View Full Version : Replacing 8800GT - not sure what to get
So, the time has finally come to replace my work horse, the 8800GT. this card is crazy... it was a good card for sooooo long and even now can play all games i throw at it, albeit at lower settings than its younger brothers. The issue is, I commentate Starcraft 2 games regularly and I'm falling behind the curve. I can record @ full HD and so I want to be able to present full setting (ultra!) graphics to my viewers. So the time has come to replace it and I need help on figuring out what to do.
I have an Asus P5Q Deluxe, and as far as I know, it only has 1 x16 lane. So I don't know if i should go for a single super card (295?) or double up with some 285s... if the board can handle it at x16 & x8 - i'm not sure what the performance hit would be. Or, i could wait til fermi comes out and get a single fermi depending on the price. any thoughts or suggestions? i'd say my budget is about $500 (+/- $100).
also, i'm not keeping myself to nvidia only, but i posted in the nvidia forum since its an 8800GT that i'm replacing. A 5870 or two has crossed my mind as well :P oh, and it has to be water-coolable!!! (ref boards available)
DAK1640
03-16-2010, 03:36 PM
275 is a strong GPU as is the 5870...
zanzabar
03-16-2010, 04:07 PM
as of now (next week may change things with the fermi) the 5850 is the best bang for the buck and it performs close to the 5870 clock for clock. and make sure that u get a reference board so u get the voltera pwm, msi seams to still sell reference parts, i would stay away from sapphire, xfx and power color
you think 1 of either of those would be enough? or should i go for 2?
zanzabar
03-16-2010, 04:20 PM
u could go 1 now then 2 if its not enough, and the 58xx cards like 8x pci-e so u have nothing to worry about, and if u are going liquid and want 2 gpus the 5970 reference is supposed to be nice.
Wryknow
03-17-2010, 05:21 PM
I would wait a little bit for the Fermi release on 4/6 though regardless of what you are looking at. Nvidia will have to compete in price and/or performance and ATI is likely to lower prices to maintain sales. I have my eye on a 5870 myself.
DeadlyFire
03-17-2010, 10:42 PM
i would stay away from sapphire, xfx and power color
Not to go offtopic but any reason why not xfx? I'm looking to buy a xfx 5850 and I've bought from them in the past because of their double lifetime warranty. They also allow for third party coolers and they've been around for a while.
zanzabar
03-17-2010, 10:45 PM
they have non reference cards now, nothing against them but without voltage control its not worth having a better warranty, especialy when without voltage the cards clock to about 750mhz but with they go to 1ghz and higher
JaccoW
03-17-2010, 11:31 PM
Plus you can get reference build waterblocks for it. Some custom-pcb cards might have some trouble fitting those.
DeadlyFire
03-18-2010, 01:21 AM
they have non reference cards now, nothing against them but without voltage control its not worth having a better warranty, especialy when without voltage the cards clock to about 750mhz but with they go to 1ghz and higher
Plus you can get reference build waterblocks for it. Some custom-pcb cards might have some trouble fitting those.
Thanks. I found out that XFX loves to make their own PCB styles and other swapped components that differ from the reference 5800 cards. Their current revision 2 5800 cards use crappy voltage controllers(no ability to raise voltage=have fun with 780 max core OC:mad:)
What other distributors strictly use reference card designs for the most part? ASUS and Sapphire are looking pretty good. I hear Diamond supposedly uses only the reference design until the product's EOL? I don't want to spend $300+ on a card with not much OCing headroom :rolleyes: