Best Value For Money

[wonkymatt]

Hi All!

First post. Yay!

I'm looking for some hardware advice. My main rig is a 2.2 c2d, 2GB kingston HyperX 8800GTX powered gaming system. My laptop is a ROCK Pegasus 665 (2.0 c2d, 2GB DDR2 nVidia 7600GO) semi-performance system for some gaming mostly work.

I need somethin in between. I often play games at the office after work but my Pentium D 3.0ghz
2GB DDR2 geforce 7600GT (256mb unbranded GDDR3) is not cutting it on games like Call of Duty 4 - runs okish with everything in low but still jerks about a bit - playable but not really good enough.

I have a little cash so was thinking of upgrading the gfx card (8600GT?? 8500GT?) plus get a new intel powered mobo (instead of the poo via powered one I now have - it cant handle Vista, CS:Source drops from 84fps to less than 40fps I know vista is a beast but seriously the intel based systems of similar spec here have no such trouble) and a dual core or cheap c2d.

Any advice? Is a 8600GT better than a 7600GT or is an 8500GT good value? Should I look to ATI instead - been a bit lax on the hardware side lately so am a bit behind te times.

Looking foward to your responses........

[kalniel]

Eek, no. The 8600 or 8500 are both worse than the 7600GT.

If you can possibly stretch up to a 3850 from ATI or 8800GS from nvidia that's your best value for money card. Otherwise stick with the 7600GT until the new midrange cards come out (9600GT etc.).

[Salazaar]

I'm slightly confused, which machine are you upgrading and what are you starting with?

[wonkymatt]

Eek, no. The 8600 or 8500 are both worse than the 7600GT.

If you can possibly stretch up to a 3850 from ATI or 8800GS from nvidia that's your best value for money card. Otherwise stick with the 7600GT until the new midrange cards come out (9600GT etc.).

Jeez midrange cards used to be decent - had both the 4200Ti and the 6600GT but this 7600GTs barely better than the 6600GT and your saying the 8600GT is still no good - why do they bother........

[wonkymatt]

I'm slightly confused, which machine are you upgrading and what are you starting with?

the one with the 7600GT I think the mobos the biggest bottle neck but I was thinking get a new GFX card whileI was at it as I am not impressed by the 7600GTs perfomance - it is a cheapass unbranded one...

[kalniel]

Jeez midrange cards used to be decent - had both the 4200Ti and the 6600GT but this 7600GTs barely better than the 6600GT and your saying the 8600GT is still no good - why do they bother........

The 7600GT is a lot better than the 6600GT - it's about as good as a 6800GT and has some extra stuff.

It's just the occasional generation that get rubbish - the 4 MX, entire FX series and midrange 8000 series were very poor. Upper range 8000 (ie 8800) is very good.

[wonkymatt]

The 7600GT is a lot better than the 6600GT - it's about as good as a 6800GT and has some extra stuff.

It's just the occasional generation that get rubbish - the 4 MX, entire FX series and midrange 8000 series were very poor. Upper range 8000 (ie 8800) is very good.

I have both - and the jump from the 6600 to the 7600 was very small in actual in game performance.

So to get back to the point what is the cheapest reasonable card? 8800GT? or a second hand 7900 series? dont want to play Crysis in top quality just play COD4 with a reasonable framerate in 1024x768.

[Webby]

I would say the HD 3850 and at that resolution you probably don't need more than the 256mb of memory so it should set you back £90-110 and would be a big step up from what you are currently using, the 8800 GS is also an option but is a bit more starting at ~£110.

[fraps]

8600GT/ 2600XT @ 50ish??

[TooNice]

To be honest, I still think that the 8800GT is still king of the performance/£. Might sounds like a statement an overenthusiastic fan would make, but Anandtech agrees, and so would Hexus (Link 1) and (Link 2). Granted Hexus have not tested the 3850, but based on what I've worked out from the various reviews, the 3850 would fare better than the 3870 in bang for buck (using performance as sole indicator - you may want to consider other more subjective criteria too), but not overtake 8800GT. The problem is, a Pentium D would most likely hold back the 8800GT.

[Zak33]

Hi wonkymatt

Welcome dude

I think you need a second hand 7800 GT or X1950 tbh

That'll do the job

Or, if you can find on, a second hand X1900 XT with 512mb

The whole 6800 to 7600 and 6600 to 7600 to 8600 thing is a mess.

A 7900 GS is a good find too, if you get one second hand.

[Webby]

The other factors are that at the resolution of 1024*768 I think you are heading into the realms of fps that don't matter ie minimums well above 30 and closer to 60 see here

Expreview.com - Extra Hardware News Report! » Blog Archive » [first review] Unika HD 3850 with 512MB GDDR4

While the is no arguing that the 8800GT is the better card, at 1280*1024 with 4x AA 16x AF for the 3850 your looking at an average frame rate of mid/low forties take into account that the are 67% more pixels being rendered than in the required set up (maybe 10fps increase?) and I can't see the justification for spending the extra cash on the 8800 GT over a £90 3850 256MB.

[grand_witch]

would a 7900GS be a big jump from a 6800gt?

My old card is beginning to creak all I play is Enemy territory Quake wars and Medieval Total War 2

forgot to mention run mostly in 1680x1050 (22" montor")

[fraps]

a 7900gs is quite a lot faster

[Blitzen]

If i was on a budget i would go for the ATI 3850.

Its not going to set any speed records but it will chug through almost anything at medium settings.

For £100 (give or take a fiver), it the best value out there at the moment.

TBPH...with whats avaliable out there now, im amazed the anyone would buy a 8800GT.
They are better than the 3850, i grant you, but they are also £50ish dearer.

The 8800GT is £30-40 cheaper than the 8800GTS G92 but the G92 is definitley a superior card (especially at 1680x1050).

[TooNice]

The 7900GS is almost twice as fast as the 6800GT. However, the 3850 is also 50% faster than the 7900GS. So I would not pay more than 70% of the 3850's cost for a 7900GS. Any more than 75% (i.e. £82.50 assuming cheapest 3850 is £110), and the 3850 would decisively provide better value (even if you give zero to 'added value' like DX10 support or HDMI).

As to the GT, it is pretty simple: from £/performance perspective, it beats pretty much every card from the 3870 to the X2 (just have a look at Hexus' bang4buck graphs). I won't make bold claims about the 3850, since a £50 price gap would likely allow the 3850 to beat the GT in terms of £/performance. That said, the price gap between the cheapest 3850 I've seen available right now is £110, whereas the cheapest 8800GT I can find in stock is £145 delivered, a price gap of £35 (24%). I am not sure if the 8800GT is fastest by 25% than the 3850, but at worst I'd say it's a pretty close call.

The cheapest GTS I've seen delivered is £184 from Aria (£40, 22% price gap) and well.. the performance gap between the GT and GTS is between 10-15%. Interestingly, the GTS does not scale better (or worse) than the GT as you ramp the resolution, at least in any consistent manner. Some games it does, some games it doesn't, some game the GTS leads the most only at mid-ranged resolution, other games it leads most both at lower and upper end resolution - there are very, very little consistency (if you don't want to take my word for it, take any decent reviews with a large number of tests and work out the performance gaps across the various resolutions).