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Niku-Sama

Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2005
alright, the general consensus says the mid range 8 series cards blow ***.
i currently have one (1) 7900gt running at 515/740
so i gather its not worth upgrading unless i get a 512 meg 8800gts or an Ultra right?

so what should i do, find another elusive 7900gt and SLI mabe skip 9 and go to 10?
or hold out and get a mid ( if theyre decent cards) and mabe possibly save for a high 9?

i kinda want to get some new PC games because i am kinda burnt out on the ones i have been playing over and over for oh....about 4 or 5 years. the rest of my hardware is pretty up todate AM2+ hasnt really taken off yet so i have a month or two of decent hardware still i am guessin.
 
The card you have already got is quite a decent performer. Save for a 9 series instead, or whatever nVidia are going to release as their next big group. I'd get a new cpu to be fair. By getting a new processor your cpu won't lag behind your graphics card for a long time. (hint, switch to intel :p )
 
If you REALLY want to upgrade your card now, the 8800GT is biggest bang for your buck at around $250.

I would however suggest the move to a dual or quad core intel CPU as well. Wait 6 months till there are 2 or 3 of the 9 series cards out, and pick one of those up.
 
If you don't mind me asking, what kind of 3dmark06 scores do you get with your current setup? (I just want to see what kind of scores the 7900GT get so I can give you some comparison numbers to work with).

Here is my score with my 8800GT overclocked to 740/1840/975 (core / shader / memory)
(Sorry, pic is kinda hard to see)
3DMark06-13525.png


GTS 512MB G92 will give you slightly better results and the HD3870 will be about the same or a tad less. Both overclock better than the 8800GT (correct me if I'm wrong)

Another thing to consider is that your CPU might bottleneck a newer GPU's performance. For example, look at the score in this post http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=5431736&postcount=505. His CPU is about the same as yours in speed and you can tell by his 3dmark06 score his 3870 is being held back. I can only assume newer/faster cards will just be bottlenecked more.

As far as top end GPU's coming out soon.

ATI HD3870x2 - http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=541176
Nvidia 9800GX2 - http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQzOSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==


Nvidia 9600GT (not top end but a 9xxx card) - http://www.dailytech.com/NVIDIA+Details+GeForce+9600+GT/article10218.htm

There is no real ETA on the true 9xxx cards that I've seen, and since ATI doesn't really cater to the super high end GPU market as much as nvidia, the ATI HD3870x2 will most likely be their top card for a little while.
 
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If you don't mind me asking, what kind of 3dmark06 scores do you get with your current setup? (I just want to see what kind of scores the 7900GT get so I can give you some comparison numbers to work with).

Here is my score with my 8800GT overclocked to 740/1840/975 (core / shader / memory)
(Sorry, pic is kinda hard to see)
3DMark06-13525.png


GTS 512MB G92 will give you slightly better results and the HD3870 will be about the same or a tad less. Both overclock better than the 8800GT (correct me if I'm wrong)

Another thing to consider is that your CPU might bottleneck a newer GPU's performance. For example, look at the score in this post http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=5431736&postcount=505. His CPU is about the same as yours in speed and you can tell by his 3dmark06 score his 3870 is being held back. I can only assume newer/faster cards will just be bottlenecked more.

As far as top end GPU's coming out soon.

ATI HD3870x2 - http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=541176
Nvidia 9800GX2 - http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQzOSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==


Nvidia 9600GT (not top end but a 9xxx card) - http://www.dailytech.com/NVIDIA+Details+GeForce+9600+GT/article10218.htm

There is no real ETA on the true 9xxx cards that I've seen, and since ATI doesn't really cater to the super high end GPU market as much as nvidia, the ATI HD3870x2 will most likely be their top card for a little while.

You also have to remember that 3DMark06 has a heavy CPU component in the score. So, I wouldn't really say the AMD CPU is bottle-necking the GPU. It might be bottle-necking his '06 score, though. If your SM2.0/3.0 component scores go up b/n the AMD and Intel rigs w/ the same gfx card then you say the CPU is bottle-necking the card. Also, if an actual game bench shows the AMD rig lagging behind at current standard rez (1680x1050+) then you could say there is a CPU bottle-neck.

OP, If you want to buy something now, the 3870, 8800GT/GTS-512 will give you a nice performance increase, and I would do this over the SLI'd 7900's you proposed. If you can wait then it'll be interesting to see what nVidia/ATI comes out w/ in the next several months.
 
You also have to remember that 3DMark06 has a heavy CPU component in the score. So, I wouldn't really say the AMD CPU is bottle-necking the GPU. It might be bottle-necking his '06 score, though. If your SM2.0/3.0 component scores go up b/n the AMD and Intel rigs w/ the same gfx card then you say the CPU is bottle-necking the card. Also, if an actual game bench shows the AMD rig lagging behind at current standard rez (1680x1050+) then you could say there is a CPU bottle-neck.

OP, If you want to buy something now, the 3870, 8800GT/GTS-512 will give you a nice performance increase, and I would do this over the SLI'd 7900's you proposed. If you can wait then it'll be interesting to see what nVidia/ATI comes out w/ in the next several months.

True, but it's just something that I wanted to bring up.
 
If you REALLY want to upgrade your card now, the 8800GT is biggest bang for your buck at around $250.

I would however suggest the move to a dual or quad core intel CPU as well. Wait 6 months till there are 2 or 3 of the 9 series cards out, and pick one of those up.

the 5200+ is dual core with a meg on each cache, either all you guys pounced on my post before i could change my sig or there was some lag time on it fixing. i bumped the cpu speed some more last night. arround 3.2Ghz so not so much

and i dont know what 3d mark scores i am gettin i havent ran it since it put this together. total the ram mobo and processor cost about $150 so i am not too invested in what ever isnt upgradable
 
I saw the sig alright. A dual/quad will still smoke it and give you a better platform to work off over the next year or so, or even longer.
 
the 5200+ is dual core with a meg on each cache, either all you guys pounced on my post before i could change my sig or there was some lag time on it fixing. i bumped the cpu speed some more last night. arround 3.2Ghz so not so much

and i dont know what 3d mark scores i am gettin i havent ran it since it put this together. total the ram mobo and processor cost about $150 so i am not too invested in what ever isnt upgradable

I seen it all right too, mine is 3ghz with 4mb of L2 "2/2" for each core and it just isnt fast enough for my GT :(
 
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=4898526

compare link, score of 5451 or something like that, i'm lookin at the other systems like mine and i keep wondering what i am doing wrong?

eh any way whats a good cheap heatsink for this card other than stock, i think i am going to vmod it to get the core up. the memory seems to be spot on

edit:
in ATI tool is the floating fuzzy cube thing supposed to have alot of single stray strands sticking every which way that stick out from the cube?
 
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hrmm, cant really go for more than 5 minutes with out finding an artifact on stock speeds.
i think i might have found my performance problems
 
egverything else seems to be fine, i can try it in another computer though
 
With an E6550 @ 3.35GHz and my 7900GT @ 680/832, I only got a few hundred makrs more than niku-sama. It was really disappointing, since my stocks runs were very close to my clocked runs. Makes me want to debate what effect my hardware has on the software.
 
how the heck did you get the core on the card so high?
and also are you using XP, Vista or Other?
 
oi i didnt see that in his sig earlier, i is blinds!

well i think i may be contacting xfx before i try it in another computer. i installed a new dvd burner and i left the case open for a bit and started a game and the card buzzes. i forgot it did this, before i thought it may have been something else but now that every thing except the HD has been replaced its pretty well confirmed.

i listened to the hard drive for a good long time on my knees while the game was running and it makes its usualy running/thinking noises.
 
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