A reasonabile upgrade to the 8800GS Slimline?

[emsley]

Like it says i got an 8800GS slimline (384 meg~)

 

And for not silly amounts of money what should I opt for next for a good improvement as I have noticed some slow down here and there in games like modern warfare two.

[Shibathedog]

Does it have to be a small/slim card to fit in your case or is that just what you have right now? Also give me the full specs of your PC and ill find you something.

[emsley]

------------------

Time of this report: 12/12/2009, 18:44:37

Machine name: PAULTHEGREAT-PC

Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Basic (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.090805-0102)

Language: English (Regional Setting: English)

System Manufacturer: MSI

System Model: MS-7369

BIOS: Default System BIOS

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+ (2 CPUs), ~3.2GHz

Memory: 2046MB RAM

 

Yay!

 

Im not sure how to get my PSU specs up all i know is its a quality one.

I got a tower pretty sure i can squeeze anything i need in there -

 

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS

Manufacturer: NVIDIA

Chip type: GeForce 8800 GS

DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC

Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0606&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_A2

Display Memory: 1139 MB

Dedicated Memory: 371 MB

Shared Memory: 767 MB

Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)

[emsley]

shibat?

[The-Ice-Man]

From what I can tell the best single slot card is still the Radeon HD4850, although a lot of them are being sold with dual slot fans now. Two of them in crossfire work very well, but then you're talkng about buying two cards, and we don't even know if your motherboard is crossfire ready. If it doesn't need to be single slot then it comes down to what you want to spend. The Radeon HD5870 and HD5970 are hands down the most powerful cards available today, and there are of course a bunch of similar offerings from ATI at each price point. Just follow the numbers, counting down from 5970 and you basically go down in price, and down in performance. I'd go with one of the new Radeons that supports Direct-X 11 to be future proof. For those ones it goes like this: I want to be Uber l33t, get the 5970. I want to be very l33t, get the 5870. I want to be somewhat l33t, get the 5770. I want to be a bit l33t, get the 5750. I'd go with Sapphire as your brand of Radeon, just coz they look the coolest. I can't reccomend Nvidia at all, as I have two 8800GTs and their drivers have given me nothing but shit. If you go for the high end ones, you'll need to make sure your power supply is good enough. Sapphire say you need at least 650 watts for their 5970. Not to mention a huge ass case.

[emsley]

single card guys.

Thanks though ice man for the lengthly post.

[ken_cinder]

Sapphire makes their own cards AND the ATi(AMD) cards btw, so you're not getting anything special paying for an ATi branded card. HOWEVER, Sapphire's customer service and handling of warranties, is CRAP.

I got nowhere over 3 months trying to get an X1650 Pro replaced, with most of my emails not being replied to and them wanting me to pay for return shipping AND a fee! That alone will keep me from buying their products again.

[emsley]

Can I have a new graphics card?

[The-Ice-Man]

Sure, if you can find one you want that's actually in stock. What resolution is your monitor? If it's not that high then you might be fine with one of the mid ranged cards. The 5770s are around £120-140 and apparantly they're quite overclockable so you can get some good performance out of them. The rather groovy looking new Sapphire version is in stock at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-HD5770-GD...4754&sr=8-3

 

There's also the XFX, MSI, ASUS and Gigabyte offerings there too. Your choice between those would come down to either price, clock speeds, or brand affiliation. Clock speeds between the ones on Amazon aren't that different and will all perform about the same. So for me it'd be price. The Sapphire and MSI versions are the cheapest, MSI cheaper by a few pennies, but the Sapphire has a better cooler/enclosure design, instead of the stock ATI one that all the others have, so that's the one I'd go for. I find customer services bad everywhere, so just hope that things actually work. When I bought by computer I really wanted BFG cards, coz they had the best clock speeds at the time and good reviews, but when it came down to it it didn't matter that I got BFGs instead of any other brand, because Nvidia's drivers made all the cards suck anyway.

[Shibathedog]

yeah I would go for either a 4850, 4890, 5770, or a 5870 depending on what fits/what your needs/budget are. There are single slot versions of both the 4850 and 5770. Your motherboard CANNOT do Crossfire/SLI so you much choose only one card. Look up some benchmarks and see how it runs the games you want to play (You can usually find benchmarks by looking up reviews). You may also want to check the wattage of your PSU to make sure it can support it. Sorry for the late reply.

[Shibathedog]

Oh and if you wanted to go nvidia the GTX 275, GTX 280, GTX 260, and the 9800 GTX+ are pretty much your options there. You usually get more bang for your buck with ATi though.