Thinking of skipping 512MB GTX's

[maverik-sg1]

Me and Scorchio were chatting away about the state of change in the graphics market and CPU's (looking forward to the FX60).

When we upgraded from FX5900u (or FX5950 in my case ) to 6800GT's (or ultras in scorchios case) the improvement was outstanding and the sheer speed increase was amazing.

The move to the mighty SLI was also impressive and the jump to 7800SLI was equally impressive - compelled me to get a TFT monitor that could use 1600x1200 resolutions.

Now we are at a crossroads - the jump from 256MB 7800GTX SLI to 512MB GTX SLI is of course an improvement, but the impact is less than what we have seen before (I score 16.5k in 3dm05 and the best ultra cooled 512MB SLI is 18.5k) realistically I can expect 17.8k at best (unless I volt - mod cue shigsy).

But this card has all the features I have now - it's just a bit quicker.

So for the money, I am doubting the investment justifies the result .............. we are talking about £920 for a SLI set-up, versus £762 which is what we paid for the 256MB units when they were top dollar. If we talk about the ORB and benchmarking, the new core which is due out early next year should trounce the scores we are seeing now in the same way the 6800series spanked the 5900's.

We can hopefully expect that £920 to be a less painfull £800 in 2 months, but dont hold your breath - of course then you have to consider how far away the next generation product is from release (by that time iminent).

The interesting thing for the next generation is that it will actually have more features, whereas current models are simply 'updates' of existing products.

The euphoria of the new cards is wearing off now - poisoned by the price and common sense is slowly returning. I have serious doubts and feel the current upgrade path will no be anything more than a disappointment.

If I was still using my 6800's perhaps I would have different perspective - for now I am holding off til after xmas.

Then of course releasing a new core so close the release of the last one (where prices will still be high) who's to say the pirce wont be even higher? At least you can (hopefully) see where your money has gone though when you upgrade to next gen products.

Anyone else feel the same?

Mav

 

[DaGuv]

I know what you mean and it makes sense. I went from a 128mb 5700 to a 6800GT so the improvements were amazing. And now i have gone from my 6800GT to SLI 7800GTX 512s. I'm hoping the improvement will too be amazing. But I would not have even considered upgrading if I already had a 7xxx card even non-SLI. I can ony see it worth while to upgrade when a new generation of card come out. This also avoids expensive disappointment.

Well that my two cents anyway lol.

 

[Vrykyl]

agreed mav - if you have regular 256mb gtx's theres no point imo shelling out for 512mb varinants. Now thats not to say that if i won the lottery I wouldnt get em, but otherwise no atm i can only afford my one 256mb gtx :$

 

[fatty]

Yeah I only upgraded to the gtx's because they were there at the time I would have stuck with the 6800u's I had if I get offered a great bargain deal then I may upgrade but I doubt it

 

[K404]

I see where you`re coming from Mav The 512 6800`s were little better than the 256`s, and compared to most of the top 50 on the ORB, the new cards are about the same- maybe a little better in the RAM speeds, but are you willing to pay £400 for...150-250MHz on the RAM?? The score increase wont even justify it coz 3DMark is now more or less CPU liomited..the money would be better used being put towards I-RAM or a physics chip, IMHO

 

[maverik-sg1]

I see where you`re coming from Mav The 512 6800`s were little better than the 256`s, and compared to most of the top 50 on the ORB, the new cards are about the same- maybe a little better in the RAM speeds, but are you willing to pay £400 for...150-250MHz on the RAM?? The score increase wont even justify it coz 3DMark is now more or less CPU liomited..the money would be better used being put towards I-RAM or a physics chip, IMHO

I agree with everything here - except that the 512MB 6800's were not better than the 256MB versions (lower clocks and overcloking potential), perhaps some sort of freakish experiment as a pre-cursor to teh 512MB GTX's though.

It's alive!!!

Mav

 

[JAFFA]

If I already had 7800 256's I wouldn't upgrade either, but the jump in performance from my old and somewhat tired X850 is pretty vast. Having said that, I'm less and less interested in SLi now, until they start making BIG monitors with <12ms response times it's just not worth my while... Plus I hear a whisper that the ORB is gonna have a single card section soon, which suits me just fine. :B

 

[maverik-sg1]

For benching then how would they rate the 7800GT DUAL from ASUS, which is quicker than both single 256 and 512MB GTX's - if it rates it as a single card (which it is and they should) then it could be the card to have in that genre of benchin.

Mav

 

[GoLLuM4444]

If you want new features you could stop being set in your nvidia ways and go for x1800s. SM3 features are better and 90nm is another addition. Price seems about the same when you consider the motherboard on top (but you also get to sell your old board so they're actually cheaper). I'm sure the performance rise will be better than you expect. With an FX-60 and a pair of these I'd expect to see 20k in 05. (Assuming the new FX removes CPU wall suitably then AFR should effectively double single card scores of around 12000).

 

[GoLLuM4444]

For benching then how would they rate the 7800GT DUAL from ASUS, which is quicker than both single 256 and 512MB GTX's - if it rates it as a single card (which it is and they should) then it could be the card to have in that genre of benchin.

Mav

Might be worth trying their dual SLi model and their new 32x board. How bad could it be? :B

 

[maverik-sg1]

Might be worth trying their dual SLi model and their new 32x board. How bad could it be? :B

Sure - cos the reason I am not getting the 512MB GTX's now is that they're horrendously expensive

Reference features - SM3 forget about it, SM4 is where it's hapening now (well when I upgrade) everyone has the current feature set covered (alebit in different ways).

I am not convinced that the performance and hassel of upgrading to ATI is any better (or worse) than upgrading to 512 GTX's - plus I lose out on SATA2 (which I will want shortly ) and USB transfer speeds (which I do enjoy).

What we really need is a multi GPU standard so we dont have to go through all this hassle (changin mobo if you want ati and then changing again when you want nvidia).

I'd be happy to break free of the shackles of nvidia, when the time is right for me................ not sure now is the time.

Mav

 

[JAFFA]

Mav, I agree with you on whole, that Asus card will be a monster... and then some!

I can't help but think that maybe Nvidia and ATi should have gone with two cores on a single card rather than SLi from the outset, the idea of dual cored cards is clearly more efficient and would be cheaper in the long run. I can't help but think that maybe the GPU manufacturers are taking the pee a bit... why give us one card when they can sell us two kinda thing. Genius marketing strategy I'll give them that.

 

[Geomon]

This is exactly how I'm feeling about the whole card ugrade thing too.

I use my system for gamming first and foremost and also do a fair be of benching. My bencing is just for personal performace gain and not competetive.

For this reason it comes down to wether or not a vga upgrade will allow for much better gaming performance.

My example is I own a 68gt atm, which I have own 4 of them, 1 agp version, 1 xfx pci-e which I broke, and then 2 leadtek's for sli. My leadteks in sli where a real good upgrade which allowd my to run counterstrike at 1600x1200 with max aa,af. It also pushed my 3dmark 03 score from 15k with 1 68gt upto nearly 24k. This was great for a while but then I started to notice that It really wasn't wasn't making much dif to the visuals of the games and that 1278x768 was just as good with similar frps in single card mode. I also notice that not all game where benifiting from the second card in sli. This lead me to sell one of the 68gt's which I did for 45 more than I paid for it:wink: and ever since I have been using the single 68gt and concentrating more on cpu/ram upgrades.

Now I got the cpu and ram up to date I was considering a vga uprade.

After much research on the lateest & greatest cards and for all there power increase I would get over my 68gt it comes down to this. Is my 68gt struggerling to run the latest game at decent settings? And to be honest I havn't played a single game where the frame rate hasn't been anything anything other than sillky smooth at high settings.

Battlefield 2 plays perfectly smooth at 1200x700(not sure the exact res) with all settings at max.

Admitedly I haven't tried FEAR as of yet but I am confident that this will also work fine.

The difference between 1600x1200 or 1200x700 really isn't worth upgrading everytime a new card is released so I have decided that I will only upgrade my vga every second generation release from the preset card owned unless something is released that offers great new features.

Also unless your benching at the top of the orb I seen no reason for sli/crossfire. The latest cards are powerful enough for any game in single mode at very high or max settings. Two cards are more a novalty value.

I also think that spending £450-£900 on a new vga setup now would leave a bitter taste after finding that for £300 you can get one of the next gen consoles that would proberly perform better than cards for gamming visuals.

My cash is ready & waiting for a next gen card in 4-6 months(maybe8) )

 

[GoLLuM4444]

Res = 1024x768 or 1280x1024.

 

[nick25]

I agree Mav - there is no point, just try not to look at the new scores from people with two 512mb and don't concentrate on the fact you might slip down a few places on the orb. Wait for next gen.

I'm quite bitter towards the gfx manufactures ati/nVidia at the moment, as Jaffa said - they are taking the pee IMO. I'm sticking with single card solution from now on (thats the plan anyway :$ )

Nick.

 

[GoLLuM4444]

I'm sticking with single card solution from now on (thats the plan anyway :$ )

Nick.

ROFL Good luck.

 

[Master_G]

Im having to upgrade soon, as i have a great clocking 6800GT which i would dearly love to keep, but it's AGP and next motherboard is going to be PCI-E, probably going to go for a 7800GT (or GTX if i can find someone coming over from the states soon to bring me one cos i cant afford it otherwise).

My hope would be to get a reasonable clocking 256 GTX and then i could keep that for quite some time (in hardware terms, like a year, year and a half lol)

The price of the 512 GTXs is just an absolute joke i must say.

G

 

[maverik-sg1]

Im having to upgrade soon, as i have a great clocking 6800GT which i would dearly love to keep, but it's AGP and next motherboard is going to be PCI-E, probably going to go for a 7800GT (or GTX if i can find someone coming over from the states soon to bring me one cos i cant afford it otherwise).

My hope would be to get a reasonable clocking 256 GTX and then i could keep that for quite some time (in hardware terms, like a year, year and a half lol)

The price of the 512 GTXs is just an absolute joke i must say.

G

Hang in there a little bit longer my friend I am sure that the classifieds will yield a pair of 7800GTX's (fully volt modded) in the new year - capable of 630/1500 - not mine I hasten to add as they are destined elsewhere when the time is right (but they stay in EPUK )

Mav

 

[stocky]

I think the whole cost of buying SLi was the main factor which totally put me off upgrading everything! 8)

I figured, what was the point in buying two excellent cards, when one would do the job fine... Well it did mean that I wouldn't be able to competively bench in 3DMark

Hopefully things will go single slot again, as they went double years ago with the 32MB cards, then single again, if I remember right...

 

[GoLLuM4444]

Well I asked about X1800 masters being taken off the OcUK X1800 page. I actually got a response:

Dear Richard,

Thanks for getting back to us, the crossfire master card has been removed from the web site short term as they have been massively delayed from the manufactures and to save confusion of extended wait for customers we taken from the site, we are still planning to stock and sell the cards, however it may be some weeks. the price of the card on the order has already been amended to the newer price. if you did require to cancel the order you would be welcome to do so.

Regards,

Rob Wood

Customer Service

Overclockers UK

(I'd also said I was annoyed at ordering a XT slave at £470 then them dropping the price to £410 and they sorted it out :O).

I don't really mind waiting until Christmas as my cascades will take a while too but when it all finally does land it will be earth shattering.