Replacing 8800GT

[owensdj]

What's a good modern card that's at least as fast for games as an 8800GT? I'm looking for something that's not overly expensive.

 

[RavenSEAL]

GTX 460 or HD6850

 

[cusideabelincoln]

HD 5750, HD 5770, GTS 450 are the places to start. They're around $100 and faster.

Up from that you should be looking at a GTX 460 or HD 6850.

 

[SickBeast]

The difference in price between a 450 and a 460 is well worth it. Go for the 460 or the 6850 as others have said.

 

[toyota]

as usual nobody bothered to ask what his current specs are. OP, why so vague? please ALL your specs including psu and res you play at. and an exacxt budget would be nice.

 

[GundamF91]

Any modern mid-tier card would be as fast as 8800GT. Did your card break? If you just want the old performance back, get a cheap Radeon HD4850. Otherwise, 6850 or GTX460 would be a great upgrade.

 

[owensdj]

toyota, here are the system specs: C2D E6750 2.66GHz, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L, 2x1GB Kingston, EVGA 8800GT 512MB, WD WD2500AAJS 250GB, Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 460W, Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit.

GundamF91, yes I think the card did break. I'm getting a "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems" message on the video card in Device Manager. I tried uninstalling the drivers and installing the newest ones, but it's still not working correctly.

 

[Termie]

toyota, here are the system specs: C2D E6750 2.66GHz, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L, 2x1GB Kingston, EVGA 8800GT 512MB, WD WD2500AAJS 250GB, Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 460W, Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit.

GundamF91, yes I think the card did break. I'm getting a "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems" message on the video card in Device Manager. I tried uninstalling the drivers and installing the newest ones, but it's still not working correctly.

In this case I'd go for something that won't break the bank. The GTX460 is great and a good value, but maybe you don't want to spend $150 out of pocket (not including varying rebates). A GTS250 would give you performance slightly better than your 8800gt. There's one available on Newegg for $55 after rebate today only: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130538. Better move fast on that one!

If you can't buy today, then the GTS450 for $90AR is a good value: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814261079. For your system, a GTX460 is overkill (and like I said, starts at around $150 out of pocket).

 

[GundamF91]

Owen, looks like you're in luck. Right now is the most competitive time for GPU prices, and it's a good time to buy. If all you want is your old performance, I'd get the HD4850....you missed last night's deal for $20 after rebate on Newegg.com. Even without deal, you should be able to pick up something comparable for about $50, like that GTS250 Termie mentioned above.

Since your old card broke, you might as well go for something better. GTX460 is really nice. I heard the new GTX560 will be out in January, so if you can wait, wait til then to get nice sale on GTX460. And if you want to tinker, you could clean out your 8800GT, you have nothing to loose. it could be heat related, due to dust collecting in fans, etc. If so, you may want to do a new thread, and ask people about diagnosing the 8800GT card. It may just still work for a while longer while you look for a nice card to upgrade to.

You might consider overclock your Core2Duo a bit, your P35 board is a sturdy board. I would recommend you double the memory to 4GB, it'll really make a difference in running games and apps. And if still more is needed, get the Quadcore LGA775. That setup should get you going for another couple of years at least.

 

[rockyjohn]

I agree with GundamF91. I think the GTx 460 would be a nice fit and not overkill. Take a look at the THG article about balanced systems linked below. Unfortunately it is over a year old and does not have the current cards but I think you can easily interpolate from what is there and see that your CPU will easily support the faster card - maybe not at 100% of its power but enought that it gets you noticeably higher FPS than a lesser card.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469.html

 

[timma]

NV GTX 570 or AMD 6950:biggrin:

 

[AtenRa]

what resolutions are we talking about ?

 

[biostud]

if the gtx460 1Gb is to expensive you can go for the 768mb version

 

[cusideabelincoln]

as usual nobody bothered to ask what his current specs are. OP, why so vague? please ALL your specs including psu and res you play at. and an exacxt budget would be nice.

Because from what the OP said those thing weren't necessary to know.

 

[owensdj]

AtenRa the resolution will be 1680x1050.

I decided that an EVGA GTx 460 768MB card would be the best choice. After rebate it will be $140. Thanks to all who gave their input.

Now I'm a bit concerned that the current power supply might not be quite good enough for the new card. It's a Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus RS-460-PMSR-A3 460W. It meets the minimum requirements of the new card. According to a power calculator I used the total power use of the system shouldn't come anywhere close to 400W.

 

[toyota]

Because from what the OP said those thing weren't necessary to know.

those things are always necessary to know. as you can see now after listing all his specs it was easy to figure out the best card for him.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I think you'll be ok with your power supply. The 460 768MB doesn't eat a lot of power, especially at stock settings.

BTW... did you try the oven trick on your 8800GT?

 

[cusideabelincoln]

those things are always necessary to know. as you can see now after listing all his specs it was easy to figure out the best card for him.

Well you're right about one thing. The ONLY thing we needed to know is his power supply. The other things... not so much. The recommendations are still the HD 6850 and GTX 460 as the highest (fastest, most expensive) he should go, as that is what he implied by his statements "at least as fast at the 8800GT" and "not overly expensive".

As far as performance goes, any version of those two cards is fine for him.

However his power supply is really, really weak. It barely puts out 350W, and is just bad. I should have saw this earlier. I do not recommend he gets a card that has a higher TDP than the 8800GT we can assume he used with it. So an HD 5750, GTS 450, or HD 5770 are the closest cards that fit this bill. And they still meet his requirement of being faster than the 8800GT, and not expensive.

From the things he didn't tell us, there are questions. Did his 8800GT die? What caused it to die? Did it die on its own, like 8800GTs are known to do, or did the power supply kill it? It would be wiser to invest in a better power supply, even if that means getting a cheaper card. A decent power supply will last him through various upgrades.

 

[s44]

Yeah, the power supply may be strangling his card. I'd also try cleaning and baking it first.

 

[owensdj]

cusideabelincoln it seemed like the card just died for no reason. Nothing in the system was overclocked, fwiw. I don't think the power supply killed it. Normally you just have problems in games if your power supply isn't good enough, and it worked fine with this PSU for over a year.

s44, I won't be trying the baking trick. The card is under lifetime warranty from EVGA, so I might as well get it replaced.

 

[AtenRa]

Well I believe the PSU will be sufficient for his system with a GTX460 768MB, in games the total system power usage will never be more than 300W. But consider an upgrade in the near future.

I would go for the GTX460 1GB to have the full 32 ROPs and 256-bit Bandwidth, they will be handy for 1680x1050.

 

[tannat]

If you're worried by the PSU beeing on the weak side HD6850 is a better choice than GTX460