Money to burn...

TerrorFirmer

Right well I finally sold my other machine so now I've about 300-350 to burn on a new card, I did have a 3870 but wanted something slightly more powerful to crank up AA at 1680x1050. Initially I was thinking 3870x2, but first of all it may not fit in my case, and second of all on careful deliberation I've decided it might be far too much overkill (rational thinking, unusual for me!).

So - I was thinking - I can get an 8800GT for about 200 (I know it's not a huge step up but it should be the difference between 0 and 2/4x aa), and there's even 8800GTS 512's knocking about Elara and Dabs for 260-ish?

I'm tending to lean towards the GTS...again while I was considering the x2 and even a cheap GTX, the 3870 was just almost powerful enough to run anything at max settings at native res, so I'd only be looking for something maybe 10-15% faster....

Sqaull20

Are you not going to wait for the 9800gtx/9800gx2?

I know the rumours are bad, but their still just rumours .

Sli possible on your mobo?

You can get 2 8800gt's for €360, overclock both cards and they will wipe the floor with every single card including 3870x2/Ultra's...

http://cgi.ebay.ie/NVidia-GeForce-8800GT-512MB-PCI-E-8800-GT-512-PCIE-HDTV_W0QQitemZ310027765456QQihZ021QQcategoryZ3762QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_9600_gt_sli_performance/page8.asp

Even a single overclocked 8800gt for €180 would be a nice jump over a 3870, leaving some cash for the RV770 in june...

I think the gtx even at sub €330 is too expensive when a gt is only 10% slower at stock clocks same with the gts...

TerrorFirmer

No unfortunately it's actually a crossfire mobo but crossfire won't work for some odd reason, so I'm going single card again, 3870 crossfire was the original plan and I even had 2 cards! Anyway, not really pushed on waiting, want to get a new card now, 9800GTX will prob be slightly out of the price point I have in mind anyway (now thinking bout 280-290)

I have my eye now on the MSI 8800GTS 512mb OC, core is overclocked to 750mhz and apparently it's a great card, beats the 8800GTX at 1900x1200 in Company of Heroes going by several reviews, a game I play alot, will cost about 290 inc postage so it's looking appealing...

Though as you say getting a 8800GT for 200-ish leaves me with some cash to invest later down the line whilst still giving me a bit of an edge over the 3870, arghhh....decisions.

TerrorFirmer

Right went with the g92 8800GTS OC, sub 300 notes with next day delivery.

GT would have been too little of an increase to be worth it, at least this card will last longer at the same res.....

Also, I forgot to mention that I was buying by laser, so it had to be elara or pixmania....though surprisingly pixmania are quite good for prices these days on some things, cheaper then Komplett a bit of the time and they take Laser which is definitely a huge bonus!

Sqaull20

Its a nice jump over the 3870....

Its factory overclocked quite high, 730 core, 1825 shader and 1944 memory

Over 13000 3d marks out of the box on a overclocked E6600...

Average 50fps on Crysis at 1680X1050

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=1806263

Very Nice

TerrorFirmer

Yeah I read that mini review alright, though I thought his initial scores with the 6600 at stock (10.5k) were pretty poor? I was able to get about 1k more then that with my 3870 OC and a 2160 at 2.7ghz.....a 300mhz difference definitely doesn't account for a 1k 3dmark difference. I won't be able to get near 3.3Ghz with my 4300 with the air cooler I have, but hopefully I'll be able to rope 12k anyway...

Sqaull20

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Yeah I read that mini review alright, though I thought his initial scores with the 6600 at stock (10.5k) were pretty poor?

Seemed about average to me, I get just over 12000 on a 8800gtx with Q6700all set to stock speed...

Switch the Q6700 to E6660 and mine would be 10500 too...

I'll say you'll be able to get 12k, any room left to overclock the gts?

The guy doesnt say anything about it in the review...

Performance on the games is very impressive,...

TerrorFirmer

Hmmm ok then, I'm probably just overly used to Ati's strength in 3dMark...

I think the 13.5k he got was from pushing the card to the max without artifacting, think 12.5k was his score at 3.3Ghz with the factory overclock speeds....to be honest I doubt I'll push the card further as I was never really one to push hardware meaninglessly, only realistically i.e it'll increase gaming performance noticably, not going undetectably from 60 to 70 frames, etc.

I normally run my 4300 at 2.4Ghz day to day as that's more then sufficient to avoid any noticable bottleneck in games but I'll probably throw it closer to 3 for a 3dmark run