or buy a duplicate of my current card and SLI (which would probably have to come from ebay at this point).

Current card: GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=640-P2-N821-AR

intended for the computer in my forum sig.
Click to expand...

If you have a step-up window thats about to run out, or if you feel that you can simply get $200+ for your card through Ebay for example, then I would recommend getting rid of it while its still worth something, and going with the 8800GTS 512MB card which was recently available for $270 last week on Newegg.

If not that, then there are plenty of good deals to be had for 8800GT's, and the performance differential can be quite substantial in games such as Crysis, over a 640GTS.

Oh, and as to what the poster above said, 10FPS is not always the case, sometimes its 40+ FPS faster, (particularly the 512MB GTS), but its all relative.

Heck, a 10 FPS increase in Crysis for instance, would translate into a truly significant increase, one that could change the way the whole game is played in fact.

You could experience a nice boost approaching that figure with the 512MB GTS over your current card, as an example -- depending on resolution and settings of course.

At any rate, if you can get rid of your current card for $200+ and grab one of those for $50-75 more, then I say, most definitely do it.
Especially if you like to run higher settings, more AA/AF/bump the res a little more, thats basically what these newer cards afford you the opportunity to do.

Granted, these are still 10-25% performance increments, and little more than revisionary cards, but even still -- that 10-25% can make a huge imapct depending on the games you play and the way you prefer to play them.
 
Followup:
What i personally did was I sold my 320MB Foxconn 8800 GTS on Ebay, for around 220, about 2 months ago, scored an 8800GT for the same price roughly :D and in turn, turned around and sold that on Ebay last week for ~ $250, and finally grabbed myself an EVGA 8800 GTS 512MB for $300.

Not bad, all in all, going from a 320MB 8800 GTS to a 512MB G92 EVGA GTS in the period of 5 months for only $80 or so in upgrades.

Now, Ive got 3 months on a potential step-up through EVGA, which is why I got this new card anyways, so I can line myself up for something along the lines of a 9800GTX or a 9800 GX2 in a couple of months, whilst getting top dollar for my card through their step up program.

A circuitous route, I know, but it serves its purpose.
System is kept current/fresh, and my expenses are kept at a minimum due to the margins I get on my sales veresus actual costs incurred :)

Now if only ATI would come through with another 9700 Pro-like card and force NV to play its real hand rather than these incremental upgrades / refreshes they have been hacking out for the last year, then perhaps, perhaps, I could stop upgrading so frequently through these roundabout means.
Well, one can hope.....
 
so the new GTS is significantly better than the old GTS?

An old GTS looks like its gonna run me about 300 to startwith just to get SLI, so if I can upgrade to a single card solution, get a step-up possibilty, offset some cost with Ebay, and still achieve performance close to or on par with SLi'd old GTS 640s I'd probably go with that.

Assuming I understood your posts correctly.
 
since november, i have had a gts 640(since last year) a gt (for about 3 weeks) and a gts 512. i shouldnt have bothered. if you can get another 640 for sli for $250 or less, go for it. otherwise wait to see what nvidia is going to release.
 
devman said:
so the new GTS is significantly better than the old GTS?

An old GTS looks like its gonna run me about 300 to startwith just to get SLI, so if I can upgrade to a single card solution, get a step-up possibilty, offset some cost with Ebay, and still achieve performance close to or on par with SLi'd old GTS 640s I'd probably go with that.

Assuming I understood your posts correctly.
Click to expand...

The new GTS is for the most part, superior to the 8800GTX, even if only by a handful of percentage points.

There will occasionally be games/settings/situations where the GTX is faster, but for the most part, the 512MB GTS can hold its own and then some against the GTX.

In light of that, I think it's worth upgrading to, since the GTX is still overpriced whereas the 512MB GTS can be had for < $300 after rebates.

Im pretty sure that a pair of 640 MB GTS's in SLI would perform faster than it in many situations, but then again, we are talking about spending another few hundred bucks as oppposed to like $70 or so if you want to go the upgrade route by selling your card on Ebay.

Then again, SLI is still somewhat finicky in a number of games/situations, so I would really suggest you take a few mins to perform a google search and see how the SLI 640MB GTS vs the 512MB GTS faceoff shapes up in the games you play, before you make any decisions.
 
I'd generally be in favor of a single card solution over SLi, and its really kinda turning out to be a tough decision. On one hand I can pick up a new GTS 512 and turn my old GTS 640 in to ~$200 bucks on ebay, on top of that I can get a 90 day step-up window for later.

If I go the SLi route I may (or may not) get superior performance, but I have to eat the whole 300 bucks in cost (for an older revision no less), as I can't sell the other card. It would, however, give me 90 days of step-up as well.

decisions, decisions.... :confused:

One other factor, does anyone know if the new GTS 512 is longer than the old GTS 640, as it stands I have about 3mm of clearance between my PCI-E power plug and my HDD cage with a 640 in there.

EDIT: Also worth noting I don't have a PCIe 2.0 mobo if that makes any difference.
 
Ok so I checked the dimensions (important, because I only have about 3mm of clearance from my HDD cage with the old GTS 640) and the GTS 512 has identical.

I think I'm gonna go with the single new card solution at this point as its either $300 bucks for SLI with an old card or ~300 bucks for a new G92 GTS.

Does the PCIe 2.0 spec matter? Will it work on my nForce4 motherboard? Will I need to flash my boards BIOS or anything crazy?

EDIT: I stand corrected the G92 GTS is $259 at Newegg after Rebate, compared to the old 640 GTS which is still holding at $300 :eek:
 
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