Hi there I was hoping on some advice with my computer, i recently bought a new video card and after reading around it left me confused on how to get the most out of it. My PC config is Intel core 2 duo 6600 2.6ghz oc to 3ghz 3 gb of G.Skill ram fatality 7ILP mobo Artic cooler Vista 32 home premium I bought a radeon 4870 x2 2gb card to replace a nvidia 8800 gts, however, 2 weeks later the 295 came out, so ive decided to take the radeon back and get the 295 as I read it was out performing it and was a similar price. Im sending the radeon back and when putting my old 8800 gts in im finding that with the new drivers im downloading from nvidia im getting similar of not better performance in all the new games - fear 2, dawn of war 2, far cry 2 compared to the radeon! What the hell is happening? Recentmy I reading some about how you can only really get the most out of these high end graphics cards in much higher resolutions. Im using a Samsung 22 inch, and its highest res is 1680 x 1050. Am I being noob? Is there something im not aware of? Are these high end graphics cards only really going to shine and out perform my 8800 gts which is 2 years old in resolutions above and beyond? Please let me know and I would appreciate other ideas too. Best Alex
yeah, just keep your GTS. 1680x1050 and below is pretty much current mainstream, or last gen's highend. And there haven't been any games to push the envelope either. if you plan on keeping your 22' i'd suggest going with a GTX 260.
Would you say until more games pushing the envelope come out, the most you'll get from these high end gfx are resolutions, and for that i'd prob need beyond a 22 inch. Also, to what extent does a processor have on gfx processing?
with a Core2 processor, you don't need to worry for a few years. how much memory have your 8800GTS got?? if it's 512MB, you shouldn't need to upgrade at all. the performance leap you've seen probably because of the nVidia Big Bang 2 drivers, from 17x to 18x there had been quite a large performance leap.
so you had an 8800GTS 512, bought a 4870X2, noticed that the GTX295 was better in benchmarks, then when it only slightly outperforms the 4870X2 you're wondering what is going on? both the 4870X2 and the GTX295 are VERY close in a lot fo benchmarks, and it veries from game to game exactly which card will perform better. As you noticed, the only real benefit of having TWO GT200 cores is in MASSIVE resolutions (i.e. 1920x1200 or ideally 2560x1600) as there is in fact plenty of grunt available in the 8800GTS to drive 1680x1050 with AA enabled in most titles. Remember, that a GTX295 is basically two lots of 240 shaders, runnign slightly slower than the 128 you have in your 8800GTS. Forgetting any SLI driver issues, unless you have considerably higher resolution, then you won't see a huge gain in performance. These cards come into their own when 512MB just isn't enough, and the millions of pixels needed to be filled outreaches the stretch of your 128 shader cores. as a final note, i'd also say that dual core will now be your bottleneck with a GTX295 or 4870X2. You may find that performance caps out just above what you had with your 8800GT as your CPU just can't push the games any faster than they already were, meaning your GPUs aren't even being warmed up by playing your games same settings as before.
Got to agree with the above Im running a samsung 22inch in 1680 by 1050 My 8800 Gt SSC packed up and I replaced it with a GTX 260 COD 4 and COD WAW run the same I cant see or feel any difference with the new card Maybe I have a bit of headroom for new games but I would never of swapped my 8800 at this stage if it was not ness because of the failure. I would keep your present card then when you start to notice its not coping the newer cards will be older and cheaper (if that makes sense)
Thanks for the responses all. The reason i decided to get a new graphics card was that my other one was underperforming and crashing a bit. So I thought i'd get a new one which sorts me out for the next 3 years. I had an 8800 gts 640 mb oc2. I thought it was performing pretty much on par with the 4870 ive had a go on, however on the higher settings its not keeping up on far cry and crysis. I basically had a 640, it was underperforming, got a 4870 then a week later the 295 comes out which is better, so while I can still refund stuff I thought ill just swap it. I did however feel alarmed at how well the 8800 gts was performing with the new drivers, and thought when I had put in the 4870 perhaps I was doing something wrong for it not to hugely outperform the 8800 gts. I think djdeath has put my suspicions to truth though "as a final note, i'd also say that dual core will now be your bottleneck with a GTX295 or 4870X2" So really unless I have something faster than dual core, its kind of going to drag those cards behind.
Precisely. A fast dual core will be good for medium resolutions with a decent G92 or RV770 card (8800GT/GTS 4850/4870) but going SLI or Crossfire with an X2 or GTX295 will drag their heels along, and although a good future proof system, you'd be better of with a single 4870, then double it up when you go Quad core I only say this because of the huge improvement in performance i have got from adding a triple core to replace my ageing Athlon X2. My mate runs a E6750 OC'd to 3.3Ghz, paired with a G92 8800GTS so our systems are pretty similar, and now my triple core can outperform his in the games we play (crysis, gta4, GRID) whereas before, he was miles ahead. I'm pretty sure that if i had left my Athlon X2 in there, and upgraded my 8800GT to a 4870 or a GTX260 all i'd see is a few FPS difference, and not the hugely smoother play that the extra core gives me.
A faster dual core will give more headroom in many games still so it is a little missleading to say a quad will be a better bet for a x2 or a 295, its entirely game/support dependant.
The CPU bottleneck is true, I'm feeling it in my new rig (as absurd as it seems to me). If it's not one thing, it's another, I guess once decent quad-cores come down in price a bit that'll be my next upgrade.
You need to hit atleast 3.2 GHz with your Proc to avoid the bottle neck. The 8800 is just fine for that Proc. Save your money for your next build.
Is it not possibly related to memory addressing issues due to being on a 32bit OS with 3GB main memory and 2GB GFX memory? You can't address all that memory in a 32bit OS.
is he on a 32-bit OS?? And I doubt It'll Bottleneck on resolutions at 1600x1200/1650x1050 and higher that badly.
thanks for quality feedback Thanks for the responses guys. Ive recently overclocked my 2.4 ghz e6600 to 3.2 ghz, and everything on my gts 640 8800 is much faster, however in some settings on high im still not getting the crucial performance I was after. Do you think oc at 3.2ghz this will mean a 295 is viable as it wont be bottle necked?
