Which to go for...

I have approx a £120 to £140 budget to get myself a new gfx card. Currently I have 2 x 7300GTS 256MB on each.

Ones that I know are good are the 8800 and the newer 9600.

One question I wanna know, is it better to go for the 9600 as it has more streams or the 8800 with the slightly faster clocks.

This is my PC spec at mo:
AMD AM2 4600+ (OC to 2.7Ghz) with Zalman CNPS9700-LED Super Aero Flower Cooler
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Mobo (BIOS 1302)
2Gb of Corsair XMS2 PC5400 (OC to 866Mhz CL 5-5-5-15) with Dominator Fan Cooler
550W PSU that came from system prebuilt by Mesh (unsure of brand)
and the 2 x Palit 7300GTS running in SLI.

They both give pretty much identical performance so just go for whichever you can get cheapest.

the 9600 only has 64 streams and the 8800GT has 112 i believe.
upto you though, i'd go 8800GT..

8800GT if you can

Another vote for 8800GT. Look for one with a longer warranty as some come lifetime.

BFG have lifetime and their OC2 cards are very fast and have the new fan control firmware.

eVGA also has lifetime warranties, and they don't get voided if you decide to overclock your card. I think, but am not sure, that you can replace the card's cooler and not void your warrenty. I'm using an eVGA 8800GT Superclocked and love it.

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

lifetime warranty, even if you change the cooler or overclock the card.

£138.
and that's with free next day del. if you have 20 posts i think.

:D

i bought 1 btw.. VERY good card, overclocks higher than my XFX 8800GT XXX Alpha Dog Edition.
and that 1 came pre-overclocked.

Thanks, that one from Scan looks good. I dont have 20 posts so can't get free delivery, but I live like 10mins drive from the showroom at Middlebrook so easy to get to. Thanks for all the info peeps.

One last question, I'll assume that no point in plugging a 8800GT in and then using one of the 7300GTS in SLI (if it can do that). I assume the 7300 would not make any improvements, more degreade the 8800 performance?

that would be impossible, and pointless..
they have to be the same card.
8800GT will be a good 3 or 4x faster than your 7300 SLi set-up.

edit: you have 37 posts. but going to pick it up would be better :P

not paying attention lto how many, didnt think had that much :D

I thought with SLI you could have a lower spec card or is that Crossfire?

Yeah,c ome to think it would be crossfire.

could be Crossfire, but tbh.. i know absolutely nothing about Crossfire, never owned a Crossfire capable board or an ATi card.

but with SLi it has to be the same card with the same clocks.

sli and crossfire is never a massive performance increase. Best to save and buy the next next gen card when it's out. 8800gt I'd say as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by moogle

sli and crossfire is never a massive performance increase. Best to save and buy the next next gen card when it's out. 8800gt I'd say as well.

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i dunno..
have you seen the SLi results of the 9600GT?
1 game got a 209% performance increase!
average was about 176% or something like that. :thumbsup: