Upgrade 8800GT

Hi,

I currently have a BFG 8800GT OC 512MB card. I bought it last year when I built the PC and couldn't afford the top of the range card which at the time was the 8800GTX. Its been great and I can play Bioshock, world in conflict all on high.

I'm on about upgrading the card to a BFG GTX 260 OC MAXCORE 896MB. But is it worth it? Will it be noticeable or should I hold off?

The reasons for wanting to upgrade is that I noticed some stuttering while playing Red Alert 3 On high settings. It stuttered only slightly while in a massive battle and then went away. I want to buy fallout 3 when I've completed this and Alan Wake whenever it comes out. I also want far cry 2 which comes free with the new card so that's £30, is it worth the other £200 to get it? Or do I wait till nextyear for the new cards but then I may need a CPU upgrade as well?

Please help?

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz Clock speed but now Overclocked

4Ghz Memory DDR2

Windows XP

Hi,

I currently have a BFG 8800GT OC 512MB card. I bought it last year when I built the PC and couldn't afford the top of the range card which at the time was the 8800GTX. Its been great and I can play Bioshock, world in conflict all on high.

I'm on about upgrading the card to a BFG GTX 260 OC MAXCORE 896MB. But is it worth it? Will it be noticeable or should I hold off?

The reasons for wanting to upgrade is that I noticed some stuttering while playing Red Alert 3 On high settings. It stuttered only slightly while in a massive battle and then went away. I want to buy fallout 3 when I've completed this and Alan Wake whenever it comes out. I also want far cry 2 which comes free with the new card so that's £30, is it worth the other £200 to get it? Or do I wait till nextyear for the new cards but then I may need a CPU upgrade as well?

Please help?

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz Clock speed but now Overclocked

4Ghz Memory DDR2

Windows XP

Nutpuk

If you have the ability with your motherboard to use SLI (both PCI-E 2.0 slots), then you can pick up a second 8800GT (try for the exact same card, cuz if you get a card that is clocked slower then your current one, your OC'ed card will be clocked down to match the slower card) and run them in SLI.

A good computer running 2 8800GT in SLI is generally going to run any game just as well as the GTX 260 - sometimes a little worse, sometimes a little better.

Just something to keep in mind. I have two 8800GTS (G92) 512MB cards in SLI and they pretty much tear through anything I play. I just need a better CPU then my AMD 64 X2 5600+ (2.8MHz; OC'ed to 3.01) to get optimal performance out of my two cards.

And as the other poster before me said, RTS are generally limited in their capabilities because of your CPU and not as much as your graphic card. If you want to base how well your computer runs graphic intense games, then base your decision on how well you can run Crysis.....that is if you have the game. Or you cound find a demo, but I'm not sure the demo is well optimized.

hey if you upgrade I will buy that off you all i have is a 8600gt i want to upgrade :P

8800gt should be fine with fallout3 and farcry2 but not on max settings

The resolution I think is 1280 x 960 I wouldn't want to drop it any lower as buildings look random. The monitor is 22" widescreen. I only have one PCI Express so thats why I was looking at the GTX 260.

The cpu is running about 2.8Ghz overclocked.Surely that can't be the problem?

So still no further forward. I suppose I could wait till summer next year or next christmas and look at the I7 Intels and a total rebuild.

The resolution I think is 1280 x 960 I wouldn't want to drop it any lower as buildings look random. The monitor is 22" widescreen. I only have one PCI Express so thats why I was looking at the GTX 260.

The cpu is running about 2.8Ghz overclocked.Surely that can't be the problem?

So still no further forward. I suppose I could wait till summer next year or next christmas and look at the I7 Intels and a total rebuild.

Nutpuk

That resolution seems kinda of low for a screen that size. My 22" LCD Samsung has a native resolution of 1650 x 1080. My old 17" LCD had a native resolution of 1280 x 960...

Your CPU is pretty decent for a single card setup. Rumor has it that Nvidia is working on to release new card(s) during the first quarter of 2009. If that's the case, you might want to hold off until after the start of 2009, then you can maybe find more supporting info before you make a decision on what GPU you want to spend your money on or if you want to do a complete new rebuild.

My personal suggestion, try to get a motherboard that supports SLI or Crossfire (whichever direction you decide to go). This way, a year or two down the road after you build your computer, you can toss in a second card which is almost always quite a bit cheaper then upgrading to a top of the line card and still get top (or close to) end performance. But that's just my personal opinion because I like to leave my options open as much as possible.

Hi,

I currently have a BFG 8800GT OC 512MB card. I bought it last year when I built the PC and couldn't afford the top of the range card which at the time was the 8800GTX. Its been great and I can play Bioshock, world in conflict all on high.

I'm on about upgrading the card to a BFG GTX 260 OC MAXCORE 896MB. But is it worth it? Will it be noticeable or should I hold off?

The reasons for wanting to upgrade is that I noticed some stuttering while playing Red Alert 3 On high settings. It stuttered only slightly while in a massive battle and then went away. I want to buy fallout 3 when I've completed this and Alan Wake whenever it comes out. I also want far cry 2 which comes free with the new card so that's £30, is it worth the other £200 to get it? Or do I wait till nextyear for the new cards but then I may need a CPU upgrade as well?

Please help?

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz Clock speed but now Overclocked

4Ghz Memory DDR2

Windows XP

Nutpuk

Turn off your overclock , run spyware/virus scanner, defrag, close all non needed prgrams, update all drivers. and if that dont help and its only this game that does it, its the game. Your Pc should tear up any game out there.

If you want a good graphics card get the GeForce 280 GTX with SLI for it workd with your 8800.

Or you could wait for the 10 series which should be out any week now.

It seems like the 8800GT should max Red Alert 3. Try turning on a really low Vsync setting (30). See if your FPS is jumping between really high and relatively low. It can look like stuttering if your fps drops from 80 to 30 suddenly, but if you add vsync it should stay at 30fps.Swiftstrike5

Vsync locks your frame rate, in relation to your monitors refresh rate. Which is 60hz for lcds. So you will be locked at 60fps, but if your frame rate drops to 59, your fps will drop to 30. It would be nice for games to let let you lock your fps at 30, because if your frame rate average is closer to 30 than 60 I think that would be preferable.

The resolution I think is 1280 x 960 I wouldn't want to drop it any lower as buildings look random. The monitor is 22" widescreen. I only have one PCI Express so thats why I was looking at the GTX 260.

The cpu is running about 2.8Ghz overclocked.Surely that can't be the problem?

So still no further forward. I suppose I could wait till summer next year or next christmas and look at the I7 Intels and a total rebuild.

Nutpuk

2.8ghz what? if its a pentium 4/d that's your problem, even a athlon @ 2.8ghz could be a small bottleneck in rts games.

TC, it is not your CPU. You have a Core 2 Duo at 2.66Ghz. This processor will feed a 4870x2 all it needs, so if you were to gain from any upgrade, it would be from the GPU.

I'd also stay away from any SLI solution. The performance increase is marginal, and there are single card solutions that are better.

As someone else recommended, at the moment an AMD/ATI 48** is the way to go.

Don't waste your money, 8800GT is still a good card and still can play mostly new games at high settings
Just wait for next models card if u plan to upgrade but not for this year.

Check out my new blog at darms88.blogspot.com

[QUOTE="Swiftstrike5"]It seems like the 8800GT should max Red Alert 3. Try turning on a really low Vsync setting (30). See if your FPS is jumping between really high and relatively low. It can look like stuttering if your fps drops from 80 to 30 suddenly, but if you add vsync it should stay at 30fps.Captain__Tripps

Vsync locks your frame rate, in relation to your monitors refresh rate. Which is 60hz for lcds. So you will be locked at 60fps, but if your frame rate drops to 59, your fps will drop to 30. It would be nice for games to let let you lock your fps at 30, because if your frame rate average is closer to 30 than 60 I think that would be preferable.

Yeah, I keep thinking of my old Crt...

TC, it is not your CPU. You have a Core 2 Duo at 2.66Ghz. This processor will feed a 4870x2 all it needs, so if you were to gain from any upgrade, it would be from the GPU.

I'd also stay away from any SLI solution. The performance increase is marginal, and there are single card solutions that are better.

As someone else recommended, at the moment an AMD/ATI 48** is the way to go.

Subcritical

SLI and Crossfire have better results theses days then pass years...

I would recommend HD4870 1GB.

Dont SLi , i have nearly the same card and am playing all games on high (including Crysis) , but am upgrading to an ecga Sc gtx 260 216 core card !, but i think you should upgrade your Cpu now bucause your Gpu will serve you to the upcoming 6 months . . sentenced83

So what's the point in upgrading if you're arealdy playing on high crysis?

[QUOTE="sentenced83"]Dont SLi , i have nearly the same card and am playing all games on high (including Crysis) , but am upgrading to an ecga Sc gtx 260 216 core card !, but i think you should upgrade your Cpu now bucause your Gpu will serve you to the upcoming 6 months . . Bebi_vegeta

So what's the point in upgrading if you're arleady playing on high crysis?

in Crysis get around 20 -35 Fps , i want to play at a higher resolution and for the upcoming titles (although Crysis is the most GPU intensive) and i cant upgrade whenever i want because i live outside the US , and Pc parts are so expensive , but now i can because a friend of mine is coming from there and i got a good deal for thegtx 260 216 core

waste of money if you ask me. my 8800gt can basicly max out farcry 2 @1680 x 1050. what cpu do you have that could be your problem. imprezawrx500

I say it's just bad optimisation or unupdated drivers. And buying a new card just to max out one game with no problems is petty. A 260 won't see it's real usage for a while yet. Wait.

Well, the Maxcore has similar performance to a GTX280.Sordidus

Not really...

I can't honestly see why u are having a problem with Ra3. I have a Q9300 @ stock, 8800gt Oc'd to 650mhz. 4gb ddr2 667mhz. I can run RA3 maxed with 16xQ. Are u using the beta nvidia drivers 180.43? That may increase the performance but i do not see why u can't max it like me.