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Computer upgrades for Black Friday

fogeymanfogeyman Registered User regular
edited October 2007 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
Black Friday is coming up (sort of) and I want to upgrade my computer. I want either a DX10 card. My current build is:
x2 4200+
7800gt
2GB RAM

Note that I'm running PC3200 RAM and a Socket 939 motherboard.

My budget is at most $250. I'm hoping the 8800gts 320mb (which retails for anywhere from $270-$350) will be discounted enough on Black Friday, but having never been to a sale I don't really know what to expect.

My questions is this: can I expect the 8800gts 320mb to be discounted enough or is it simply impossible to predict? Also, will I be severely CPU-limited here? Lastly, I heard lower-end DX10 cards don't even give playable framerates in DX10. Will this be an issue with my (potential) setup?

The main reason I want to upgrade is because I have some money to spend and I haven't bought myself anything in a looong time. It's not the most rational decision but...whatever. I figure going DX10 is the best upgrade available--to upgrade my CPU, I'd need a new motherboard and a new CPU.

I already have Vista, by the way. Oh, and I also run at 1280x1024.

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Posts

  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    The 4200 is still a pretty good chip, so while you might get a bit of a bottleneck with an 8800 it won't be severe enough to warrant replacing your chip, mobo and memory all at once. Your gaming performance will improve significantly with this upgrade.

    Azio on
  • Lucky CynicLucky Cynic Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    I would say just pocket the funds for now. That 7800 is a nice card, even today. Don't be discouraged that others are playing in 1080P DX10 atm, because they are paying a huge premium for that privilege. I would instead invest in either better peripherals or aesthetics. Either that or just horde that money to couple with Christmas money to do the CPU, Mobo, and Ram upgrade.

    Lucky Cynic on
  • FreddyDFreddyD Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    I wouldn't upgrade just for DX10. The best time to upgrade is when you feel your game performance is unacceptable, even when you turn down the settings.

    Personally, I would wait for Nvidia's next generation of video cards before making any major purchase decisions. The next generation will support DX10.1, which isn't supported by the current cards on the market (noticing a trend here?).

    FreddyD on
  • fogeymanfogeyman Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    FreddyD wrote: »
    I wouldn't upgrade just for DX10. The best time to upgrade is when you feel your game performance is unacceptable, even when you turn down the settings.

    Personally, I would wait for Nvidia's next generation of video cards before making any major purchase decisions. The next generation will support DX10.1, which isn't supported by the current cards on the market (noticing a trend here?).
    Says otherwise here. I'm reading mixed reports after a quick Google search.

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  • FreddyDFreddyD Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    fogeyman wrote: »
    FreddyD wrote: »
    I wouldn't upgrade just for DX10. The best time to upgrade is when you feel your game performance is unacceptable, even when you turn down the settings.

    Personally, I would wait for Nvidia's next generation of video cards before making any major purchase decisions. The next generation will support DX10.1, which isn't supported by the current cards on the market (noticing a trend here?).
    Says otherwise here. I'm reading mixed reports after a quick Google search.
    They use the same type of reasoning that is used for DX9 to DX10 comparisons.
    Even though DX10.1 will support current DX10 graphics hardware, today's DX10 hardware will not be able to support all of the features of DX10.1, which includes incremental improvements to 3D rendering quality.
    My point is that if you want to upgrade so you have the latest and the greatest you might as well wait until they have DX10.1 sorted out. It's not like the 7800GT is struggling to run modern games. The next generation of video cards will automatically drive prices on the current cards down, and a sub $200 8800GTS would be a steal, even without that extra '.1'.

    FreddyD on
  • fogeymanfogeyman Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    FreddyD wrote: »
    fogeyman wrote: »
    FreddyD wrote: »
    I wouldn't upgrade just for DX10. The best time to upgrade is when you feel your game performance is unacceptable, even when you turn down the settings.

    Personally, I would wait for Nvidia's next generation of video cards before making any major purchase decisions. The next generation will support DX10.1, which isn't supported by the current cards on the market (noticing a trend here?).
    Says otherwise here. I'm reading mixed reports after a quick Google search.
    They use the same type of reasoning that is used for DX9 to DX10 comparisons.
    Even though DX10.1 will support current DX10 graphics hardware, today's DX10 hardware will not be able to support all of the features of DX10.1, which includes incremental improvements to 3D rendering quality.
    My point is that if you want to upgrade so you have the latest and the greatest you might as well wait until they have DX10.1 sorted out. It's not like the 7800GT is struggling to run modern games. The next generation of video cards will automatically drive prices on the current cards down, and a sub $200 8800GTS would be a steal, even without that extra '.1'.
    Ah, I see. He later admits that some 10.1 features won't be compatible with 10 cards, but defends it by saying these will be very small features.

    I know I don't need to upgrade, I'm playing games on medium-high right now. I'm just splurging because I haven't treated myself in ages. How long until the 10.1 cards are out? I don't really want to wait, though, because then I'll end up constantly waiting.

    fogeyman on
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  • GadeusGadeus Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    I would agree with the point that you shouldn't upgrade unless you are unsatisfied with your current performance.

    I have a very similar setup, except that I have a 4400+, and a 7900GT. I upgraded the 7900GT last week (I have a 1080p TV, and I wanted to run my games at that resolution) to a 8800GTS 640MB, and I couldn't be happier. I bought it from newegg for $400 (350 with rebate) with an included copy of Quake Wars. I doubt there would be much of a difference between the 640 and the 320 mb versions in your case because of the smaller resolution. You'll definitely see a significant performance increase, I went from 25 FPS in UT3 on medium to 60 FPS maxed out.

    Gadeus on
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  • FreddyDFreddyD Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    I've seen some articles that suggest that the upcoming 8800GT outperforms the 8800GTS and will only cost $250 for the 512MB version. I've heard release dates as early as the end of October.

    FreddyD on
  • ViscountalphaViscountalpha The pen is mightier than the sword http://youtu.be/G_sBOsh-vyIRegistered User regular
    edited October 2007
    FreddyD wrote: »
    I've seen some articles that suggest that the upcoming 8800GT outperforms the 8800GTS and will only cost $250 for the 512MB version. I've heard release dates as early as the end of October.

    Other rumors speculate that they should have a sufficient quantity at this hard launch. It sounds sweet, but I want to know how it stacks up against the 8800gts-320 and 8800gts-640.

    Viscountalpha on
  • FreddyDFreddyD Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    Viscountalpha wrote: »
    FreddyD wrote: »
    I've seen some articles that suggest that the upcoming 8800GT outperforms the 8800GTS and will only cost $250 for the 512MB version. I've heard release dates as early as the end of October.

    Other rumors speculate that they should have a sufficient quantity at this hard launch. It sounds sweet, but I want to know how it stacks up against the 8800gts-320 and 8800gts-640.
    This article isn't in English, but the graphs pretty much speak for themselves.

    Here is the current gaming-age discussion.

    3dmark_03.png

    FreddyD on
  • fogeymanfogeyman Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    Viscountalpha wrote: »
    FreddyD wrote: »
    I've seen some articles that suggest that the upcoming 8800GT outperforms the 8800GTS and will only cost $250 for the 512MB version. I've heard release dates as early as the end of October.

    Other rumors speculate that they should have a sufficient quantity at this hard launch. It sounds sweet, but I want to know how it stacks up against the 8800gts-320 and 8800gts-640.
    That's a good date. I'm not even making a purchase until Black Friday (roughly). If this comes out, though, and reviews are solid, there's no point waiting until Black Friday, right? New products generally aren't on sale?

    fogeyman on
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  • SpoitSpoit *twitch twitch* Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    If you watch the bargain hunting sites, 8800GTS' come on sale at ~$250 every other week or so, so there's no paticular reason to wait till black friday for the price. However, as a number of other people mentioned, it'd probably be better to wait for the new cards to come out before making any decisions, if only to drive the price down.

    EDIT: @freddyD's graph. I don't know how closely you watched the 2900XT's release SNAFU, but it's been fairly well shown that 3DMarks!=real world performance.

    Spoit on
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  • LegacyLegacy Stuck Somewhere In Cyberspace The Grid(Seattle)Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited October 2007
    Needs more ram.

    Legacy on
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  • FreddyDFreddyD Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    Spoit wrote: »
    If you watch the bargain hunting sites, 8800GTS' come on sale at ~$250 every other week or so, so there's no paticular reason to wait till black friday for the price. However, as a number of other people mentioned, it'd probably be better to wait for the new cards to come out before making any decisions, if only to drive the price down.

    EDIT: @freddyD's graph. I don't know how closely you watched the 2900XT's release SNAFU, but it's been fairly well shown that 3DMarks!=real world performance.
    That has been true in the past. However, the 3DMark results in this case mirror game performance fairly closely. Although the results don't tell you much about real world performance, I believe that 3DMark can still be useful for ranking video cards.

    FreddyD on
  • fogeymanfogeyman Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    FreddyD wrote: »
    Viscountalpha wrote: »
    FreddyD wrote: »
    I've seen some articles that suggest that the upcoming 8800GT outperforms the 8800GTS and will only cost $250 for the 512MB version. I've heard release dates as early as the end of October.

    Other rumors speculate that they should have a sufficient quantity at this hard launch. It sounds sweet, but I want to know how it stacks up against the 8800gts-320 and 8800gts-640.
    This article isn't in English, but the graphs pretty much speak for themselves.

    Here is the current gaming-age discussion.

    http://www.expreview.com/img/topic/8800gt/3dmark_03.png
    It seems like the effect of RAM lessens as you go down in resolution, so I could get away the 8800gt 256mb version, right, at 1280x1024? That extra $50 savings would be very useful for me.


    BTW, what are some good bargain hunting sites? I don't know of any, I've always just used Newegg or a local brick and mortar store.

    fogeyman on
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  • DeusfauxDeusfaux Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    FreddyD wrote: »
    Spoit wrote: »
    If you watch the bargain hunting sites, 8800GTS' come on sale at ~$250 every other week or so, so there's no paticular reason to wait till black friday for the price. However, as a number of other people mentioned, it'd probably be better to wait for the new cards to come out before making any decisions, if only to drive the price down.

    EDIT: @freddyD's graph. I don't know how closely you watched the 2900XT's release SNAFU, but it's been fairly well shown that 3DMarks!=real world performance.
    That has been true in the past. However, the 3DMark results in this case mirror game performance fairly closely. Although the results don't tell you much about real world performance, I believe that 3DMark can still be useful for ranking video cards.

    In what case?

    The 8800 GTS, BOTH of them, in MOST games kick the 2900XT's ass and for less $$$, less heat, less power.

    3dmark is useless in that respect

    Deusfaux on
  • ViscountalphaViscountalpha The pen is mightier than the sword http://youtu.be/G_sBOsh-vyIRegistered User regular
    edited October 2007
    Deusfaux wrote: »
    FreddyD wrote: »
    Spoit wrote: »
    If you watch the bargain hunting sites, 8800GTS' come on sale at ~$250 every other week or so, so there's no paticular reason to wait till black friday for the price. However, as a number of other people mentioned, it'd probably be better to wait for the new cards to come out before making any decisions, if only to drive the price down.

    EDIT: @freddyD's graph. I don't know how closely you watched the 2900XT's release SNAFU, but it's been fairly well shown that 3DMarks!=real world performance.
    That has been true in the past. However, the 3DMark results in this case mirror game performance fairly closely. Although the results don't tell you much about real world performance, I believe that 3DMark can still be useful for ranking video cards.

    In what case?

    The 8800 GTS, BOTH of them, in MOST games kick the 2900XT's ass and for less $$$, less heat, less power.

    3dmark is useless in that respect


    I've always felt that 3dmark is not an accurate way of testing at all since that you should be able to run a test on the same set of hardware and get the same result each time and that isn't the case. From a diagnostic point of view that seems like a flawed system given the input and output.

    Viscountalpha on
  • RaslinRaslin Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    Personally, I am looking at the 2950pro, but I suppose we'll see how it chops up when it comes out.

    Raslin on
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  • DeusfauxDeusfaux Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    Viscountalpha wrote: »
    Deusfaux wrote: »
    FreddyD wrote: »
    Spoit wrote: »
    If you watch the bargain hunting sites, 8800GTS' come on sale at ~$250 every other week or so, so there's no paticular reason to wait till black friday for the price. However, as a number of other people mentioned, it'd probably be better to wait for the new cards to come out before making any decisions, if only to drive the price down.

    EDIT: @freddyD's graph. I don't know how closely you watched the 2900XT's release SNAFU, but it's been fairly well shown that 3DMarks!=real world performance.
    That has been true in the past. However, the 3DMark results in this case mirror game performance fairly closely. Although the results don't tell you much about real world performance, I believe that 3DMark can still be useful for ranking video cards.

    In what case?

    The 8800 GTS, BOTH of them, in MOST games kick the 2900XT's ass and for less $$$, less heat, less power.

    3dmark is useless in that respect


    I've always felt that 3dmark is not an accurate way of testing at all since that you should be able to run a test on the same set of hardware and get the same result each time and that isn't the case. From a diagnostic point of view that seems like a flawed system given the input and output.

    naw it DOES have uses. for example, testing against someone with the same (or very close) hardware, lets you know if you're getting the most out of your setup or you did something or have something wrong somewhere

    Deusfaux on
  • VelmeranVelmeran Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    That graph seems a little awkward, I have a 8800GTS 320 (no 640's in my area of China it seems), and I played all through Bioshock and Supreme commander at 1920x1200 with no problems. Company of hero's can give me some trouble during the big fire fights so I keep that game lower, but it would still be playable if I wasn't such a framerate nut.

    Velmeran on
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  • fogeymanfogeyman Registered User regular
    edited October 2007
    I want that 8800GT.

    I hope it comes out on October 29th. That plus HGL will make for one damn expensive week.

    fogeyman on
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