best 8800gtx

[fortune2k]

hey i have 350 to spend on gfx card i want a 8800gtx cwhat one to get bare in mind i plan to overclock it . it will be going with q6600 and 4gb ram

[Thorsson]

The best 8800GTX is an 8800GT. Or possibly the new GTS, if it turns out to be real. Unless you like paying over the odds.

[fortune2k]

well i have 350 pound and want the best graphics card for the price i want to be able to run crysis as smooth as poss with high settings soo what you guys reccomend

[Thorsson]

Does Crysis have SLI or XFire drivers? Do you have a mobo that can cope?

Other than that you are best waiting a few weeks until the new NVidia parts are launched.

[Dreaming]

well i have 350 pound and want the best graphics card for the price i want to be able to run crysis as smooth as poss with high settings soo what you guys reccomend

What about two ATI 3870s? They seem to cope with Crysis at full settings due to the ATI drivers. You'll need a crossfire compatible motherboard however.

[fortune2k]

What about two ATI 3870s? They seem to cope with Crysis at full settings due to the ATI drivers. You'll need a crossfire compatible motherboard however.

wats the performance differnce like compared to the 8800 series i am really confussed atm on wat to get someone helpo me the gfx card will be goin with a q6600 and 4gb of ram i wana be future prooffing it and run crysis the best

[EarlGrey]

Stop.

Don't be a fool.

Nothing can run Crysis at very high settings at high res with AA. The card that'll do that doesn't exist yet.

Get an 8800GT overclocked version for about £200. The fastest (OC'ed) 8800GTs will run Crysis as fast if not faster than a 8800GTX. If you buy the latter you will be throwing your money away.

Nvidia will be releasing the 9000 series cards in January. If there was any real competition from ATI at the high end we might already have seen them. If history is anything to go by (...?!?) we should see a doubling in performance over the 8800GTX.

Wouldn't you be pissed if you just blown all your money on an outdated card...

[TooNice]

I do not see an OC'ed 8800GT being faster than a GTX, let alone an OC'ed GTX (it's not like one can be OC'ed and the other can't). The ForceWare 169.09 supposedly add 40-50% with two GPU in Crysis, two GT is about as good as you can get for £350.

It's not the best bang for buck, but SLi is never the best bang for buck, and neither are flagship products (GTX). If you absolutely want it now, and can get your hands on GT, this answers your question. But the setup the desktop that plays Crysis at high resolution with all eye candies on simply do not exist. I even doubt the 9000 series will change that to be honest.

[I don't think you need to make a new thread every time you have a question for your new build - it's actually handy to be reminded of the setup that you've been spec-ed already. When do you really plan to build your PC anyway? If it's going to be after new year, then you'll probably have to revise everything].

[fortune2k]

;o hmmm ill have a look into it more

[Dreaming]

BTW for the RAM, Scan are doing Corsair XMS2 with the same speed and latencies for £40, or £95 for the WD500AAKS (equivelent to the samsung T166 except western digital) with the RAM in a bundle deal.

OCZ while being a good brand doesn't seem as rock solid as Corsair. I personally had 2gb of pc6400 5-5-5-15 Gold from ebuyer (£160 back then), and now have the same memory but corsair. One of the big perks for me personally is it uses less voltage and overclocks nicer. But I guess everyone has their own experiences. (I've just bought the HDD + RAM deal so I'll now have 4gb, so you could buy one stick of ram on it's own, plus the deal about £135 for your hdd and your 4gb of pc6400 4-4-4 ram.

Just a way you could save yourself £50.

And atm drivers are being released which is increasing the performance of Crysis significantly, there are reports an AMD hotfix has allowed owners of the 3870 to run it at good resolutions at VH settings up from medium settings. My 8800gts will run it at a mixture of high and medium but I just set it to medium.

To be honest, have a go at the demo, like me you might find the gameplay itself is nothing special, and it's being sold mainly on graphics. There's nothing else that demands so much from your graphics card out yet, even if they look just as good (C&C3 at maxed settings still looks amazing to me but it does it blindingly fast on my 8800gts).

So, I would vote 512mb 8800gt. If it was MY money I'd get an AMD 3870 'cos I'm a fanboy. That's the thing. You can make non-sensible decisions because at the end of the day it's your money .

Are you running at 14 x 9 or...? Reason I ask is because at that res you should struggle a lot less than those trying to run it at 19 x 16 for example. Also with the P180, buy a fan to put as an intake for the top bay. Either this goes on the end of the HDD cage or more conveniently remove the middle HDD, put yours in the bottom, and put a 120mm in the front bit there. It will blow relatively cool air straight towards the GPU which is desperately needed with an 8800 of any sort. For noise purposes a sharkoon silent eagle 1000 120mm will be alright, same noise as the tri-cools on low but shifts a bit more air (and about £6 from scan).

[Thorsson]

If you want the oomph now, upgrade the mobo to an IP35 Pro and get two 3870s to run in Xfire. If you're not buying until after Xmas, then wait and see what happens in the next few weeks. Otherwise buy an 8800GT now and then sell it when the next gen comes out and the dust has settled.

Whatever you do, don't pay premium pricing for the 8800GTX, because you will feel sick in a few weeks when you can get better cards, and you'll have to take a huge discount to sell it.

[Dreaming]

If you want the oomph now, upgrade the mobo to an IP35 Pro and get two 3870s to run in Xfire. If you're not buying until after Xmas, then wait and see what happens in the next few weeks. Otherwise buy an 8800GT now and then sell it when the next gen comes out and the dust has settled.

Whatever you do, don't pay premium pricing for the 8800GTX, because you will feel sick in a few weeks when you can get better cards, and you'll have to take a huge discount to sell it.

The IP35 pro IIRC has a x4 PCI-E bandwidth on the second slot so XFire *may* suffer. But probably not loads. The Abit IX38 QuadGT would be the ultimate board, but its about the cost performance compromise. Two 8800 GTs would smoke a GTX no doubt, but the problem being you're unlikely to be able to get hold of them!

[acrobat]

Personally I would rather get something like a GT, and then upgrade to the nVidia 9800, early next year. It will probably be double the speed of a GTX, or even faster. So it would be crazy to buy a GTX now.

[GSte]

You can get that spec of RAM for about £40 per 2GB kit as others have said. This is good:

Crucial 2GB Kit (2x1GB) Ballistix Memory DDR2 PC2-6400 4-4-4-12 Unbuffered NON-ECC 800MHz 2.2V SLI Ready - BL2KIT12864AA804 - www.microdirect.co.uk

but there is cheaper around, any PC6400 will do you really.

For GFX then its got to be a 512MB 8800GT at the minute, or wait until the GTS and GTX refreshes come out very soon if you want something better.

[Dreaming]

Personally I would rather get something like a GT, and then upgrade to the nVidia 9800, early next year. It will probably be double the speed of a GTX, or even faster. So it would be crazy to buy a GTX now.

I really wished it wasn't called the nvidia 9800, talk about confusing

[fortune2k]

You can get that spec of RAM for about £40 per 2GB kit as others have said. This is good:

Crucial 2GB Kit (2x1GB) Ballistix Memory DDR2 PC2-6400 4-4-4-12 Unbuffered NON-ECC 800MHz 2.2V SLI Ready - BL2KIT12864AA804 - www.microdirect.co.uk

but there is cheaper around, any PC6400 will do you really.

For GFX then its got to be a 512MB 8800GT at the minute, or wait until the GTS and GTX refreshes come out very soon if you want something better.

sweet ill look into that ram

im still confussed wats the performance difference between the gt gts and gtx