Ok so I currently have a 550W PSU, Asus a8n32-sli deluxe mobo, one gig of some fast ram can't remember the name, however I plan on upgrading that soon, amd athlon x2 4200+ processor, and two 7900GT's. I started getting graphical errors, did some tests and found out one of my 7900GT's was shot. I am down to one 7900GT which is just not enough power for what I am doing. I have had this computer for a long time so I am thinking about just getting rid of the other 7900 and getting a beefier graphics card. I am really liking the price and performance of the 9800 GX2, however is my system too shitty for such a powerful card? Would it be pointless to get a card that good, or should I just upgrade the whole system. I don't really want to do that, money is tight, but it could be done. I just don't want to replace my GPU with some expensive card if the rest of my system is just going to bottleneck it.
should I upgrade?
- Thread starter Cole_ie
- Start date
scooter
banned
Gigabyte of 2-2-2-51t GSkill F2 PC3200 400MHz Ram
That is not fast ram...upgrade that !!
You may also wanna double check that the 9800+ is ok on the psu..perhaps may need to upgrade that,,but maybe not.
Haha, at first I was wondering how the hell you knew that. Forgot all my specs are in my sig, haven't been on here in a LONG time. I have been out of the loop with hardware for a while now, so excuse my bit of ignorance about the ram. I believe my PSU should be alright, if I keep all my other stuff, but you don't think my motherboard or CPU needs upgrading?
scooter
banned
The mobo is good...cpu could be upgraded but..
Depends what you want to do/spend..
I could honestly tell you to scrap the mobo and cpu and go with an x48 mobo and 2 or quad intel..but I dont know what money u wanna spend..
Also, your mobo and cpu arent bad...its not ike u have a 100 dollar machine and your wondering how to squeeze juice out of it..
Your PSU might do, but it won't have too much overhead (according to nVidia, haven't checked actual power usage reviews). Personally, I would go for a 700W, although nVidia only suggests 600W to be enough (don't hold me to that, it's just from memory - check the GPU power requirements thread)
I would also go for 3GB+ RAM if wanting to make sure that your rig is capable of games, but 2GB of DDR2 800MHZ RAM or more should be fine too. Your motherboard might be alright, but to be honest, I'd upgrade that to a new one. If you upgrade the board, you're also gonna have to upgrade the CPU. An E8400/E8500 might be appropriate for games, but for $10 you could go for a Q6600 quad.
I was personally dissuaded from the 9800GX2 because I'd heard issues about microstuttering with the card. I was going to go 9800GX2 Quad SLi on my rig, but opted for 3 way GTX280 when I heard about microstuttering. I don't know if thats only on some models, or in Quad SLi - whatever. I just read microstuttering and didn't read anything more. Might be worth you reading some reviews.
I would also go for 3GB+ RAM if wanting to make sure that your rig is capable of games, but 2GB of DDR2 800MHZ RAM or more should be fine too. Your motherboard might be alright, but to be honest, I'd upgrade that to a new one. If you upgrade the board, you're also gonna have to upgrade the CPU. An E8400/E8500 might be appropriate for games, but for $10 you could go for a Q6600 quad.
I was personally dissuaded from the 9800GX2 because I'd heard issues about microstuttering with the card. I was going to go 9800GX2 Quad SLi on my rig, but opted for 3 way GTX280 when I heard about microstuttering. I don't know if thats only on some models, or in Quad SLi - whatever. I just read microstuttering and didn't read anything more. Might be worth you reading some reviews.
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TrainTrackHack
VIP Member
9800GX2 is being discountinued because of all the problems such as poor scaling (no point Quad-SLI'ing these), high power consumption (and heat output), don't get it. Personally if it ahs to be NVIDIA (probably a better option since you apparently have a SLI mobo, correct?), I would go for a 9800GTX+. It's quite decent card (performs on par with the Radeon 4850), and I don't think your system would bottleneck it, and even if it would it won't be too bad.
I would also consider the Radeon 4850/4870, because your system simply ain't powerful enough to (significantly) benefit from more than one high-end card, it doesn't matter that you can't do CFX/SLI.
I was wondering why ebuyer didn't have any of these in. I was trying to setup a quote, but they had no stock. How come they're still available on newegg?
It seems like a stop gap measure for nVidia, trying to make a more affordable adversary to the 4870X2. Oh well, looks like it's 9800GTX+ SC (superclocked) or GTX280 for new builds now then. Was gonna shove one in my brothers build at christmas too.
At least they've done the market a favour.
They'll only be rebranded 9 series' though, just like the 9's were rebranded 8's. Maybe some were die-shrunk, but whoop-de-f***ing s**t!
That's true I suppose, but for the most part, they're rebranded 8's. It's a wonder nVidia has survived, doing this since GeForce 7's (maybe even 6's too!?).
Probably right. Oh well, no point in me upgrading then. Sorry nVidia.
TrainTrackHack
VIP Member
The 9800GT is practically a 8800GT with some minor improvements.
What exactly do you mean? The 8-series cards use totally different (and way better) GPU architecture than the 7-series cards. The 7-series cards were a somewhat minor improvement over the 6-series cards, kinda like 9-series over the 8-series.
If you're tight on budget, you may indeed want to consider a 8800GT or a 9600GT, you can SLI them later (9600GTs scale pretty well for what I've heard, not sure though).
Great, unlucky me. My sister just bought an iXtreme 9600 (9600GS 768MB), so I'm guessing its a rebranded card, or did that one get die shrunk or something? I think the only major differences between the series' is the heat output and the size of the cards (even though some nine's are bigger than the eight's).
Well, at least they got rid of 9800GX2's.
Well, at least they got rid of 9800GX2's.
Sorry, kinda tired. Haven't slept in nearly 3 days. Anyway, even if it is, its still not a bad card - got 86000 out of Aquamark. Suppose it could be higher, but at £600 prebuilt, not too bad for a quad etc.
I realize this, 8 series werent even out when I bought those cards. Did you even read my post? I am asking about upgrading to a new card, not buying two 7900s.