Advice please: 7800GT

I was planning on building a serious geek system (dual core opteron etc) after Christmas but my family have bought me a computer for Christmas (my current system is so far behind the times it's not funny).

The system is this one (Compaw Presario SR 1619UK) and is a huge improvement over my current one, the only major thing lacking is the graphics department.

So, I need some advice. I'm looking at the XFX 7800 GT (linkage) and need to know whether it's overkill for this system, am I going to be CPU limited to the point where I'd be better saving my pennies and going with a 6800? I'd love to go with the 7800 and rejoice in all that graphical goodness but don't want to waste my money.

No a 7800 GT can never be a stupid investment lol, I would get it if you can afford it. Also 512mb RAM is no where near enough for gaming at the level you should be doing with a 7800GT - buy a nice standard 512mb stick also from Scan and get that sorted :D


It does use PCI-E right? Not talking about PCI.... and there are no AGP compatible 7800 Series cards at the moment....

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Originally Posted by unreal

No a 7800 GT can never be a stupid investment lol, I would get it if you can afford it. Also 512mb RAM is no where near enough for gaming at the level you should be doing with a 7800GT - buy a nice standard 512mb stick also from Scan and get that sorted :D

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Yup, will be doing that straight off. It comes with a single 512MB stick of PC3200 RAM so 3 more sockets to fill :)

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It does use PCI-E right? Not talking about PCI.... and there are no AGP compatible 7800 Series cards at the moment....

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Yes, it's PCI-E and SATA despite there being no mention on the spec, This is the motherboard spec sheet.

Radeon Xpress stuff should already warrant PCI-E.. and ditto again that no 7800GT or 256 GTX perhaps are bad investments.. they are both stellar cards and is a no brainer if u have that amount of money.

512MB is peanuts for gaming.. Any recent game will chew that up like a fat kid eating KFC. A decent geek rig will need at least 2GB (1GB is getting a pass for me now) and If you fancy, 4 sticks of 1G on XP 64bit wins the show. Tho I do not know how u will ever going to chew those up other than server or professional workstation applications. (Some of the stuff Im using would gladly munch them up tho)

As said, a 7800GT and 2x1GB of ram, would make it a great gaming PC.:)

Thanks for the advice guys, I was going to blow a grand or so on building a dual core opteron beast from Hell but if I'm going to get given a system that will do the job for free then I can live with not having the geek cred ;)

Only problem is having to wait until Christmas now :(

Having to sit and look at a 7800GT for several weeks before I can use it may well cause my geekal lobe to explode!

I agree with the posts above. I just recently moved up from an ATi X800XT to a 7800GT and it was significantly faster. It's a noisy bar steward though!