card recommendation

[ColossusX]

My current specs, parital

E7200 OCd to about 3.5ghz
2x1gb Crucial Ballistix DDr2-800
7800GT 256mb PCI-E
PCP&C Turbo-Cool 510 SLI
22" LCD 1680x1050

basically I am looking at upgrading my video card and I will be adding another 2gb of ram, but was wondering if the 4770 will net me enough of an improvement for $100. I would love a 4890 but finances prohibit a high end card so looking at something that will do. I dont need to run everything at Ultra rez or anything, just something that will run decent frames while looking good. If I dont replace the PSU and forgo Vista 64bit, I can probably get a vid card more in the $200 range so then I would be getting a 4870/4890.

Basically, any decent upgrades from a 7800GT in the $100ish range? or not enough of an improvement in that price range?

Thanks

 

[sgrinavi]

I can't speak for the 4770, but the 4850 can be had, AR for $100 if you're patient. I got a 4830 for $70 AR that will blow the 7800GT out of the water.

 

[ColossusX]

ok, thanks, I know from the reviews that the 4770 performs better than the 4830 and within reach of the 4850, which is inline with its current pricing also. So if the 4830 can beat the snot out of a 7800GT, that pretty much answers my question...lol

EDIT...I havent really seen too many PSU recommendations for the 4770, I know that the power draw from the 6pin is minimal, so would it be safe to assume the PSU I have is sufficient for now?

 

[MrK6]

FWIW, your PSU is more than enough for any single GPU solution, it doesn't need replacement. You can get a 4890 for $195 AR -http://forums.slickdeals.net/s....php?sduid=0&t=1322575 . Ideally, figure out how much you want to spend and then go for it. I think the 4770 (especially after overclocking) should perform very well in almost every game except maybe the Crysises (might have to run some options on High instead of Very High, etc.). The 4890 should slaughter everything you can currently throw at it at that resolution, but it's over twice the price ($195 AR vs. $90 AR). The 4890 will be overkill for the rest of your rig I think, but if you want to buy it as the first part of a near-future upgrade, go for it. Otherwise, I think the 4770 would be best suited.

 

[Jacen]

Originally posted by: MrK6
FWIW, your PSU is more than enough for any single GPU solution, it doesn't need replacement. You can get a 4890 for $195 AR -http://forums.slickdeals.net/s....php?sduid=0&t=1322575 . Ideally, figure out how much you want to spend and then go for it. I think the 4770 (especially after overclocking) should perform very well in almost every game except maybe the Crysises (might have to run some options on High instead of Very High, etc.). The 4890 should slaughter everything you can currently throw at it at that resolution, but it's over twice the price ($195 AR vs. $90 AR). The 4890 will be overkill for the rest of your rig I think, but if you want to buy it as the first part of a near-future upgrade, go for it. Otherwise, I think the 4770 would be best suited.

Can't really complain about that post, pretty much spot on. Depending on where your budget is you are getting great bang for the buck.

 

[fffblackmage]

Or get the 4830 for a bit less and overclock the heck out of it. =D
Just joking. Well, half.

The 4770 should perform wonderfully OCed though. Hearing about the 4770 getting over 1GHz core vram kinda makes me wish I got the 4770 instead. >_>

 

[ColossusX]

thanks again for the advice..have the 4770 on order from the egg...too bad AMD doesn't have official drivers for it yet though! And the only reason I was thinking of upgrading my PSU was to get modular cables, I dont use over half the cables on my Turbo-Cool 510 and just wanted to clean up a bit in my new case. From the Tom's VGA charts, it looks like the 4850 gets about 4x the frames as the 7800GT, so I should see a very nice improvement for only $100...now to get more memory and a 64bit OS.

 

[Lupinicus]

I'm going to piggyback on this thread as I'm in a somewhat similar situation. Here are my rig's specs:
E4500 C2D @ 2.2GHz (yeah I should probably overclock this thing)
4x1GB A-Data Extreme Edition DDR2-800
GeForce 8800GT 512 MB
Acer 22" 1680x1050

All of the recent vid card releases have had me looking at doing a graphics upgrade. I haven't had large problems with any recent games, but nothing has been spectacular either. I see that pretty much all of the recent Radeons beat out the 9800GT (closest thing to my card) in the anandtech benchmarks, but I'm just wondering if something like a 4770 would be a noticeable upgrade. I don't want to spend more than $150 but if something like a 4870 or 4890 is the only thing that would provide noticeable improvements, I may just save up some more money.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

I don't think the upgrade would be worth it for you. The 4770 is approximately 30% faster than the 8800GT. The HD4870 is approximately 25-30% faster than the 4770. You might notice an improvement if you went with the 4770, but I would not consider it worth the upgrade unless you sell your 8800GT to recoup some of the cost.

 

[laezyre]

I have the same video card- 8800 GT- from just over a year ago. I thought about upgrading, but I'm going to wait. We have a new wave of gpu's coming out soon that will be better then the 4870,4770,4890. They will have lower power use, run cooler and be faster. Prices always drop fast when the new stuff is on the way.