New Nvidia

Kilamon · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 811

Ok, so quick opinion:

I have a 6800 GT. I play EverQuest (WoW sucks donkey huevos) and some other games like Overlord and, when I feel like watching 3fps, Gears of War. Notably, the higher end graphics are slow. What's my best, top end, bleeding edge of performance graphics card?

Rest of PC: AMD Athlon64 x2 4400, 2 gig DDR Mushkin, DFI SLi-DR, Adaptec 3405 driving 3x 250gb seagate sata in raid5. Windows XP.

acruxksa · Posted: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:25:54 Post Subject:

What resolution do you game at?

Kilamon · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 811

24" widescreen (Dell 2407WFP) native is 1900x1200px. This is what I usually try to achieve.

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

As I tend to stay away from ATI cards, I would recommend these for you:

9800GX2
9800 or 8800 Ultra
9600

For you the 9600 will provide a nice upgrade. I have seen benchmarks where the 9600 1GB card comes pretty close to the 8800GTS 512MB.

It really depends on what you want to spend...

$100 - $200 = 9600 512MB or 1GB
$200 - $500 = 9800 (depending on model/speed) - Remember to check power connections
$500+ = 9800GX2

If you can wait a day or two I can provide you some real quick benchmarks on the 9600 512MB as mine should arrive today. I could compare it to the 7900GTO, 8800GTS 512MB and 8800GT 640MB.

My boss just got a 9600 1GB card and said it runs COD4 maxed out.

Kilamon · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 811

Yes, that would be cool. Grin

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

Nothing tweaked, base settings. Only change between reboot was the card and the drivers updated to the latest driver for each model. Previous driver was uninstalled prior to installing new driver.

System:
ECS A770M-A
AMD X2 6000+
4GB 800MHz Patriot DDR2
80GB Seagate SATA II - OS
500GB Seagate SATA II - Data (3DMark06 Installed here)

7900GTO 512MB - 5867 3DMarks
8800GT 640MB - 9429 3DMarks
9600GT 512MB - 9402 3DMarks

borschtBomber[SS] · Posted: Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:46:36 Post Subject:

I would say go with an 8800GT or 9600GT as these should do you nicely. I think you might find yourself with a bottleneck in your system with either the 9800 series or 8800Ultra. My vote goes to the 9600Gt since it runs cooler and is quieter than the 8800GT and scales better in SLI should you go that way.

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

Yea, I'd have to agree, the scores I got on my system without any tweaks or anything was surprising for the 9600. Just slightly below the 8800GT 640MB I have.

My boss at work just got a 1GB 9600GT from Palit and said it runs great, COD4 totally maxed out. He didn't give me any benchmarks, but I would think it would be better than my 8800GT, at a substantially lower price. He paid I think $169 for it after a rebate. Can't really be beat to be honest...

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:06:25 Post Subject:

What resolution are you talking about? Those scores sound bad, unless you are running a high resolution. My HD3850 TOP does 10500 Marks at 1280x1024, No AA, Opt. filtering in Vista. You can get a HD3850 for like $100 on some forums these days (I know, I did)...

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

3DMark06 was run at the base settings on a non-registered version. So whatever that runs the res at Grin

My monitors default res is 1920x1200 over an HDMI connection.

Originally when the 8800GTs came out, my scores were consistantly in the upper 5-10% of scores on 3DMark06. Lately though it's obviously showing its age. Maybe because it's the original version, low clock speed, etc. Who knows.

I got my 8800GT 640MB the week they came out via a step-up from eVGA so it is fairly old.

*shrug* Just know it has done its job well for me to this point.