[jeeva]

I have a GeForce 6600 GT, it performs well, HL2, CS-Source and Unreal Tournament are playable with 6x AA and 16x AF, but F.E A. R. doesn't run well there, is my card and my sys (AMD64 3000+,1024 MB DDR400, 400GB HD) ready for upcoming UT2k7, AOE III, etc?

Or need I insert another GF6600 in SLI-Mode or is my CPU just too slow? I read the article in the c't (a german professional PC Magazine) they stated, that more than the GPU power, nowdays the CPU is too slow for physics engine rendering.

[ripken204]

that german dude is right, the cpu can easily bottleneck the gpu and visa versa. now what setting do you want to play those games in? it will be low to middle quality. if you want all high quality then you need to be looking at a 7800gt/gtx. if you dont want that then you should get sli. as far as the cpu, a better one would be nice but its not rly holding back ur vid card. if u were to get a 7800 then it would be holding it back but the performance would still be amazing, all high settings.

[Jeremy]

A 7800 GTX overpowers 2x6600's.

[Thai3g_Eclipse]

Don't be discouraged about not running F.E.A.R. well. It is very taxing on even the higher end systems, and unless you have a 7800GTX or the X1800XT, it will not run very good unless you turn down the details. I barely managed to get ~25 FPS on average in this game, and it requires a lot of video memory to run the game fluidly. This game and in addition to Call of Duty 2 is showing that more video memory will be important in the future.

[Maleko]

I own a 66GT, overclocked slightly, and it runs the games that you say very well, but like others are saying, if you want to run new games at high quality then you do need an upgrade, I refuse to get an upgrade as it would mean a new board and CPU, and frankly I aint got the mney to do that, hehe

[jeeva]

sorry for the delay, something with the email notification in this forum is wrong, anyways:

I want to play them in middle settings @ 1280x1024, as my TFT doesn't allow more, further it has only 20ms so I have a restriction here, too.

Since Release 80 of nvidia drivers it's possible to SLI'ze two different GPUs, so perhaps my next sallary goes to a 7800GTX or a AMD X2, perhaps the second would be better, because i'm not a big gamer but rather a gentoo freak so I can compile that stuff way faster.

So here my choices:
Gigabyte NX7800GTX, GeForce 7800 GTX, PCI-E, VIVO, 256MB
755 CHF = ~590$
(that should be ok? or are there better brands?) or
AMD Athlon 64 X2, 4400+, 2.2GHz, Dual Core, Toledo
813 CHF = ~635$

are they too expensive compared with your local prices?

What you think will be the better investment, or would you just wait a while? The ATIs X1800s are not yet available

[ripken204]

what about a 3800X2? it can overclock to 2.8 pretty easily
or you can wait a month and see how the new s939 dual core opterons are, they can overclock very good

[jeeva]

Sounds good, I have overclocked my 3000+ to 1980 MHz also easily

[Thai3g_Eclipse]

Going with a X2 3800+ or 4400+ will not matter much, as they can both overclock easily up to 2.8 GHz, but the 4400+ does have a larger L2 cache, which is why it is considerably more expensive. Having a large L2 cache will generally give about a 5-10% FPS boost in games, and enhance other multimedia applications such as encoding/decoding video and music files.

Between the two, the 7800GTX will give you the most difference in gaming, but I'm worry about if your power supply is up to the increased power consumption. The X2 processor will definitely be noticeable during your every daily uses, but won't do much for games. My 2 cents.

[suryad]

The 6600 gt is not worth it imo. If anyone were to buy a comp they would be doing themselves a disservice getting anything below a 7800 series. Just wait till Unreal Engine 3.0 based games come out. PEople will be running out to buy Physics coprocessors as well!!!

[jeeva]

Thai3g_Eclipse, on Oct 11 2005, 05:36 PM, said:

Between the two, the 7800GTX will give you the most difference in gaming, but I'm worry about if your power supply is up to the increased power consumption. The X2 processor will definitely be noticeable during your every daily uses, but won't do much for games. My 2 cents.

About the PSU, I have a 500W Super Flower PSU, which was in several tests stable still when consuming 550 Watts.

What about the Temperature? Does the GF7800GTX get very hot? Have they optimized that? I heard that the 7800GTX isn't worth that money it costs, that's why I took the GF6600GT when building up my system 240 CHF (approx 199$) is inexpensive.

Quote

The 6600 gt is not worth it imo. If anyone were to buy a comp they would be doing themselves a disservice getting anything below a 7800 series. Just wait till Unreal Engine 3.0 based games come out. PEople will be running out to buy Physics coprocessors as well!!!

well if you think of building a system and only have approx. 900$ available then you better give some more $ to PSU and Mobo rather than for RAM or GFX, as you change that easly and in a more frequently basis.

[Thai3g_Eclipse]

Quote

About the PSU, I have a 500W Super Flower PSU, which was in several tests stable still when consuming 550 Watts.

What about the Temperature? Does the GF7800GTX get very hot? Have they optimized that? I heard that the 7800GTX isn't worth that money it costs, that's why I took the GF6600GT when building up my system 240 CHF (approx 199$) is inexpensive.

That's good that your PSU is underrated, but have you tried looking at your rails? Make sure your +12V is at least 22A and it doesn't flunctuate under 11.8V or over 12.2V.

Quote

The 6600 gt is not worth it imo. If anyone were to buy a comp they would be doing themselves a disservice getting anything below a 7800 series. Just wait till Unreal Engine 3.0 based games come out. PEople will be running out to buy Physics coprocessors as well!!!
well if you think of building a system and only have approx. 900$ available then you better give some more $ to PSU and Mobo rather than for RAM or GFX, as you change that easly and in a more frequently basis.

I think that's not a valid assumption. The 6600GT is a great card for those who are casual gamers that want to play the latest games without going broke or don't mind losing some eye candy. My father recently bought a PNY 6600GT card (AGP version) and it plays Doom III and Battlefield 2 very well. You can find these cards for $120-$150 USD, which I think is a bargain for what you get. Of course it won't match a 7800GTX/X1800XT, but it's also nearly 20% of the cost of those cards. The value of money is within the eyes of the beholder.

This post has been edited by Thai3g_Eclipse: 11 October 2005 - 01:34 PM

[jeeva]

yeah exactly, but something that made me thinking a bit about it was a passage in the Tom's Hardware guide, that stated, that also causual players shouldn't measure their playing time and decide with that the model, they say "Play time is Free time and shouldn't be spent by seeing bad quality or "diashow"" and imo that's right.

Ok, thanks 2 all, I stay a while with my GF 6600GT and if time comes, and ATI AVIVO(1) is out and some games, that REFUSE to work with my GFX, I will consider upgrading, perhaps that will be after my apprenticeship and then I can afford it better.

1. ATI AVIVO is a technology on R500 Series of GPUs to decode HDTV H.264 Videos without taking too much CPU ressources.

[nmX.Memnoch]

jeeva, on Oct 11 2005, 03:28 AM, said:

Since Release 80 of nvidia drivers it's possible to SLI'ze two different GPUs, so perhaps my next sallary goes to a 7800GTX

That won't work...at least not in SLI mode. The release 80 drivers allow you to have the same GPU but from different card manufacturers for SLI. Before if you wanted SLI you had to get, for example, two BFG 6600GT based cards. But with the Release 80 drivers you'll be able to do like a BFG 6600GT based card and an Asus 6600GT based card. It doesn't allow you to mix GPUs, just manufacturers.

[ripken204]

save some money and get the evga 7800gt, youll save 100$ and still have a freakin amazing graphics card

[Jeremy]

ATI X1800 Beats 2x7800GTX In SLI

[suryad]

Actually 3dmark scores mean jack...check out more reviews from beyond3d, driverheaven, xbitlabs, firingsquad. While the ATI card has less pipelines...16 compared to 24 from Nvidia, the performances are more or less the same overall because the ATI has a slight edge at really high resolutions with AA and AF enabled....whereas the Nvidia just beats the pants off of the ATI at OpenGL based apps. But being that there are more and more games running on DX instead of OpenGL I guess that is not much of an impact. I am interested in seeing next gen engines like Unreal Engine 3 and the Stalker game engine being run on these hardwares.

[nmX.Memnoch]

Jeremy, on Oct 11 2005, 06:19 PM, said:

ATI X1800 Beats 2x7800GTX In SLI

suryad, on Oct 11 2005, 08:47 PM, said:

Actually 3dmark scores mean jack...

Especially when the card is HIGHLY overclocked. From the article:

Quote

The creative Fin, managed to bring a regular 625MHz core and 1500MHz memory X1800XT card to the dizzying heights of an 877.5MHz core and memory clocking-in at 1980MHz. Before you rush of to throw USD600 ATIs way make sure you understand that to reach such levels of performance, you would need a steady supply of dry ice to keep your baby from setting your desk alight. The above mentioned setup, using an AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 (clocked at 3617.5 MHz), achieved the impressive score of 12278 in 3Dmark05, a score that beats the SLI dual Geforce 7800GTX setup using the same processor.

[jeeva]

As of my statement, 'till I know of Avivo and the HDTV introduction using h.264 codec in Europe (I know you overseas have it allready, but using the inefficient MPEGII codec) I want to spare some money, with AOE III trial I have seen, that's it's pretty good playable on my 6600 GT and I'll try out also UT 2k7.

A note to the mods, E-Mail notification actually doesn't work correctly at least for me. Sometimes I get one some times not. And I have also read about the e-mail flood protection and that doesn't apply for me nor have I any Spam filter activated on this account.

[suryad]

You guys can check out the hexus.net article on performance of the ATI as well. It is a great part with an all new architecture no doubt but I would wait till the Nvidia gets released with 512 mb of memory as well so that will be a fair comparison with the ATI cards.