Upgrading GFX under 450$

[yo1dog]

The results!


Well I, worked overtime and took some night shifts and bought my self 2 8800GT 512MB cards! They preform amazing I am able to run games like Half-Life 2 Episode 2 with the highest settings and 16x anti-aliasing! That is, with only one of these cards. I thought they where so amazing before I remembered to switch to SLI mode, then I almost soiled my self :D. The power of just one of these cards blew me away! When I switch to SLI, it seems like there are no limits. I highly recommend this card not only for its price, but also for its great performance.

Now I have a small problem; When in SLI mode, Crysis seams to preform worse. I sent a Help Desk ticket to XFX and they said that Crysis did not have full SLI support. This pissed me off because thats the only high-end game I have right now (unless you consider Half-Life 2 Episode 2 high-end.) Is there any fix or update or patch of some kind that anyone knows about?

[UZ7]

Whats wrong with your current ram? I was gonna say get the other Gskills the DDR2 1000 ones.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231145

[yo1dog]

I don't know, but in the windows vista score thing it is the lowest. So I thought I needed to upgrade it.

[tommyshango]

i wouldnt be concerned about what it says in that score thing. if youre really worried then get your ram going faster.. overclock it or whatever. lower the timings. you should be fine how you are now.

[yo1dog]

OK so I am good on ram, what about the GFX card? Do I got the best for the price?

[revogamer]

uhh if you can afford it, and since u got a SLI mobo, get 2 8800GT's, they will blow your 7600gt out of the water

[adamsleath]

1x gt or 1x g92 gts 512mb.[<$450]

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=702&p=12

if you are playing at 1920x1200 you may need gt sli /gtx type.

[UZ7]

One GT/GTS should be fine for playing todays games such as Crysis.

My bro has a GTS 512 and it runs Crysis really smooth at 1680x1050 (22"LCD) doing 2X GT wouldnt be bad as and but you will see 3-4x improvements vs your current card and maybe 5-10x improvements on SLI hehe...

[zanzabar]

dont go sli just get 1 good card, and u might want to get an 8800gt or 3870 (gt would be better for your needs if u only play games and evga step up but might not be on budget and the ati would be better for video and life span of non upgrading) and get a giabyte d2sr g33 or a p35 chipset so that u can get a good oc out of ur quad that would be better than anything in sli for lifespan and it would set u up to get a 9x00 card if u went for an 8800gt from evga


other boards to look at would be the dfi dark, abit ip35pro or the p5k-e, but i would go dfi dark or gigabyte d2sr depending on the budget

[yo1dog]

So does that mean I have to upgrade my MOBO? Also, what are the differences in Brands for the 8800GT? Which on is best?

[UZ7]

So does that mean I have to upgrade my MOBO? Also, what are the differences in Brands for the 8800GT? Which on is best?

no, that motherboard should be good enough... as for 8800GT there are a couple of good ones out there but one that has good customer support and has a 90day step up is eVGA, with the stepup if there is a newer/better video card that comes out you can do a step up in which you can send in your video card and get the latest one paying off the difference

[brightwindow]

Hey yo1dog, you can get this EVGA 512-P3-N801-A1 GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit video card. But still one thing you have to pay attention to is the memory, you need to upgrde it also to use the 8800GT.

[xanvincent]

Two 3870s if you can find them for <$225

[Northwood]

Hey yo1dog, you can get this EVGA 512-P3-N801-A1 GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit video card (http://www.dealstudio.com/viewtopic.php?t=34524). But still one thing you have to pay attention to is the memory, you need to upgrde it also to use the 8800GT.

Upgrade memory to use a video card? never heard of that :confused:

[yo1dog]

Well I, worked overtime and took some night shifts and bought my self 2 8800GT 512MB cards! They preform amazing I am able to run games like Half-Life 2 Episode 2 with the highest settings and 16x anti-aliasing! That is, with only one of these cards. I thought they where so amazing before I remembered to switch to SLI mode, then I almost soiled my self :D. The power of just one of these cards blew me away! When I switch to SLI, it seems like there are no limits. I highly recommend this card not only for its price, but also for its great performance.

Now I have a small problem; When in SLI mode, Crysis seams to preform worse. I sent a Help Desk ticket to XFX and they said that Crysis did not have full SLI support. This pissed me off because thats the only high-end game I have right now (unless you consider Half-Life 2 Episode 2 high-end.) Is there any fix or update or patch of some kind that anyone knows about?

[xMrBunglex]

r_multigpu 1? something like that maybe? i don't know about SLI, but i heard people with CrossFire had to run the demo, then copy the config from the demo to the retail version of the game because the retail game doesn't properly recognize CrossFire. the same might be true for SLI.

either way, i think all Crysis owners are eagerly awaiting the game's first patch. it has its issues.

[yo1dog]

Ohh yes. The first patch should fix so many errors, most all of are visual.