Considering a new graphics card

[Englander]

My 8800GT has been doing whatever it is that a GPU does for a while now and I'm interested in upgrading to something with a bit more power.

I'm looking to invest £100-£150.

If I remember rightly, ATI lagged behind nVidia by quite a margin when it came to folding @ home, and I do quite enjoy my folding. However, it's been a while and don't know how ATI cards compare now.

For this price range, what sort of cards should I be looking at and will it be a decent jump from an 8800GT?


Thanks,
Michael

[barker967]

I believe the Ati Radeon 5770 would be the best bet at that price range. Seems to get very good reviews.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Shop/Computer-...28800-Cores%29

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Either an HD5770 1GB or perhaps an HD5830 1GB would be the cards to look for IMHO. The GTX460 is also being released next week although it could be closer to £200 IIRC. TBH, I would wait a few more weeks until Nvidia starts releasing its sub £200 DX11 graphics cards as this should mean more competition and hopefully lower prices.

[kalniel]

ATI HD4890. Yes, decent jump over the 8800GT, and faster than a 5770 as long as you don't need dx11. Not sure about points per day equivalent though or why that's a major concern - any folding is helpful for the science. We kicked out 7+m ppd while testing clusters so I'm never too concerned about insignificant numbers at home in comparison

[Queelis]

Folding is still very much nVidia focused. A 9600GT will get similar PPD to any 5800 card, sadly. To that point I suppose you'd be best off waiting a bit for GF104 cards to show up (e.g. GTX460), and see how that affects the prices.

For a good jump in both FPS and PPD I'd suggest something along the lines of GTX260 or GTX275, although they are quite old cards.

[Englander]

Interesting, thanks for the various inputs.

I was originally planning to wait until later on in the summer before I did any upgrading so in that sense my plan will remain unchanged. I'll see what nVidia comes up with over the next month or two and reassess the situation then.

[TooTay]

I recently considered upgrading my 8800gt and for the £150-200 price range the 5770 seemed to be the best option, to me though it did not seem that big of a upgrade from the 8800gt when it came to gaming performance.

I decided to purchase a secondary 8800gt off of ebay for £50, perhaps this is something for you to consider ? I saw around a 60% increase in performance when I went SLI, but this is from a gaming perspective.

I do not do any folding so I am not sure what sort of results you would get there.

[Pob255]

Actually a 2nd hand 8800gt and sli them would be a good idea (don't know exactly what that's like for folding)

You couldn't run dual monitors on sli before but you can now so that's no longer an issue.

The other thing I'd do is wait for the 460 then look to try and get a cheap 2nd hand gtx260, gtx275 or gtx285

[Queelis]

Folding is friendly with multi-GPU setups, you just need to add the flags along the lines of -gpu 1 or -gpu 2.

[Englander]

I'd lean slightly in favour of a single card set up, but two 8800GTs doesn't sound like a bad idea. I suppose I'll see what happens to prices with the launch of the new nVidia stuff.

[Urban-UK]

Can get a 768MB gtx460 for £150, should be a nice upgrade for you