Possible Graphics Upgrade

[Hex]

Sooo I've been idly pondering upgrading from my now 2.5 year old Geforce 8800 GTS 640MB to something a bit meatier. Since I'm lazy and cba trawling through all the reviews pages, someone wanna recommend me a card that gives significant performance increase? Budget would be up to £200 though if I can get a good card for less I'll save the cash.

[GigaFuzz]

I'm not as up-to-date on GPUs as I used to be, but after a little looking around, I think the AMD 4890s (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=1403) might be a good bet. The nVidia equialent is the GTX 275 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=1410) (slightly more expensive, not sure how they compare performance wise).

[To0]

For a fee of £150 I will give you better advice.

[Fil2eFly]

Im loving my GTX280 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145852), but they have gon UP since i bought mine :P

[Hex]

I'm not as up-to-date on GPUs as I used to be, but after a little looking around, I think the AMD 4890s (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=1403) might be a good bet. The nVidia equialent is the GTX 275 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=1410) (slightly more expensive, not sure how they compare performance wise).

From a quick google they seem almost identical performance-wise.

For a fee of £150 I will give you better advice.

Ah come now Peter, I know you love doling out free advice on PC hardware ;)

Im loving my GTX280 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145852), but they have gon UP since i bought mine :P

Yeahhh I'm not paying that kinda cash :P

[Fil2eFly]

unless you wana play good money i dont see the point in ugrading from a 8800, there good cards

[neogramps]

Out of interest Hex, what games are you finding lacking in FPS? And what resolution you running?

[Hex]

I'm running 1680x1050, and I tend to find at that res I can't use AA and AF to any degree without the framerate going down the pan. I'm certainly not at the "must upgrade" point it's more the "hmm things could be shinier" point.

[Bluepixie]

Read dis:

Best Graphics Cards For The Money: November '09 : October Review And November Updates (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/best-graphics-card,review-31723.html)

What MB do you have? Can you do SLi / Crossfire? Probably not worth considering as you have a 8800 but just wondering. If you're thinking about upgrading, you should really be looking at DirectX11 compatible cards. You have/will install Win 7 yeah?

The 260 890MB (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=927) seems to give good results for the money, better than the 5750 or 5770 but doesn't support DX11. You would see a big performance increase from the 8800 with one of the two ATi cards and get Eyefinity, bitstreaming and DX11. No brainer really. The 4870 and 4890 are still hands down faster though, but I don't think that's a great move just now.

Personally, I'd just go for it and plump for a 5850. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5850,2433.html) You could wait for a bit longer and see what the new Nvidia tech does to the market but, the 5850 looks like a solid buy just now.

This is the point were Peter steps in and says, "well, actually....."

[Phizz]

BP do we really need Dx11 compatibility any time soon though? I mean.. they're are barely Dx10 games on the market that don't still support Dx9.

[GigaFuzz]

DX11 is also backwards-compatible to a certain extent with DX10 AFAIK. There's no reasonable way to go DX11 without going way over-budget. As for SLI/Crossfire, I'm not sure it would be worth the hassle.

[To0]

Well, actually I was just going to let him stew for a bit seeing as I already wrote most of this in my idiots guide...

[Hex]

What MB do you have? Can you do SLi / Crossfire? Probably not worth considering as you have a 8800 but just wondering. If you're thinking about upgrading, you should really be looking at DirectX11 compatible cards. You have/will install Win 7 yeah?

I run an Asus Striker Extreme MB so SLi is possible, but it'd cost almost as much as a new card, use twice the power and offer nowhere near the performance. As ever, SLi is a giant waste of time.

I intend to upgrade to Win7 soon, but as has been mentioned elsewhere DX11 is unnneccesary and takes me overbudget.

The 260 890MB (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=927) seems to give good results for the money, better than the 5750 or 5770 but doesn't support DX11. You would see a big performance increase from the 8800 with one of the two ATi cards and get Eyefinity, bitstreaming and DX11. No brainer really. The 4870 and 4890 are still hands down faster though, but I don't think that's a great move just now.Gigabyte's Super OC 260 GTX (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-054-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=927) is highly tempting, especially since Anadntech gave it such a positive review (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3656&p=1). I'm also inclined to stick with nVidia tech - that's just my personal bias, coupled with the fact I'm running an nForce mobo.

Personally, I'd just go for it and plump for a 5850. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5850,2433.html) You could wait for a bit longer and see what the new Nvidia tech does to the market but, the 5850 looks like a solid buy just now.

That's like £50 over max budget compared to the 260 GTX which is £50 under max budget. I'm not looking to spend £250 here, not even a little.

Well, actually I was just going to let him stew for a bit seeing as I already wrote most of this in my idiots guide...

That's cool, I'm in no hurry Peter ;-)

[To0]

to all intents and purposes there is no such thing as the 58xx currently. The 40nm FAB has piss poor yeild and churning out 5870s is hard enough. (just ask Larry). The Nvidia solution will also be using this process and will cost significantly more than £300 when it is released about March next year. When Nvidia do release thier new card the 58xx should be in full production and much cheaper but not as fast (same as last generation, 2*top end amds = faster and cheaper than 1 top end nvidia.) Or so the theory goes. Right now you are best to buy... nothing. Hold on to your cash until either SC2 or Diablo 3 or something else that actually requires it. Then get the 5870 because you'll have saved enough money.

As I've said elsewhere upgrading beyond a 4870 is a difficult call right now as a 4870 is more powerful than anything in a console and games are built for consoles right now. Hold onto your cash for now and wait for the 58xxs to get into full production.

[neogramps]

I'm running 1680x1050, and I tend to find at that res I can't use AA and AF to any degree without the framerate going down the pan.

I suggest getting yourself some short-sightedness - then your eyes will do the AA for you - and it's free!

[TokenEngineer]

I've got duel 8800 GT 512's and they are still higher than a lot of recommended specs. Would be way cheaper to buy one more of those if you wanted to wait for DX11. TBH the graphics part of my PC is not something that's close to the top of the upgrade pile for me just now. maybe in 6 months

[neogramps]

Token, do those have the default fan/heatsinks on them?

[TokenEngineer]

Token, do those have the default fan/heatsinks on them?

Yeah they are as they came :)

[neogramps]

Fucking hell, your PC must be an inferno - my single 8800GT was getting up to 80C+ on it's own - how hot do the two of them get?

[TokenEngineer]

Fucking hell, your PC must be an inferno - my single 8800GT was getting up to 80C+ on it's own - how hot do the two of them get?

I've not measured but I have a lot of cooling going on in the case, and it's pretty big, it's the Alienware that was at last Lan if you were there. It doesn't get that hot

[Fil2eFly]

Fucking hell, your PC must be an inferno - my single 8800GT was getting up to 80C+ on it's own - how hot do the two of them get?


Tell me about it my old 8800GTX was up in the 90+ during gaming fucking crazy

[neogramps]

It doesn't get that hot

As in you can't fry eggs on the top, or you've measured the temps and they're fine?

[Phizz]

*yawn*
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2740/gfx.jpg

With 2 clients running over two screen. GTX280 <3

[To0]

slow clap for phizz totally missing the point.

[Gunder]

Peter, I've always assumed that certain chips were meant to run at certain temperatures, or at least that they have different tolerance levels. So while chip X runs at Y temperature it might be absolutely fine as long as it's kept within it's own tolerance levels? Basically my 4870 runs pretty hot, at around 80 degrees centigrade with the stock cooler even during idle. This is mostly due to the automated fan control, but during load the temperature won't budge more than 1 degree either way as the fan ramps up accordingly. Should I just put the fan on full blast (or close to it) all the time? It's been fine for almost a year this way.

[Fil2eFly]

Idk bout your card , but i was very worried about my 8800 when it sat between 80 and 100C, but turns out its normal for the card :/

I ended up putting a thermarite cooler on it , suprisingly that brought the temps down to 40-60c

[Gunder]

Idk bout your card , but i was very worried about my 8800 when it sat between 80 and 100C, but turns out its normal for the card :/

I ended up putting a thermarite cooler on it , suprisingly that brought the temps down to 40-60c

Well I researched it a bit at the time I got it and found a lot of people saying that 80c was normal for the card, even at idle. Even so, it could be a lot cooler, i'd just have to manually ramp up the fan speed a bit in the driver control panel.

[Fil2eFly]

Well from what iv seen the cips can handle the heat, but the stock coolers are prity crap, your best bet would be a aftermarket cooler if your that conserned.

[Hex]

All the chips I've ever looked up are designed to operate up to 100 C, that's certainly true of the Core2Duo

[Thanatos]

Backin the day... my GF4Ti had a warning threshold of 125...

[brialzebub]

Just thought I'd plop this in here: my 4850 has recently been screwing up, at 11 months old... shame that. Anyway, they no longer sell that particular card on ebuyer, and I'm looking for a replacement. If to the same value at time of purchase, would be £130 worth.

Any suggestions? (waits for "go F yersel' " ) ;)

I wouldnt mind putting more money towards it since I was planning on upgrading my graphics card in the next few months anyway. And I'm still with my old E6600 (duo) processor... it's just that any CPU upgrade for me seems ridiculously overpriced at the moment, and I dont think I'd get the same bang for buck as with a new graphics card, especially considering I've just recently gone from a 19" widescreen (1400x900) to a 24" (1900x1200).

If I was gonna upgrade the processor, I'd like to upgrade to i7 or else get a much cheaper quad core than are currently available. And of course, i7 route would involve a lot more purchases (mobo, blah, blah, blah,) And yeah, I dont care about the cheaper phenom route.

[TokenEngineer]

As in you can't fry eggs on the top, or you've measured the temps and they're fine?

Ok you got me. I haven't measured it, but my PC generally isn't warm inside, so i assumed the heat from the cards couldn't be that bad, but likely then it's exceeding safe temperatures and my case is able to bleed it off ok...

I'm interested now though, I might have to find out what temperature it really is... * rummages about the lab for a thermometer*

[Fyndir]

Dear god man, just download a damn program.

[To0]

I'd like to see where you got your data for the C2D being ok up to 100degrees. The last CPU that I know of that was rated to even 90degrees was the 140nm PIIs. Everything since then has had a much lower cap. All my C2D systems have the failsafe temperature cutoff set to 60 degrees as I think I read somewhere that the max rated temp was about 70. Anything above causes damage. That is not the case for graphics card GPUs. To my knowledge most cards GPUs are rated much higher than CPUs and 90degrees certainly seems (within margin). That is not to say that running them cooler would not be a good idea, one of the engineers might be able to help but there is trend between temperature and lifespan for chips and the lower the better. Ideally you want your CPU under 50 and your graphics under 70. (At load) That should ensure best possible lifetime for your card.

My 3870 and overclocked X3 rarely climb to 50 and the ambient temp in the case is about room + 10) Interestingly my HDDs (Spinpoint 1tb and WD 1tb) contribute significantly to the temperature build up as they only have passive cooling and in my P180 are in the PSU heat compartment. The PSU fan only ramps up if the PSU is 60+ so the HDDs can get quite warm before the cooling kicks in.

Iain pointed out a nice program that might be able to check your temps:

http://www.piriform.com/speccy

EDIT just run speccy and after an afternoon of playing mass effect my machine is currently running at less than 30 degrees. I'll admit that my room is probably about 15 degrees so that does help but even so...

[neogramps]

Mmm, that speccy thing is nice, but the graph doesn't have any scale - I've always used Speedfan (http://www.almico.com/speedfan439.exe) - which also minimises to systray with your CPU temp displayed. It does sometimes talk utter shite from some sensors though, so don't be too surprised at a -20C reading

[To0]

speedfan is better if you know what you are doing speccy seems to just work.

[Hex]

I'd like to see where you got your data for the C2D being ok up to 100degrees.

I remembered wrong, it wasn't C2D, it was the original Core Duo (which I have in my Macbook Pro). I got the data from Intel (http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL9JK) and they say it's safe to 100 C.

My C2D (http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL9ZL) on the other hand is only safe to 60 C, though some of the higher clock speed C2Ds are rated up to 72 C or so.

[To0]

Cheers Hex, didn't want the n00bs to go off and fry their CPUs.

[Hex]

Cheers Hex, didn't want the n00bs to go off and fry their CPUs.
Heh yeah no kidding! I checked it cos I was a bit worried about the 90 C temps my laptop was getting up to when doing video encoding, gotta say I was surprised the C-D is rated as high as 100

[TokenEngineer]

Ok you got me. I haven't measured it, but my PC generally isn't warm inside, so i assumed the heat from the cards couldn't be that bad, but likely then it's exceeding safe temperatures and my case is able to bleed it off ok...

I'm interested now though, I might have to find out what temperature it really is... * rummages about the lab for a thermometer*

So at rest my 8800 GT 512's are running about 60 degrees each, and after running 3dmark they were both up at 80 degrees. Dunno how hot it would go after a day of playing crysis lol.. Also i used Speccy, thanks for the link :)