Nvidia PX 8800 GT - playing the next generation of games

[Honjura]

Forward note: I'm not entirely sure if this is the right place on the forums to post this so if not ill delete and remake in proper place.

Now i don't know much about computers, i more know the software side than the hardware side, call me a floppy disk person if you like, anyway, i would like to play The next generation of Games without having any major upgrades or buying a whole new computer, a game Example would be Battlefield Bad Company 2, it takes a lot of CPU and a rather newish Graphics Card.

My question is, what is the cheapest and yet effective way to upgrade my hardware to make something like this:

look like this:

i have had some ideas and i am not sure if buying a newish Graphics card and plugging it in along with my current (GT 8800) will improve the situation, or maybe buying a new CPU and replacing my current one, i simply do not know and i don't have the money to just buy a whole new computer to replace my current one. So please if you know whether i need to add a new graphics card or get a whole new CPU unit or both. please let me know.

Secondly, how does one "Crossfire" as it called two graphics cards, little lost on this aspect.

Final note: i have no idea if it is my Graphics Card or my CPU that needs upgrading but I'm going to go with improving the GCU first.

My current Rig setup is as follows:
Motherboard: - GA-EX38-DS4
Graphics Card: - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
CPU: - Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)

Thank you in advance for your replies and answers

P.S. The needed CPU is 8 GHz to run the game effectively, but seems fine with my 6 for the time being.

 

[Brutal-Force]

Your CPU should still get the job done, although BFBC2 is a Multi Core Game, so having a Quad would definitely help you out. While the 8800GT is not bad, you could pick up another one (but I am pretty sure your board does not support SLI) but it wouldn't be worth the money you'd spend on it vs. getting a new video card. SLI is Nvidia's form of Crossfire. ATI is Crossfire (two video cards linked by a bridge)

One thing that would definitely help you is Overclocking your CPU. Provided you have a decent aftermarket cooler, you could easily hit 4.0 with the E8400.

So basically you have 3 options. First, I would overclock your CPU (Buy a aftermarket cooler) a list of good coolers can be inquired about in the cooling section. Next, I would upgrade your video card to a GTX 260 or better. A GTX 260 can be found for about $180 dollars while an ATI 4770 (comparable to the GTX 260) can be had for closer to $120. Finally, you could upgrade to a Q9400 which I have seen for as low as $180 periodically.

With the jump to the i-series chips, there are alot of people jumping off of their S775 chips and good deals on used Q6600s pop up now and again for $120 dollars used.

I tried to list the "upgrades" in terms of afford ability. Keeping that in mind your CPU is not a slouch for gaming, but you need to over clock it to get the best out of it. Your Video Card on the other hand (what all games highly rely on) is getting long in the tooth. A new video card will go a long way at improving your over all gaming experience. If you can go better than the 4770, then try the ATI 5850 but keep in mind they are power hungry and may require that you upgrade your Power supply.

 

[Oc1Kenube]

i was running a similar setup recently with a 5850 gpu and i maxed bad company 2 at 1920x1080 4x aa, so a 5850 i guess is my answer and oc'ing that cpu definately will not hurt, i would just try for 400 front side bus for an almost guarantedd stock voltage overclock giving you 3.6ghz iirc

 

[mxthunder]

What resolution will you be playing it at? I think the 8800GT may be a little weak depending on the res..
See if you can pick up a nice used GTX260 instead. They can be found for ~$140

 

[DragoXT]

Brutal, no way in hell a crappy ATI 4770 is equal to a GTX260. Even if you fat fingered and meant a 5770, that is still under the performance of a GTX260, and costs around $170 not no $120.

To the original poster, the 8800GT you have has been renamed by nvidia quite a bit, so the following cards are pretty much the exact same as the 512mb 8800GT: 9800GT and the GTS240. If you stay with Nvidia, a GTX260, GTX275, GTX285, GTX295, GTX470, and GTX480 are your options for video cards that would give you enough upgrade in performance to play next gen games pretty darn well. The GTS250 aka 9800GTX+ aka 9800GTX aka 8800GTS is a nice card, but not enough of an upgrade from what you have. For a price around $200, the GTX 260 is your card, for around $250 the GTX275. From here the cards get more expensive. With the GTX 470 and GTX 480 out, the coming weeks i would expect the GTX2xx series to start dropping in price.

If you go ATI for a vid card, either go for a 4890 or a 5830. The 5770 is a POS and not worth the money they are asking for it.

As for your CPU, you have a nice dual core that runs at 3ghz. You dont add the cores together to get 6ghz, it doesnt work that way. You have 2 cores that run at 3ghz period. If you feel up to overclocking that chip, with decent cooling, you could probably get a 600mhz increase bringing both cores up to 3.6ghz. You might get more or less, since OCing is not a guarantee. Upgrading to a quad for you would mean at least a QX9xxx series chip and imo their prices are still to high for the performance they give compared to the sometimes cheaper priced Core i5 chips.

The only thing that i saw missing from your system specs was your amount of RAM, and what OS you are running, specifically if it is 32bit or 64bit. The more RAM you have in your system the better for gaming, as the less your hard drive has to be accessed the less frame rate drops you will see. If you are only running a gig or even 2gig on a 32bit OS, it would be a good idea to get 4gigs for cheap while DDR2 prices are low. If you have a 64bit OS, then you can have even more than 4gigs of RAM. Personally, 4gigs is plenty for what is being asked of machines today and in the near future, but if you plan on holding on to that rig for another 2-3 years, getting 8gigs of RAM would be a nice investment.

 

[don'tknow]

What res do you play on?

BFBC2 is one of those 'neutral' games so you'll get very close performance at the same price point regardless of GPU brand. However, it does support DX11 which gives you a little better performance over DX9/10 since it's more efficient.

For CPU even an e8400 at 4 ghz didn't perform as well as I liked (I have one), it often dropped below 20 fps in firefights and explosions, regardless of graphics settings. But I hear some people with an E0 clocked to 4.6 ghz have no problem, which mine can't do (it's a C1) and even an E0 revision needs water cooling to get that high, unless you're extremely lucky. Can't guarantee that you will get far over 4 ghz on it.

Best would be to get a cheap but good quad (q9400) and OC to 3.6+. GPU will depend on the res, at 1680x1050 you'll probably be able to max out BFBC2 (just don't go crazy on AA) with a gtx260 or rhd5770. At 1920x1200 you might have to lower some settings and do a few tweaks, or if you really must have it all maxed then you'll need to go with a stronger GPU.

 

[Brutal-Force]

Drago, it was late.... I shoulda been sleeping rather than posting. OP, disregard my comments because I know didly about ATI. I was just trying to suggest something budget minded, but in all honesty if you want to move up to todays standards, your going to need to be looking at something in the realm of 200 dollars just to be competitive and that will just get you average right now.

Thank you for the corrections Drago, again.... it was late.

 

[killem2]

Sorry I have to defend the 5770, the 5830 is a garbage card and overpriced. That part bugged me

 

[Honjura]

thank you all for your repsonses.

1. i will staying with Nvidia cards, i trust them more than ATI cards, no offence

2. i run 2 GB of RAM, i will look into getting 8GB

3. i run at screen resolution 1680x1050, as that is the size of my monitor

4. my OS is windows xp, i wil upgrade when i replace my whole computer, as this is just a quick fix upgrade to keep me going until then and just salvage parts for my next one.

5. i am not sure if i run at 32 or 64 bit, but it seems as tho it doesn't really matter too much.

Again thank you all for your reply's, it was so quick as well, i was absolutely astonished to see so many overnight my heart started to hurt from the rush of new input flowing into my brain.

finally i will try buying a GTX 260 when prices drop again, and see if that makes a difference, and if it's not working out too well with over clocking the CPU i may buy a Quad core then. again thank you all for your reply's

as a final question, does anyone know what causes the lines you see in the first image to the center of the screen, i know that they come from destroyable objects but not sure what lacking hardware causes it, if you know thats appreciated, if not, its ok.

 

[DragoXT]

Honjura

If you are running xp and dont know if it is 32bit or not, it probably is. A 32bit OS can only address 4gigs of ram, not any more. If you upgrade to win7 64bit, then you can use more than 4gig of RAM as a 64bit OS can address up to several terabytes of RAM. If you are sticking with a 32bit OS, then just stick with 4gig.

For your res on your monitor resolution, a GTX260 will be very good. If you plan on upgrading to a higher res monitor the GTX260 will still handle games now, but probably medium settings for games coming out in the next 2-3 years.

As for those weird lines on your screen shot, i would think that is either a driver problem, or a heat problem, or both. I would try updating your drivers, and cleaning the dust out of your vid card.

 

[Honjura]

anyone know of a site or place that orders in NSW or around the parts south of sydney that has a good price on a GTX 260?
my local sells for $350 =(

 

[diaz]

anyone know of a site or place that orders in NSW or around the parts south of sydney that has a good price on a GTX 260?
my local sells for $350 =(

Is that from looking online, or is that the local shop? Local shop can definitely add ridiculous prices on everything.

-D

 

[Honjura]

i drove down had a peeksy, and was like, wtf?! that's ridiculous, especially after seeing brutal mention that i could get it for around $180
so i thought I'd ask if anyone knew where i could get one for a good price, or if anyone has a second hand, still working one? ill draw up a little page saying that if it doesn't work i get my money back

 

[DragoXT]

Brutal was talking about US dollars, as you never mentioned you were in Austrialia. Prices there are always much higher. If you could look at some aussie web sites that sell vid cards and list the prices, we could help you more on what card for the money would be best for you. OCF mainly deals with folks in the USA and some Brits, so all the prices we have listed go out the window.

 

[Hardin]

My 5770 is faster than my gtx 260 and it has dx 11. But I have the old 260. I would absolutely not get a dx 10 card with all of these dx 11 games out now and even more are coming. It just does not make sense now.

 

[JDELUNA]

Have you thought of trying to overclock your 8800GT first to see how it does ??? I too have a 8800GT on one of my computers and it is still a great card and should play your game fine. I hope this helps. God Bless

 

[||Console||]

Depending on the rez i would think a 8800gt would still be fine 9 for like (1280x1024)

 

[Hardin]

If he's getting artifacts like the ones in the first screenshot the last thing he needs to do is overclock that card. It's likely a goner.

 

[JonEapples]

Upgrade your RAM to 4GB, pick up a GTX260, and overclock that e8400.

 

[Honjura]

Funny thing....

well funny thing happened today, i wiped off some of the dust and tried playing again.... well it fing worked fine... no lines... how can dust cause so much annoyance???

well thank you all f or your help, i will still upgrade tho for smoother FPS so your typing has not gone in vein, also i was thinking this was Australian for some reason cause there is an Australian overclockers.... but you have to have a paid e-mail to register >.<

so again i will upgrade this coming weekend, thank you all

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