Thinking of buying a new vid card

LurkerPatrol · July 24th, 2008, 05:12 PM

Yo guys. So I'm thinking of upgrading my video card. I bought my comp about a year ago when the 8800 GT was the king of the land, and now 2 more updated series from Nvidia have come out and I think its time for an upgrade.

I actually don't have an 8800 GT, I have the 8600 GT and while it has been reliable and relatively quick, I would like to upgrade so that I can get the full experience of CoD4 and be able to play Crysis and BioShock.

I was going to get an 8800 GT before and leave the 9 series on it's plinth, but now that Nvidia has come out with the 200 series, the price of the 9800 has dropped substantially. I'm interested in the 9800 GTX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150287

According to wikipedia it has:
* 128 Stream Processors.
* Clocks (Core/Shader/Memory): 675 MHz/1688 MHz/2200 MHz
* 256-bit memory interface.
* 512 MB of GDDR3 memory.
* 70.4 GB/s memory bandwidth
* Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 43.2
* DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0, OpenGL 2.1, and PCI-Express 2.0.

So the card looks good, and after looking through reviews (especially at anandtech), I think it would be a great buy. I never buy top-of-the-line, just in the middle so that I get a good deal.

However the problem I'm having and been wondering for so long is whether my mobo and PSU will be sufficient. According to google searches for tech specs of my comp (Dell XPS 410 with a Q6600 quad core), I apprently have a Dell P965 BTX motherboard and Dell custom BTX case with 375W PSU. I'm not sure if this is exactly the same one that I have in my comp, but I'm sure they don't change up the mobo even if you select quad core versus the default dual core option. Is there any software I can download onto my comp and find out, or should I crack the case open and search for labels?

The card apparently sucks up 240 watts at idle, and 350 watts on a full load (leaving only 25 watts of power to run everything else which worries me). Should I get a new PSU as well, or do you think a 375W will suffice? I just hope it doesn't keep crashing my computer if I try to crank up the settings and the power is not enough.

I'm also worried about the pin connections on the mobo. I'm thinking I need to crack the case open and check it?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. I'm a complete doofus and newb when it comes to installing hardware. Thanks so much.

Ps. I only got a 2 year warranty (or something like that), so I'm not fretting about dumping it for better hardware. And I'm still good with going for the 8800 GT or even the 9600 GT if they're more compatible/significantly cheaper in the end.

fluke667 · July 24th, 2008, 05:38 PM

I don't know how much less power a 8800GT uses compaired to a 9800GTX but 375W is enough for quadcore + 8800GT. (i'm using a Q9450 + 8800GT with a 380W psu)

LurkerPatrol · July 24th, 2008, 05:46 PM

I'm not sure why wikipedia lists their power consumption differently to anandtech, but according to the wiki,

The 8600GT uses: 43 watts
The 8800GT uses: 138 watts
The 9800GTX uses: 156 watts

Not sure which one to believe. I'll check on NVidia

Edit: i checked on Nvidia and they don't give any detailed specs, however I was able to find this: http://www.nvidia.com/HelpMeChoose/fx/HelpMeChoose.asp

and according to that, the only other compatible cards I can get are the 8800 GTS, the 8600 GTS, and the 8500 GT. But I selected PCI Express rather than PCI Express 2.0. If I change to that, then the 8800GT is compatible as is the 9600 GT. I'm not sure which one I have, once I get home from work I'll check.

Shawn · July 24th, 2008, 06:09 PM

Damn, the prices have come down quite a lot. I bought an eVGA 9800GTX in April for $309.

But it's served me well so far... it has so far run everything on full settings with no problem. It's even cool and quiet when not running games and heavy loads.

devil500 · July 24th, 2008, 07:22 PM

ATI 4800 Series is probably the best buy as of now.. You can get a 1Gb 4850Hd for about $220..Or a 4870 for under $300.

LurkerPatrol · July 24th, 2008, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shawn

Damn, the prices have come down quite a lot. I bought an eVGA 9800GTX in April for $309.

But it's served me well so far... it has so far run everything on full settings with no problem. It's even cool and quiet when not running games and heavy loads.

Yeppers, dual 9800 GTXs are $400 (total). I was playing around on newegg (because database work is boring as hell images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

) and I created a complete system with a quad core, 4 GB dual channel memory with cas latency of 3, 2 512MB 9800 GTXs on SLI, 7.1 surround sound, 22 inch widescreen monitor, dvd +/- rw, etc etc for only $1955 (with taxes + shipping factored in), which is just $200 more than my dell was.

cvrefugee · July 24th, 2008, 07:53 PM

Take your pick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...nd&Order=PRICE

The 4850 is the best bang for the buck right now, hands down.

LurkerPatrol · July 24th, 2008, 08:10 PM

The worry for me is compatibility with my mobo. I'll go home and check out my comp first. Thanks for the suggestions everyone. +rep to all

Edit: Btw is there some sort of review for the whole ensemble of purchasable video cards? I'm trying on anandtech but failing miserably at coming up with anything. I'm having yet another brain disconnect moment here.

I just want to compare all the Nvidia GPUs with the latest and greatest ATIs. I've been a fan of ATI mostly, and so if it can paddle Nvidia's bum I'm all for it

cvrefugee · July 24th, 2008, 09:14 PM

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,1957-24.html

Quote:

Despite this botched launch, where the Radeon HD 4850 was available even before the press had information about it and the 4870 is still not available, there’s no denying that the 4850 is a very good card. Its performance is only 19% below the GeForce 260 GTX’ and is overall on a par with the GeForce 9800 GTX +, while beating out the 3870 X2! Note that those figures are influenced by the slight factory overclocking of the Asus model tested for this article, but on the other hand they’re adversely affected by the absence of Race Driver: GRID due to the problems we had with our sample card.

Still, the 4850 is already available at a price even lower than expected: $200! Nvidia should be the first to be surprised by that, while their decision to send us a GeForce 9800 GTX + a month before its availability (thus causing a big drop in the GeForce 9800 GTX’ price with some stores are starting to offer it for $199 ), won’t be enough. The GeForce 9800 GTX +, though not uninteresting (since it uses Nvidia’s first 55 µm GPU, with a frequency increased by 9% and a slight drop in power consumption and temperature), only represents a slight improvement in performance compared to the 9800 GTX and it costs more (it’s expected to retail in the neighborhood of $230, with the 9800 GTX’ price dropping a little more in the meantime), and above all it’s not yet available. As of now, in any event, it doesn’t seem to be worth the additional wait, prior to publication of our results of the high-end Radeon HD 4870.

The whole article: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4850,1957.html

LurkerPatrol · July 24th, 2008, 10:34 PM

Thank you very very much! images/smilies/bow.gif

Viper007Bond · July 24th, 2008, 10:35 PM

What's the specs on the rest of your PC? Can it keep up?

LurkerPatrol · July 24th, 2008, 10:53 PM

It's an Intel 2.4 GHz Intel Core2 quad Q6600
2 GB of ram
Win XP Pro (old skool baby images/smilies/mrgreen.gif

)

I think that should be fine for an upgrade. I might get another stick of ram and boost it upto 3.

devil500 · July 24th, 2008, 10:59 PM

Well my 4870HD does fine with a q6600 so no worries there images/smilies/smile.gif

What's your power supply though?

LurkerPatrol · July 25th, 2008, 12:16 AM

I'm at home now so I popped open the lid and found a 375 Watt PSU

Found out that I only have PCI Express 1.0 x16 which means that it would be incompatible with the higher end vid cards. Crappity crap. Should have built my computer instead of buying retail.

cvrefugee · July 25th, 2008, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LurkerPatrol

I'm at home now so I popped open the lid and found a 375 Watt PSU

Found out that I only have PCI Express 1.0 x16 which means that it would be incompatible with the higher end vid cards. Crappity crap. Should have built my computer instead of buying retail.

Not necessarily. From Wikipedia:

Quote:

In some rare cases it is possible that a PCI-E 2.0 card will not work correctly on a PCI-E 1.0a slot. This is only limited to certain video cards.

I searched on Google and people report that the 4850 does work on older motherboards with only PCI-e 1.1. At the moment I think the difference between 1.1 vs. 2.0 is sort of like the old AGP 4X vs. 8X - increased bandwidth but no real performance gains at first.

LurkerPatrol · July 25th, 2008, 02:41 AM

If I do want to move up to PCI 2 I would have to chuck the mobo and processor out and get a completely new one right?

I might give the ATI a shot. If its true that there's not much difference between the 2 then maybe there wont be any lag issues or performance issues.

Thanks for all the help

jeffy777 · July 25th, 2008, 03:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LurkerPatrol

It's an Intel 2.4 GHz Intel Core2 quad Q6600
2 GB of ram
Win XP Pro (old skool baby images/smilies/mrgreen.gif

)

I think that should be fine for an upgrade. I might get another stick of ram and boost it upto 3.

The bad thing about going with 3 sticks of RAM is that it won't run in dual channel.

And as cvrefugee said, you really shouldn't have a problem with running the latest cards in your PCI-E 1.0 slot, except in rare cases.

Crazyjeeper · July 25th, 2008, 06:54 AM

I run a pci-e 2.0 card in a 1.0 slot, no problems at all. I would advise getting the 4850, then again, you can also get an 8800GT for 139 right now.

jeffy777 · July 25th, 2008, 07:28 AM

A 4850 can be had for $175 and it's quite a bit better than an 8800GT.

Crysis benchmarks:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,1957-14.html

It's a bit cheaper than a 9800GTX with about the same performance, but the 4850 takes the lead when you throw antialiasing into the equation images/smilies/smile.gif

July 24th, 2008, 05:12 PM	#1
LurkerPatrol Joined: Apr 24th, 2006 Last Online: 10:10 AM Location: Berkeley & San Diego, California Age: 21 Posts: 1,366 Car: Invisible boatmobile Rep Power: 52	Thinking of buying a new vid card Yo guys. So I'm thinking of upgrading my video card. I bought my comp about a year ago when the 8800 GT was the king of the land, and now 2 more updated series from Nvidia have come out and I think its time for an upgrade. I actually don't have an 8800 GT, I have the 8600 GT and while it has been reliable and relatively quick, I would like to upgrade so that I can get the full experience of CoD4 and be able to play Crysis and BioShock. I was going to get an 8800 GT before and leave the 9 series on it's plinth, but now that Nvidia has come out with the 200 series, the price of the 9800 has dropped substantially. I'm interested in the 9800 GTX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150287 According to wikipedia it has: * 128 Stream Processors. * Clocks (Core/Shader/Memory): 675 MHz/1688 MHz/2200 MHz * 256-bit memory interface. * 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. * 70.4 GB/s memory bandwidth * Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 43.2 * DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0, OpenGL 2.1, and PCI-Express 2.0. So the card looks good, and after looking through reviews (especially at anandtech), I think it would be a great buy. I never buy top-of-the-line, just in the middle so that I get a good deal. However the problem I'm having and been wondering for so long is whether my mobo and PSU will be sufficient. According to google searches for tech specs of my comp (Dell XPS 410 with a Q6600 quad core), I apprently have a Dell P965 BTX motherboard and Dell custom BTX case with 375W PSU. I'm not sure if this is exactly the same one that I have in my comp, but I'm sure they don't change up the mobo even if you select quad core versus the default dual core option. Is there any software I can download onto my comp and find out, or should I crack the case open and search for labels? The card apparently sucks up 240 watts at idle, and 350 watts on a full load (leaving only 25 watts of power to run everything else which worries me). Should I get a new PSU as well, or do you think a 375W will suffice? I just hope it doesn't keep crashing my computer if I try to crank up the settings and the power is not enough. I'm also worried about the pin connections on the mobo. I'm thinking I need to crack the case open and check it? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. I'm a complete doofus and newb when it comes to installing hardware. Thanks so much. Ps. I only got a 2 year warranty (or something like that), so I'm not fretting about dumping it for better hardware. And I'm still good with going for the 8800 GT or even the 9600 GT if they're more compatible/significantly cheaper in the end. __________________ <-Pandamonium

July 24th, 2008, 05:46 PM	#3
LurkerPatrol Joined: Apr 24th, 2006 Last Online: 10:10 AM Location: Berkeley & San Diego, California Age: 21 Posts: 1,366 Car: Invisible boatmobile Rep Power: 52	I'm not sure why wikipedia lists their power consumption differently to anandtech, but according to the wiki, The 8600GT uses: 43 watts The 8800GT uses: 138 watts The 9800GTX uses: 156 watts Not sure which one to believe. I'll check on NVidia Edit: i checked on Nvidia and they don't give any detailed specs, however I was able to find this: http://www.nvidia.com/HelpMeChoose/fx/HelpMeChoose.asp and according to that, the only other compatible cards I can get are the 8800 GTS, the 8600 GTS, and the 8500 GT. But I selected PCI Express rather than PCI Express 2.0. If I change to that, then the 8800GT is compatible as is the 9600 GT. I'm not sure which one I have, once I get home from work I'll check. __________________ <-Pandamonium Last edited by LurkerPatrol; July 24th, 2008 at 06:11 PM.

July 24th, 2008, 07:22 PM	#5
devil500 Joined: Aug 8th, 2007 Last Online: Yesterday Location: NYC Age: 16 Posts: 370 Rep Power: 6	ATI 4800 Series is probably the best buy as of now.. You can get a 1Gb 4850Hd for about $220..Or a 4870 for under $300. __________________ Robert Kubica: 2008 Canadian Grand Prix Winner

July 24th, 2008, 08:10 PM	#8
LurkerPatrol Joined: Apr 24th, 2006 Last Online: 10:10 AM Location: Berkeley & San Diego, California Age: 21 Posts: 1,366 Car: Invisible boatmobile Rep Power: 52	The worry for me is compatibility with my mobo. I'll go home and check out my comp first. Thanks for the suggestions everyone. +rep to all Edit: Btw is there some sort of review for the whole ensemble of purchasable video cards? I'm trying on anandtech but failing miserably at coming up with anything. I'm having yet another brain disconnect moment here. I just want to compare all the Nvidia GPUs with the latest and greatest ATIs. I've been a fan of ATI mostly, and so if it can paddle Nvidia's bum I'm all for it __________________ <-Pandamonium Last edited by LurkerPatrol; July 24th, 2008 at 08:29 PM.

July 24th, 2008, 10:34 PM	#10
LurkerPatrol Joined: Apr 24th, 2006 Last Online: 10:10 AM Location: Berkeley & San Diego, California Age: 21 Posts: 1,366 Car: Invisible boatmobile Rep Power: 52	Thank you very very much! __________________ <-Pandamonium

July 24th, 2008, 05:38 PM	#2
fluke667 Joined: Nov 1st, 2004 Last Online: 10:18 AM Location: Stuttgart - Germany Age: 34 Posts: 782 Rep Power: 25	I don't know how much less power a 8800GT uses compaired to a 9800GTX but 375W is enough for quadcore + 8800GT. (i'm using a Q9450 + 8800GT with a 380W psu)

July 24th, 2008, 06:09 PM	#4
Shawn FG's Highest Paid Male Whore Joined: May 26th, 2005 Last Online: 08:22 AM Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 7,681 Car: IS250 RWD Rep Power: 66	Damn, the prices have come down quite a lot. I bought an eVGA 9800GTX in April for $309. But it's served me well so far... it has so far run everything on full settings with no problem. It's even cool and quiet when not running games and heavy loads.

July 24th, 2008, 07:53 PM	#7
cvrefugee Joined: Aug 16th, 2004 Last Online: 07:37 AM Location: Corona, CA Age: 28 Posts: 3,296 Car: 2005 Scion xB Rep Power: 53	Take your pick: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...nd&Order=PRICE The 4850 is the best bang for the buck right now, hands down.

July 24th, 2008, 10:35 PM	#11
Viper007Bond Lazy Head Dude Joined: Sep 21st, 2003 Last Online: 08:39 AM Location: Portland, Oregon Age: 24 Posts: 20,707 Car: Dodge Viper (I wish!) Rep Power: 230	What's the specs on the rest of your PC? Can it keep up? __________________ Fight back against the evil Quiky by +1'ing this post! There is no replacement for displacement. - Wolfgang Bernhard, Chief Operating Officer, Chrysler Group talking about the Dodge Viper SRT-10 ... I ask Herb Helbig, vehicle synthesis manager for SRT and a member of the original Team Viper development group since day one, if they'd ever thought of adding traction control. "It comes with two," he says, pointing at my feet. "Learn to use them." Got it. - Motor Trend on the 2006 Dodge Viper Coupe, November 2005

July 24th, 2008, 10:53 PM	#12
LurkerPatrol Joined: Apr 24th, 2006 Last Online: 10:10 AM Location: Berkeley & San Diego, California Age: 21 Posts: 1,366 Car: Invisible boatmobile Rep Power: 52	It's an Intel 2.4 GHz Intel Core2 quad Q6600 2 GB of ram Win XP Pro (old skool baby ) I think that should be fine for an upgrade. I might get another stick of ram and boost it upto 3. __________________ <-Pandamonium

July 24th, 2008, 10:59 PM	#13
devil500 Joined: Aug 8th, 2007 Last Online: Yesterday Location: NYC Age: 16 Posts: 370 Rep Power: 6	Well my 4870HD does fine with a q6600 so no worries there What's your power supply though? __________________ Robert Kubica: 2008 Canadian Grand Prix Winner

July 25th, 2008, 12:16 AM	#14
LurkerPatrol Joined: Apr 24th, 2006 Last Online: 10:10 AM Location: Berkeley & San Diego, California Age: 21 Posts: 1,366 Car: Invisible boatmobile Rep Power: 52	I'm at home now so I popped open the lid and found a 375 Watt PSU Found out that I only have PCI Express 1.0 x16 which means that it would be incompatible with the higher end vid cards. Crappity crap. Should have built my computer instead of buying retail. __________________ <-Pandamonium Last edited by LurkerPatrol; July 25th, 2008 at 12:40 AM. Reason: PCI express

July 25th, 2008, 02:41 AM	#16
LurkerPatrol Joined: Apr 24th, 2006 Last Online: 10:10 AM Location: Berkeley & San Diego, California Age: 21 Posts: 1,366 Car: Invisible boatmobile Rep Power: 52	If I do want to move up to PCI 2 I would have to chuck the mobo and processor out and get a completely new one right? I might give the ATI a shot. If its true that there's not much difference between the 2 then maybe there wont be any lag issues or performance issues. Thanks for all the help __________________ <-Pandamonium

July 25th, 2008, 06:54 AM	#18
Crazyjeeper Joined: Nov 29th, 2006 Last Online: 06:38 AM Location: Texas Age: 19 Posts: 2,121 Car: 1985 Jeep CJ7, 1997 Ford F150 Rep Power: 41	I run a pci-e 2.0 card in a 1.0 slot, no problems at all. I would advise getting the 4850, then again, you can also get an 8800GT for 139 right now. __________________ Toy: 1985 Jeep CJ7 Lifted and Locked Daily Driver: 1997 Ford F150 4.6L with a massive 220hp MSI P6N Diamond 680i, E8400 @ 3.0ghz, CM Hyper 212 Cooler, XFX 8800GT 512mb Extreme, MSI 8400GS, Creative X-FI, 2x1gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800, PC Power & Cooling 610w EPS12v, 1.6tb of HDD, CM Centurion 690.

July 25th, 2008, 07:28 AM	#19
jeffy777 Joined: Feb 8th, 2005 Last Online: 02:15 AM Location: US Age: 27 Posts: 5,537 Car: '04 Toyota Sienna, crippled people like vans.... Rep Power: 47	A 4850 can be had for $175 and it's quite a bit better than an 8800GT. Crysis benchmarks: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,1957-14.html It's a bit cheaper than a 9800GTX with about the same performance, but the 4850 takes the lead when you throw antialiasing into the equation __________________ A man named Jeffy once said, "If laziness is craziness, then I've lost my marbles...and I don't feel like trying to find them." Last edited by jeffy777; July 25th, 2008 at 07:33 AM.