Latest and Greatest upgrade...within reason

**mcharley94** · 08-04-2009, 12:34 PM

Games are once again starting to lag

so I guess its time to upgrade the video card once more.

Assuming these are compatible with the system listed in my profile, (which I believe they are) these are the ones I am considering that fall in my price range...

EVGA 896-P3-1257-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked Edition 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported

EVGA 896-P3-1170-AR GeForce GTX 275 896MB 448-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Any thoughts on these or others that might be recommended?

Tanx

Phædrus2401 · 08-04-2009, 03:56 PM

We wouldn't recommend running a GTX275 on a 650w power supply, it will work but it may not be stable. The GTX260 is good, as is its ATI equivalent the Radeon HD 4870.
This is the best 4870 on the market at the moment: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...on%20HD%204870 Sapphire's Vapor-X cooling is quite good and that one is factory overclocked. Either one should give you excellent gaming performance. I have a standard Sapphire Radeon 4870 1GB and am quite satisfied.

**mcharley94** · 08-04-2009, 10:59 PM

Hmm, well I was leaning towards the GTX 260 for the price, which actually dropped since my first post earlier today, and because it uses NVidia drivers, which I have always had in the past and have been happy, but after researching it a bit more that EVGA card appears to be like 12" long and I fear that it may be about an inch too big for my case. Another nice feature the ATI card has is an HDMI output as well. I now run dual monitors so with the EVGA card, if I was to want to hook up an HDMI flat screen I would have to unplug one of my monitors

. I can't believe that my 8800GTS is already obsolete

Phædrus2401 · 08-04-2009, 11:19 PM

The 8800GTS isn't "obsolete" per say, but it is getting a little older. It's been reduced to the comfortable status of upper-middle end, rather than a top-end, max performance card. Of course, technically speaking any computer component, no matter how new it is, is obsolete the minute you install it in your computer. After seeing some of the stuff on showcase at SIGGRAPH today I believe that more than ever. I mean, they have a 450GB, 5.6Gbps solid state hard drive that uses a PCIe x4 slot! WUT. And at the ATI booth they had a computer set up with two hex-core CPUs, 32GB of RAM, and two ATI FireStream cards, which are basically heavily modified Radeon 4890s optimized for scientific calculation. That thing had some 3TFLOPS of computing power, in a plain full tower case. That is nuts.

Anyway, my 4870 is about 10.5" long, which shouldn't be much bigger than your 8800GTS, maybe by a bit. I know the Toxic version is very slightly thicker, but I think it's the same length as the standard 4870. As for the HDMI port I heard somewhere that it will still disable one of your monitors when in use, but I can't confirm this as my TV is downstairs and I don't want to lug my computer down there as it weighs like 40lbs. So I can't say if that's true or not. But it is a very nice card and I highly recommend it.

08-04-2009, 12:34 PM	#1 (permalink)
mcharley94 I helped the forums. Join Date: May 2007 Location: Central Michigan Posts: 238 OS: XP Home SP3 / Vista Home Premium SP1/Ubuntu My System	Latest and Greatest upgrade...within reason Games are once again starting to lag so I guess its time to upgrade the video card once more. Assuming these are compatible with the system listed in my profile, (which I believe they are) these are the ones I am considering that fall in my price range... EVGA 896-P3-1257-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked Edition 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported EVGA 896-P3-1170-AR GeForce GTX 275 896MB 448-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card Any thoughts on these or others that might be recommended? Tanx Last edited by mcharley94; 08-04-2009 at 12:37 PM.

08-04-2009, 03:56 PM	#2 (permalink)
Phædrus2401 Hardware Tech Team Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: New Orleans Posts: 3,793 OS: Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 + Ubuntu 9.04 My System	Re: Latest and Greatest upgrade...within reason We wouldn't recommend running a GTX275 on a 650w power supply, it will work but it may not be stable. The GTX260 is good, as is its ATI equivalent the Radeon HD 4870. This is the best 4870 on the market at the moment: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...on%20HD%204870 Sapphire's Vapor-X cooling is quite good and that one is factory overclocked. Either one should give you excellent gaming performance. I have a standard Sapphire Radeon 4870 1GB and am quite satisfied. __________________ Good PSU brands: Corsair, SeaSonic, CWT, PC Power and Cooling, Thermaltake Toughpower, CoolerMaster Real Power Pro On 80+ Certification - PSU Information and Selection - Power Supply Myths You don't get what you don't pay for.

08-04-2009, 10:59 PM	#3 (permalink)
mcharley94 I helped the forums. Join Date: May 2007 Location: Central Michigan Posts: 238 OS: XP Home SP3 / Vista Home Premium SP1/Ubuntu My System	Re: Latest and Greatest upgrade...within reason Hmm, well I was leaning towards the GTX 260 for the price, which actually dropped since my first post earlier today, and because it uses NVidia drivers, which I have always had in the past and have been happy, but after researching it a bit more that EVGA card appears to be like 12" long and I fear that it may be about an inch too big for my case. Another nice feature the ATI card has is an HDMI output as well. I now run dual monitors so with the EVGA card, if I was to want to hook up an HDMI flat screen I would have to unplug one of my monitors . I can't believe that my 8800GTS is already obsolete

08-04-2009, 11:19 PM	#4 (permalink)
Phædrus2401 Hardware Tech Team Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: New Orleans Posts: 3,793 OS: Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 + Ubuntu 9.04 My System	Re: Latest and Greatest upgrade...within reason The 8800GTS isn't "obsolete" per say, but it is getting a little older. It's been reduced to the comfortable status of upper-middle end, rather than a top-end, max performance card. Of course, technically speaking any computer component, no matter how new it is, is obsolete the minute you install it in your computer. After seeing some of the stuff on showcase at SIGGRAPH today I believe that more than ever. I mean, they have a 450GB, 5.6Gbps solid state hard drive that uses a PCIe x4 slot! WUT. And at the ATI booth they had a computer set up with two hex-core CPUs, 32GB of RAM, and two ATI FireStream cards, which are basically heavily modified Radeon 4890s optimized for scientific calculation. That thing had some 3TFLOPS of computing power, in a plain full tower case. That is nuts. Anyway, my 4870 is about 10.5" long, which shouldn't be much bigger than your 8800GTS, maybe by a bit. I know the Toxic version is very slightly thicker, but I think it's the same length as the standard 4870. As for the HDMI port I heard somewhere that it will still disable one of your monitors when in use, but I can't confirm this as my TV is downstairs and I don't want to lug my computer down there as it weighs like 40lbs. So I can't say if that's true or not. But it is a very nice card and I highly recommend it. __________________ Good PSU brands: Corsair, SeaSonic, CWT, PC Power and Cooling, Thermaltake Toughpower, CoolerMaster Real Power Pro On 80+ Certification - PSU Information and Selection - Power Supply Myths You don't get what you don't pay for.