What happened to "Go ahead and buy that 7800GTX for futureproofing!"

You shouldn't spend $500 for a new card every few years since a mid-range card next year will probably be the same or faster. Look at the 6800 Ultra - isn't the 7600gt faster or at least the same?
 
There is no such thing as future proof when it comes to hardware.
If the hardware is there, the gamemakers will make use of it and more.
Right now a lot of games are about 5GB and fits nicely on a DVD, how long do you think that will last? :rolleyes:
 
cwoZ94 said:
You shouldn't spend $500 for a new card every few years since a mid-range card next year will probably be the same or faster. Look at the 6800 Ultra - isn't the 7600gt faster or at least the same?
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O.O well the 7600gt did come out 2 years afterwards...
 
my 6800gt is still kicking ass in oblivion 1280x1024 HDR sliders maxed except grass (turned off) and shadows (maxed indoor, bout half with no filtering outdoor). Oblivion still looks absolutely fantastic even without the grass.

I did pay $425 for my Gainward golden sample, but I think I've gotten my money's worth. A little overclocking has kept this little gem quite competative. Like someone else said, the latest and greatest is really only needed if you're running really high res. I've got a really great quality 17" LCD that I won't be needing to upgrade for a while.

The key to happiness is never, ever looking at actual FPS numbers. Just tweak it so it's playable for you. You might be surprised at how low your actual fps can be and yet still provide a good gaming experience.
 
Some of you need to consider an xbox360 or PS3 when released, if upgrading really bothers you. With the Unreal 3 engine looming, I dont see anything short of quad SLI running it even near maxed out.
 
killerD said:
Some of you need to consider an xbox360 or PS3 when released, if upgrading really bothers you. With the Unreal 3 engine looming, I dont see anything short of quad SLI running it even near maxed out.
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Maybe with today's cards. In a year or less there will be a single solution card that beats quad SLI today and when the Unreal 3 engine hits there will be single solution cards to handle it. I'm not worried, this industry is driven by having the best and the fastest.
 
killerD said:
Some of you need to consider an xbox360 or PS3 when released, if upgrading really bothers you. With the Unreal 3 engine looming, I dont see anything short of quad SLI running it even near maxed out.
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if the next flagship card will run as fast as SLIed 7900GTXs, we should see Unreal 3 running solid at 1280x1024 on all high, or 1680x1050 with SLI and AA.
 
eat2na said:
Just like many here, I purchased a 7800GTX for over $600 dollars when it came out. The excuse back then was "There are no games out now or in the inmediate future that will stress out this Video card" or "You will be able to play all the games now and in the next year with with max resolution and all the visual on high and it won't break a sweat!" Or "This video card is a waste of money since there are no games that can take advantage of it" "Is Overkill" Well the only games that could really play at max settings were Far Cry and Doom3. Soon after F.E.A.R came out and I was left a little cheated as I had to lower the settings a lot to get to 30FPS. Now Oblivion comes out and... Well you get the picture. I wanted it to last more than a year at max settings and over 40 FPS. CPU is a 3200Venice at 2500MHz on a DFI NF4 Ultra modded to SLI and 2 Gigs of Ram.
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Computer part of ANY kind + Future Proof = Oxymoron.... :D
 
eat2na said:
Just like many here, I purchased a 7800GTX for over $600 dollars when it came out. The excuse back then was "There are no games out now or in the inmediate future that will stress out this Video card" or "You will be able to play all the games now and in the next year with with max resolution and all the visual on high and it won't break a sweat!" Or "This video card is a waste of money since there are no games that can take advantage of it" "Is Overkill" Well the only games that could really play at max settings were Far Cry and Doom3. Soon after F.E.A.R came out and I was left a little cheated as I had to lower the settings a lot to get to 30FPS. Now Oblivion comes out and... Well you get the picture. I wanted it to last more than a year at max settings and over 40 FPS. CPU is a 3200Venice at 2500MHz on a DFI NF4 Ultra modded to SLI and 2 Gigs of Ram.
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You should know better. There's ALWAYS a better card coming. you buy what you can, OC it if needed, and make do when things get behind till you can upgrade again. It's a never-ending cycle.
 
Svperstar said:
This is why the upgrade train is stupid. When I was younger I would gladly upgrade to the latest and greatest, I traded in my Voodoo 2 SLI for a Voodoo 3 simply because the V3 was newer.

Now I only upgrade when I see a 100% increase in FPS or more.
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Ditto, or major hardware revision. IE: I bought a 6800GT. to up from a 9800 Pro
 
eat2na said:
Just like many here, I purchased a 7800GTX for over $600 dollars when it came out. The excuse back then was "There are no games out now or in the inmediate future that will stress out this Video card" or "You will be able to play all the games now and in the next year with with max resolution and all the visual on high and it won't break a sweat!" Or "This video card is a waste of money since there are no games that can take advantage of it" "Is Overkill" Well the only games that could really play at max settings were Far Cry and Doom3. Soon after F.E.A.R came out and I was left a little cheated as I had to lower the settings a lot to get to 30FPS. Now Oblivion comes out and... Well you get the picture. I wanted it to last more than a year at max settings and over 40 FPS. CPU is a 3200Venice at 2500MHz on a DFI NF4 Ultra modded to SLI and 2 Gigs of Ram.
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thats why i never buy the best always one step lower, the price is usually not worth it, and usually when something new comes out you lose more money selling than you would if you got one step less, example I bought my 7800GT for $350 after rebate only $320, I sold it for $275, so I lost $45 then I bought my 7900GT for $320, so it cost me $45 to upgrade, I see 7800GTX's go for around $230-$250 and you spent most likely $500-$550 on it, now THAT is a tremendous loss I know this is pretty unique though, a card $200 cheaper and faster screwed up the market like crazy

now I'm kind of feeling sad for the people with SLI 7900GTX right now, seeing that the G80 has a possibility of coming out in June and as late as september, I don't pity the people that have 30" dell lcd's that need to run sli 7900GTX to get decent fps but the people with their 17" CRT that wanted it only for e-penis
 
Devnull said:
My GeForce DDR lasted an incredibly long time. Everyone else was still using GeForce 256/GeForce2MX for the longest time. It seriously outlasted all their non-DDR cards.
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I kept my GF1 256 DDR for 34 months. (bought Jan '00, retired Nov '02)

UT2003 forced me to upgrade into a ti4200.

None of my cards since have lasted 2 years. :(
 
36 months is 3 years, you dont get card life like that anymore...
 
Stereophile said:
I kept my GF1 256 DDR for 34 months. (bought Jan '00, retired Nov '02)

UT2003 forced me to upgrade into a ti4200.

None of my cards since have lasted 2 years. :(
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my 6800GT did
 
Stereophile said:
I kept my GF1 256 DDR for 34 months. (bought Jan '00, retired Nov '02)

UT2003 forced me to upgrade into a ti4200.

None of my cards since have lasted 2 years. :(
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Yeah I wish I would have stayed with the GeForce DDR a bit longer, but I bought mine November/December of 1999 and finally got rid of it January of 02.

At the time there simply wasn't a reason to upgrade. AA was still too much a performance hit even @ 800x600 on the fastest videocards, so was AF, shaders in games were very primitive and such. All I played regularly was Counter-Strike. The first game that really bogged on it was Max Payne.

I upgraded to a Radeon 8500 but I really should have waited till the fall for a Radeon 9700 Pro when I upgraded again.
 
The issue is twofold, cards are coming out with newer revisions faster, and games are starting to take advantage of future hardware. Oblivion, the jumble of graphics that it is, can't really be "maxed" on today's economical systems, but logically sometime in the next year cards will be coming out that will do the game it's full justice. Making some people feel unworthy because they have to nudge a few sliders down to keep graphical competetivness in the future is worth it in my book.

Of course, I'm running an APG 6800gt and really don't see the reason to upgrade, (not that I could anyway) so I don't have quite the perspective of the 7900GTX owners out there, but as I've said before, games will never look worse on your card, other things will just look better in comparison.
 
pf you guys need to stop complaining about future proof and stuff like that, nothing is future proof, also don't be mad because you don't have the top of the line video card. I have a 5600 and i am playing bf2 and quake 4 on low settings but i can still play it, but i cannot played fear, i tried it and it would get very slow in firefights
 
i ran my 9500 pro while playing GoD 1 and its exp pack, doom and even CoD2 demo upgrated to 9800xt(softmodded to pro) when my HDD cought fire and lit up my 9500 pro and the mobo i had then(dont ask, lets jsut say my solidering skills suck), my 9800pro plays CoD1 and its exp at full settings and max res on my monitor CoD2 runs ar mid settigns just fine, only upgrading to a 7900gt(pce-i) and DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D to finish off my build to havea top gear computer for once, one ill know that ill be happy with, plays the games i have so im happy
 
eat2na said:
Just like many here, I purchased a 7800GTX for over $600 dollars when it came out. The excuse back then was "There are no games out now or in the inmediate future that will stress out this Video card" or "You will be able to play all the games now and in the next year with with max resolution and all the visual on high and it won't break a sweat!" Or "This video card is a waste of money since there are no games that can take advantage of it" "Is Overkill" Well the only games that could really play at max settings were Far Cry and Doom3. Soon after F.E.A.R came out and I was left a little cheated as I had to lower the settings a lot to get to 30FPS. Now Oblivion comes out and... Well you get the picture. I wanted it to last more than a year at max settings and over 40 FPS. CPU is a 3200Venice at 2500MHz on a DFI NF4 Ultra modded to SLI and 2 Gigs of Ram.
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Little difference in a 7800GTX and 7900GTX and not enough to justify an upgrade, As for Obilivion and fear your cpu is holding you back not your 7800GTX.
 
What I meant to say is that you should buy a mid-range card that comes out for $300. This should play most of the games at that time. Then when a year or two rolls by, you can buy the mid-range card that comes out.

Example:

You buy a Geforce 6800 gt instead for about 350 instead of the Ultra for ~500. Then when 2006 comes by, you can buy a 7900 gt for 300. The 7900 gt owns the 6800u.
 
there is no such thing as "futureproofing". if you believe that, you've bought into a pipedream.

the gfx market always moves forward.
 
yet another reason for me to laugh at the people that rush to spend time and money trying to have the newest thing every time it comes out

I love my 6800GT AGP
 
Remember the days when even the best stuff was not enough? Just try a game like Rainbow Six or Half-Life on that days best PC and you will get the picture. There was no AA and no AF and games ran under 30fps and 15-20fps was considered very good not to mention that 800x600 was high res. Too bad we are going towards that situation again with poorly optimized games (CoD2, Oblivion, F.E.A.R etc).
I just build a PC with Pentium 233MHz MMX, 128Mt SDR and Voodoo3 2000 PCI and I was very surprised who crappy old games ran like.
 
Quit buying 21390x10293 resolution widescreen monitors and stick with the 17" 1280X1024 monitor. Your "high end" graphics cards will last a long time :cool:
 
As some people have mentioned already, it will be better in the long run to get mid range video cards for 200-300 dollars every year than spend 500-600 dollars on a video card and hope to run games well for 2 years.
 
CRXican said:
yet another reason for me to laugh at the people that rush to spend time and money trying to have the newest thing every time it comes out

I love my 6800GT AGP
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A couple hundred bucks isn't a lot to everyone. Please, don't offend others in your attempt to "help." It makes you miss other options too. Like if bleeding edge graphics interests him, he should have flogged the GTX for near $400 like i did when the Radeons dropped. I bought my GTX for $500 and almost 8 months later sold for $385. Penny pinching Mcgee thinks I still got hosed but who cares. i probably will not do as well down the road with my XT, but rest assured I will get rid of it like a bad disease if something significantly better comes out. We don't all drive Corrolla's or compromise our graphics settings. Nothing wrong with economy cars or midrange graphics cards, but you like high end cards it doesn't have to be that much money in the grand scheme of things.
 
i bought my 9700 pro in august 2002 to play warcraft 3 at 1600x1200 maxed. it was about $400. i retired it today when i built my new system and replaced it with a much slower pcie card until a fast and quiet ati card comes out (not the x1900xt most likely). one of the things that i noticed is that the card was still good competition for much of the stuff that was coming out until very recently and i managed to finish doom 3 and play half life 2 with it. in fact, i was just playing call of duty 2 on it yesterday at 1024x768 with decent framerates. buying expensive cards has its benefits.
 
texuspete00 said:
A couple hundred bucks isn't a lot to everyone. Please, don't offend others in your attempt to "help." It makes you miss other options too. Like if bleeding edge graphics interests him, he should have flogged the GTX for near $400 like i did when the Radeons dropped. I bought my GTX for $500 and almost 8 months later sold for $385. Penny pinching Mcgee thinks I still got hosed but who cares. i probably will not do as well down the road with my XT, but rest assured I will get rid of it like a bad disease if something significantly better comes out. We don't all drive Corrolla's or compromise our graphics settings. Nothing wrong with economy cars or midrange graphics cards, but you like high end cards it doesn't have to be that much money in the grand scheme of things.
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I agree. However, sometimes its hard to estimate how much better a previous generation card is better over the current. I myself, prefer to skip a "generation" especially with SLI. Many people might find it ok and not financially straining to buy the newest thing, which is perfectly fine for them. In my opinion the 7900GTX just doesn't offer that significant of a performance increase to sell off my 7800 GT's in SLI and buy one, though many people have.

Whatever comes out next, towards the end of this year, I'll take a much harder look at upgrading. Then the peformance gains would be better (hopefully) to justifiably warrant the cost and maybe a new game I want eye candy and frames in. Everyones different in this aspect and should do what's right for their needs and situation. And NOONE should dump on anyone for 'not seeing it their way'.....
 
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