x1800xt - what to upgrade to?

[gpierre]

I have an X1800xt and am thinking of an upgrade. I'm happy with the performance I get, I normally just play BF2, and it runs it with everything on high, full aa and af, at 75fps (locked to monitor res) no probs.

The thing is I've seen the new crop of dx10 games and fancy getting in on the action.

I realise I'm going to need to get Vista (definitely), and a new graphics card (I think), my budget is about £350, what version of Vista should I get and am I going to get Vista and a better, dx10, HD ready graphics card in this budget or do I need to save some more up?

Thanks for any help you can give, hope the question makes sense.

[Syd]

What resolution are you wanting to run at?

[gpierre]

well currently on a 19" 1280x1024 but I've just had a quick look round for monitors and found an Acer X234W on sale for £229 at about every high street shop in the UK, it looks ok so a 22" may be on the way in the future so a max res of 1920x1200 would be used with the new set up.

[Syd]

Be a little careful with 1920x1200 it is a bit of a demanding res (I know I have a 24" myself) may be worth looking at 22" screens running at 1680x1050.

I also had a 1800XT before it died on me last month and am looking for a new card. If I had to make the jump now I would but an 8800GTS512 - bout £220 and will run most things on native 24" res - just forget Crysis (nothing runs that at 1920x1200 in all glory) that leaves you plenty for an oem Vista Home premium (bout £62 from amazon) and prob cheaper if you hunt around.



Personally I am holding on for the new 9*** series to see what that brings as i am in no hurry

[gpierre]

Thanks Syd.

I'm not in any rush either, might get a new monitor first.

It used to be so simple to choose a new gpu, I haven't got the first clue which card is going to be an upgrade and which isn't, or is that just me?

[TooNice]

Things get harder once you stop paying attention for a few years.

Personally, I find HD to be pretty crazy these days. Just look at the number of models there are just for a 500GB WD drive (chances are, not every stores have all of them).

I am also on the X1800XT, and I've been eyeing on the GT/GTS Rev 2 for a while now. For me, it comes down to the relative price between the two, with the added rule that I would not pay more than £150 for a 512MB GT.

[PenguinJim]

Make sure to pick up the new 512MB GTS, not the older 320/640MB ones. The 512MB GTS can be had for as little as £190, and is the way to go if going above 1650x1080 is likely. But if you're in no rush, see if you can hold off for new cards being released in February.

If you're at 1650x1080 or below, you will probably find saving £50 and getting the 512MB 8800GT worthwhile. But be aware that the cooler isn't as good, so you may end up spending an extra £20 on aftermarket cooling anyway. I budgeted for aftermarket cooling, but have found the stock cooler to be absolutely fine for my requirements - silent and completely non-dangerous temps, but I'm only running at 1650x1080.

[TooNice]

I've initially focussed on performance at 1900x1200 in reviews, as that's the resolution of my monitor, but at one point I also had a look at other resolutions. On average, you are looking at 10-15% improvement between the GT and GTS. The gap does not necessarily widen as the resolution increases: sometime it does, sometime the opposite occurs (it narrows as the resolution increases).. Sometime they are very similar at the the lowest and highest resolution but with a wider gap in the middle!

Anyway, there are now GTs with decent (or quite possibly better) cooler than the typical sub £200 GTS. I've yet to see a GTS at £190 (lowest I've seen so far is £196), but if that's the case then said GT will need to be at £160-165 to be competitive. It's really time for GTs to drop towards £150 on average. At equal performance/cost ratio and noise, I will pick the GTS simply because the enthusiast in me is a little greedy, but those sub-£140 GT combined with a £15 3rd party cooler still look the best option in terms of value IMO.

With a budget of £350 though, it is definitely worth seeing what the 9-series bring. Because for £350 you might be able to get an Ultra, but that's barely an improvement over the GTS (Rev 2).

[gpierre]

Okey dokey, thanks for all the help I'm going to hold off on the graphics card upgrade and get Vista Home Premium and a Samsung SM226CW which I've seen for £225. It looks quite nice I'll let you know tomorrow!

[Syd]

sounds like a good price, enjoy that new desktop real estate.

[PenguinJim]

Anyway, there are now GTs with decent (or quite possibly better) cooler than the typical sub £200 GTS. I've yet to see a GTS at £190 (lowest I've seen so far is £196), but if that's the case then said GT will need to be at £160-165 to be competitive. It's really time for GTs to drop towards £150 on average. At equal performance/cost ratio and noise, I will pick the GTS simply because the enthusiast in me is a little greedy, but those sub-£140 GT combined with a £15 3rd party cooler still look the best option in terms of value IMO.

This 512MB 8800GTS was £188 and in stock a week and a half ago. There was a 512MB 8800GT with a superior cooler already affixed for £138 delivered a couple of weeks ago, too, at Scan. I'm mildly surprised that the 8800GT hasn't more consistently dropped to £140-150 by now - you're right, a £165 8800GT would really need a better-than-stock-cooler to be competitive with a £190 8800GTS 512MB.

[bigbloke]

I have an X1800xt and am thinking of an upgrade. I'm happy with the performance I get, I normally just play BF2, and it runs it with everything on high, full aa and af, at 75fps (locked to monitor res) no probs.

The thing is I've seen the new crop of dx10 games and fancy getting in on the action.

I realise I'm going to need to get Vista (definitely), and a new graphics card (I think), my budget is about £350, what version of Vista should I get and am I going to get Vista and a better, dx10, HD ready graphics card in this budget or do I need to save some more up?

Thanks for any help you can give, hope the question makes sense.

If you are happy with the performance of your current card then I'd wait. Only upgrade it when the games you play demand it. At the moment Crysis (latest dx10 game) brings nearly every card out there to their knees. If it is an example of what is to come then upgrading to current cards when you don't have the need yet would be wasting money.

[gpierre]

Wow thats big!

The Sammy I went for was out of stock so I got a 2232BW for £200 instead the specs seemed to be the same just this one's got a shiny surround.

Apart from a little bit of light bleed I can't see any probs so far.

Just a quick question whilst I'm here it's running at 1680 x 1050 and I can drag windows off the edge of the screen, it doesn't scroll and the cursor stays exactly inside the edge of the screen. Is that normal? Just going to take a bit of getting used to i suppose.

Thanks again for all the help guys.

[kalniel]

The thing is I've seen the new crop of dx10 games and fancy getting in on the action.

What action have you seen? The only game that looks special graphically is Crysis, which turns out to look exactly the same under dx9 anyway. So it's just a performance thing at the moment, and as mentioned we still don't have cards that are fast enough for Crysis so unless there's a current game you're playing and struggling with (shouldn't really be) then I'd hang on a bit.

Just a quick question whilst I'm here it's running at 1680 x 1050 and I can drag windows off the edge of the screen, it doesn't scroll and the cursor stays exactly inside the edge of the screen. Is that normal? Just going to take a bit of getting used to i suppose.

That's normal, yes. Unless you enable a virtual desktop that's larger than your display.

[gpierre]

I've got the single player demo of Crysis which plays fine on low with 2xAA on my old 19" monitor, however I'm sure I heard the X1800 crying when I tried it on the new 22". It won't run it at any resolution on the new monitor just lots of grey blocks and ghosting.

New graphics card it is in February then!

[gpierre]

PS I am officially stupid.

I could always drag windows off the edge of the screen.

Don't get stoned when installing new hardware, you worry for no reason!