Graphics card upgrade

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V_R

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Hello again,
I've just upgraded my cpu to a AMD 3200, and now thinking about a new graphics card!
At the mo i've go a ATI 9800 S.E, it aint bad and have had no major probs with it but i've got an urge for more power and its a year old now aswell!
My 3Dmark03 score is only 3634 at the mo, I've read a few of the past posts, to see what you guys said in the past. But still need more advice.
I have thought about softmoding and overclocking, (I liked the review that Chris did on the artic cooler! Nice one mate!)

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/thread-9386.php

But asume that will only get me so far.
I've only ever upgraded the the cpu , until now hopefully!
Let me know if i need to tell you more

My system is as follows

Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L mobo
AMD 3200XP
ATI 9800 S.E
1 gig 3200 RAM (2x 512)
120 gig HDD
 
Well...power to a certain extent is only limited by budget!

If your looking at spending in the region of £150 then go for a 6600GT :)

If your looking at spending a little more than that then on Reefs reccomendation a 6800GT :)

If budget no restraint then go for a Radeon X800XT PE ICEQII at £381 :)

Chris :)

p.s. thanks for the compliment :D
 
Cant go wrong with a 6800GT, its a beast of a card and can be overclocked to ultra speeds straight out the box ;).
 
Me too... oh the joys of running a car on a part time job...and forgetting you owe your rents £65 for a bladerunner helicopter you bought a while back... :(

edit: if anyone wants to send me any to "review" i'd be more than happy to write a lengthy article :)
 
What sort of performance boost do you think they will give me? And will i be able to make full use of the power of the card without a bottle neck somewhere? Oh and what about the cooling part of things, should i think about another fan on the back or something?
 
With the 6800GT? massive boost in power, twice the frame rate i belive. the only bottle neck will your motherboard me thinks. of course i may be wrong.
 
Put it this way - you probably add a good 10,000 onto your 3DMark score by placing a 6800GT in your rig...:)

Bottlenecks?

Your CPU is as high as you can go with a socket A system, step up would be P4 Prescott 3.2 or A64

Memory's good

Hard drive - is this SATA?

Motherboard - best chipset for your CPU is the nForce 2 series - better than any Via...

PSU - i would reccomend a 400w - the 6800 GT will be more hungry than a 9800se

Otherwise it's cool :)
 
Reef will be able to tell you better, cos he's got one, I do believe.

But as far as I know, anti-aliasing and most all eye candy switched on in Far Cry & HL2.
 
Just spotted Chris's post, looks like we posted at same time. I was going to mention the power supply but forgot, it should be at least 400W with a 6800GT.

So yes, Chris speakum big truth :)
 
Sounds like the 6800 GT is the way to go! :cool:
But i may need to upgrade the psu first. :(
Its a Mercury thing that came with the pc when i got it, It is 400w, You think thats gonna be good enough?

Sorry to ask this again but the temp of my case as told by "Speedfan 4.20" is 36 idle, and cpu 53 idle. playing games makes the temps rise quite high, (case - 40 and cpu to 55-60 depending on time played) It dont crash or anything, Is that something to worry about? Is that just me being paranoid!?

How come you guys didn't say more good things about ATI?

I kinda wish i hadn't asked you now, coz now i REALLY want a new card! :D

Cheers for the help, just like last time you helped me make up my mind!
 
Mercury - i may be wrong but that does sound pretty generic... Well you might be alright, someone else would have some better advice than me there...

Your temps are fine...don't worry about things until they start to go wrong :)

ATI are good - high end. The only ATI card worth buying at the mo is the X8x0 series - the mid range 9800pro is the same price as a 6600GT and its...well...not as good. Compare imries scores to mine, our systems are very similar.
 
odd, i wanted to check scores but i can seem to find imries in the members list...
 
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