Graphics card advice.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Morgan
  • Start date Start date
M

Morgan

Hello folks looking for some advice.

I was planning on saving up and building a new rig at the start of next
year. However I'm sort of impatient to play Bioshock with nice graphics so
I'm thinking of just chuck a new graphics card on the credit card and paying
it off over a couple of months.

I've fallen behind on computer hardware a little the past couple of years so
I was wondering if you lot could give me some advice.

My current rig is
NF4 M/B
2GB PC400 DDR RAM
Athlon 64 FX-55
Radeon x850 XT
SATA HDDs run in RAID 0
Running Windows Vista 64


1. Is it worth adding a new graphics card to that system, or is the CPU
going to bottleneck performance? If the answer to that is yes then:

2. Can anyone recommend a good Card for the £300-£350 bracket

3. How are things going with the emergence of DX10, not bothered to read
much about it. Is the change in technology making it a bad time to upgrade
graphics hardware?

Many thanks.
 
Morgan said:
Hello folks looking for some advice.

I was planning on saving up and building a new rig at the start of next
year. However I'm sort of impatient to play Bioshock with nice graphics
so I'm thinking of just chuck a new graphics card on the credit card and
paying it off over a couple of months.

I've fallen behind on computer hardware a little the past couple of
years so I was wondering if you lot could give me some advice.

My current rig is
NF4 M/B
2GB PC400 DDR RAM
Athlon 64 FX-55
Radeon x850 XT
SATA HDDs run in RAID 0
Running Windows Vista 64


1. Is it worth adding a new graphics card to that system, or is the CPU
going to bottleneck performance? If the answer to that is yes then:

2. Can anyone recommend a good Card for the £300-£350 bracket

3. How are things going with the emergence of DX10, not bothered to
read much about it. Is the change in technology making it a bad time to
upgrade graphics hardware?

Many thanks.
Click to expand...


So, you want to play BIOSHOCK, on 64-Bit Vista running on an nforce4
with an FX-55 with 2G of DDR400 (you meant PC3200).

You need to ditch, in this order:

The FX-55 for a dual core FX or a dual core Opteron(185) for the best
use of your S939 board's low CAS ram and HT. Assuming your ram is low
CAS(2).

Replace the x850XT for an 8800 GTS with 640M. 320M is no longer enough,
even at low resolutions. ATI's current line is not competitive, IMHO.

Since you have a x850 XT you could consider the HD 2900XT, but get a
dedicated videocard power supply if you are going to keep your existing
power supply (if it is as old as the rest of the box).

Let your budget guide you.
 
Morgan said:
Forgot to say that I'm looking for a PCI-Express one. :-)
Click to expand...

The recent crop of high end X2900 series ATI have power draws and heat
issues similar to my wife's hair dryer. There's a few other issues with the
execution and design of the 2900 series. Personally, I'd be going with an
8800GTX or GTS right now. Bioshock has yet to be realesed. It may be DX10.1
when released. There are no cards as of yet for this. I would wait and see
what happens over the next few months if I were you. Your hardware setup is
essentially identical to mine, except I run an eVGA 7800GTX OC 512Mb. It
runs F.E.A.R at 1280x1024 with everything maxed with no issues.
 
8800GTS 640Mb.

The GTX is still in your price bracket but the performance increase isn't
reflected. 8800GTS 320Mb versions is the best bang-for-buck but will be
slightly limited if you are running resolutions > 1600x1200 or the
widescreen equivalent.

If you have that much money to spend, you could get a CPU or memory upgrade
as well.

Or better still...

Buy a decent P965 mobo (£100) a Core 2 Duo CPU (£130) and 4 x 1GB DDR800
(£120) and a 8800GTS 320MB (£190) and sell your existing kit:

FX55 - £60
NF4 - £40
X850XT - £40

So you should be able to get a shiny new C2D setup with a balanced CPU vs
Gfx, for less than a £400 outlay. In fact, you could do it for cheaper, it
just depends on how far you want to go. [you could get a decent CPU for <
£100 and a decent mobo for £70.

I recommend the 4GB for Vista x64. It's not essential, but it makes things
slicker and easier. For modern games, you could really do with 1GB (for OS)
and 2GB+ (for game) = 3GB+
 
|
| | > Forgot to say that I'm looking for a PCI-Express one. :-)
|
| The recent crop of high end X2900 series ATI have power draws and heat
| issues similar to my wife's hair dryer. There's a few other issues with
the
| execution and design of the 2900 series. Personally, I'd be going with an
| 8800GTX or GTS right now. Bioshock has yet to be realesed. It may be
DX10.1
| when released. There are no cards as of yet for this. I would wait and see
| what happens over the next few months if I were you. Your hardware setup
is
| essentially identical to mine, except I run an eVGA 7800GTX OC 512Mb. It
| runs F.E.A.R at 1280x1024 with everything maxed with no issues.
|

Well, considering the release date for Bioshock is listed as TOMORROW, I'd
say there is a 100% chance it will not be a DX10.1 game... Considering that
the DX10.1 standard was just recently released and all that... And
considering that debuting a major release title that will not work on a
single piece of consumer hardware on the planet would be preeeeetty stupid
(and financially suicidal) on the game publisher's part.

CoinSpin
 
Well, considering the release date for Bioshock is listed as TOMORROW, I'd
say there is a 100% chance it will not be a DX10.
Click to expand...

The game supports DX10 for extra eye candy for those who have Windows
Vista and a DX10 capable card, but DX10 is not required as that would
be, as you pointed out, financial suicide.
 
Thanks for all the replys folks. Ended up biting the bullet and putting a
load of new kit on an interest free credit card. :-)
 
I've been testing a bunch of game cards to use in my
Engineering CAD labs. So far, regardless of mobo
and cpu, the top card in benchmarks is the nVidia
GF7950 GTO. It beat a Quadro based CAD system
by 45% in every benchmark ... and in speed of
calculation in a very advanced rendering project.
So far the 8800 I have tested has failed in every
single project. It crashes, runs slow as heck, or
generates all kinds of distortions and color errors.
I think that card is a piece of crap, and there is no
fix I can determine. I tested all of them in both
XP 32-bit, and Vista Business 32-bit. I believe the
reason the 7950 is the top card, is because nVidia
techs spent time optimizing the drivers for it in XP.
Equally, they have kludged the drivers for the 8800s
and that has killed those cards. They are not back
ward compatible in XP, and the Vista driver needs
a lot of work.

johns
 
| I've been testing a bunch of game cards to use in my
| Engineering CAD labs. So far, regardless of mobo
| and cpu, the top card in benchmarks is the nVidia
| GF7950 GTO. It beat a Quadro based CAD system
| by 45% in every benchmark ... and in speed of
| calculation in a very advanced rendering project.
| So far the 8800 I have tested has failed in every
| single project. It crashes, runs slow as heck, or
| generates all kinds of distortions and color errors.
| I think that card is a piece of crap, and there is no
| fix I can determine. I tested all of them in both
| XP 32-bit, and Vista Business 32-bit. I believe the
| reason the 7950 is the top card, is because nVidia
| techs spent time optimizing the drivers for it in XP.
| Equally, they have kludged the drivers for the 8800s
| and that has killed those cards. They are not back
| ward compatible in XP, and the Vista driver needs
| a lot of work.
|
| johns
|

Just out of curiousity, did you ever get a chance to try one of the 7950 GX2
varieties? I was contemplating putting one of those into my XP gaming
system - the dual GPU in a single PCI-e slot appealed to me. I'm not ready
to try the 8-series yet, there's just too many odd bugs and tweaks in
them... I've built 5 computers for friends and family in the last few
months, and the 2 that insisted on Vista got an 8800, which was just a
freakin nightmare... But, like you, I've found the 7950 series just rock
solid, 2 of the Win XP systems I built were gaming/graphics stations with
those in them, and they scream when compared to the Vista units.

CoinSpin
 
Is there any real difference in the many different varieties of that
card by different companies?
Click to expand...

There will be if the card is in a Dell, or HP box. Those
companies have their own version built for them so
they can buy in huge quantities at wholesale. And
generally those cards are dumbed down. For example,
I have a lab full of Dell 9100 PCs with 6800GS video
cards in them. Those cards don't even require a
power connector, and you can see on the card
where the actual connector could be soldered in.
The card was cheapened for Dell.
If you get a card from an offshore reseller, it will
be identical to the commercial card, but it will
only have a 1 year warranty .. offshore.

johns
 
Yep. Same thing here. I have not tried the version of the 7950
you have, but the 8800 just would not run beans in XP, and
Vista simply would not run the app. We are in the middle
of a change over to Vista, and only time will fix this stuff.

johns
 
I didn't know of the 7950GTO... I've come across the 7950GT and the limited
edition 7900GTO (have one myself). But never a 7950GTO.
 
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