New video card

[bizcotti4]

I need to replace my old 8800gtx, i havent been keeping up on video cards recently so im completely ignorant of hardware out now and a bit pressed for time to research atm so im wondering whats the best cards out now a days. im fairly predisposed to nvidia but the last couple cards i bought nvidia was the market leader in performance and i dont know if thast the case, after all it does fluctuate. illl be willing to spend approximatly $600 but id like to hear of the cheaper cards aswell, thanks a bunch.

[heffner]

AFAIK that is still plenty of card for WoW. I run a 8800GT(main) and 9800GT(4 slaves) and have no real issues. Graphics are medium settings.

Otherwise, the 9800GX2 (HD4870 is similar), GTX260 or GTX280 are upgrades to the 8800GTX (in that order).

The HD4850 and 9800GTX would be small upgrades.

I still don't know if WoW benefits from SLI/CF. Hopefully someone else knows.

Info based on Tom's Hardware charts.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q3-2008/benchmarks,30.html

So, personally I wouldn't bother unless it died or something. If you're simply looking to improve performance I would probably dump the $600 into a new MoBo, CPU and RAM (e.g., Q6600 quad core with 8Gigs and Vista 64).

[bizcotti4]

got that other stuff covered ;). the deal was i didnt think i would need to replace my gtx, but im having some strange issues with it and am RMA'img it back to eVGA. i want something in the mean time and this is an excuse to get a new card, i dont know why i have to justify spending money on my computer all the time but its just my thing, anyway thanks for the info.

[puppychow]

I was all set to buy a 4870 for a new rig but then I heard that Nvidias "refreshed" 260, aka 260+, aka 260 w/ 216 cores, is almost as good as the 4870 -- sometimes better, sometimes worse. Its supposed to be better than the Nvidia 280 as well in some cases -- the higher res and higher AA you go the better 280 is.

My understanding is basically:

4870 x2 > 280 > 4870 ~= 260+ > 4850 > 9800GT

(there is actually a chart of this somewhere out there, toms hardware or something i think?). This is all in single card mode, I've heard from a number of sources that SLI doesn't help WoW at all really so imo buying 2 cards if you mostly play WoW is a bit of a waste (of course its great for Crysis, Farcry2, COD5, etc).

Also suprisingly benchmarks show the 1GB 4870 is not significantly better than the 512MB 4870, which I found odd.

The thing is though the 4870 x2 is like $500-550, whereas the 260+ and 4870 are in the $300 range and dropping every few weeks. imo right now the best bet is either a 260+ or a 4870, keep the $200-300 you save and buy a new card in a year.

[pengwynman]

i upgraded from an 8800gtx to a gtx 280, and there is certainly a noticeable difference (not really in wow, but in things like Crysis). the gtx 280 is the fastest single-gpu card on the market. runs everything i've thrown at it without a glitch.

[elsegundo]

what will you be doing with your "old" 8800gtx? :whistling:

[butta]

My old video card literally stopped working right when I landed in Borean Tundra one day off of a gryphon (7600 GT 256 meg ram).

I was using it to Multibox 4 shams on one computer so I'm sure it went through a good deal of stress trying to keep up with the ram limitations.

Drove north to Fry's that day to see what I could pick up (woulda shopped online but it was the weekend, withdrawals and stuff start to kick in can't have that.)

After looking around I picked up a 9800 GT 512 DDR3 Ram and it turned out to be a great buy. 140 after mail in rebate and if you have the mobo and PSU to support it you could easily get two of these babies in SLI and have nice results. Running a single instance of WoW I could max out settings with my old card but it was too limited for multiple instances. The new card can run all four instances with no problems, including PiP switching. Pretty powerful if all you wanna do is WoW. Later today I think I'm going to download the Left 4 Dead demo and see how it plays ;)

[pengwynman]

what will you be doing with your "old" 8800gtx? :whistling:i actually kind of upgraded my comp in phases, so now that i'm done upgrading my main comp i have a second comp that the 8800gtx currently resides in. i have a bunch of roommates that play, so it's kind of become a community comp ^^

[elsegundo]

ah i see. lol

so much for that. i guess i'll just hang on to my 8600gts a little bit longer.

[Ualaa]

A single 4870 X2, runs 5 x WoW on one screen very well for me. I don't think you'll find a single card on the market as strong, and its in the $600 range. You might find 2x another card in SLI/Crosslink to be superior, I'm not sure on that.

[not5150]

A single 4870 X2, runs 5 x WoW on one screen very well for me. I don't think you'll find a single card on the market as strong, and its in the $600 range. You might find 2x another card in SLI/Crosslink to be superior, I'm not sure on that.I have the 4870 512 MB from Palit and it runs 5 WoWs just fine. 1920X1200 with keyclone/maximizer. Good 55 fps on the main screen. I have the others set at 20fps max.

4870s (not the x2 model) are hovering at around $220 and up on the major e-tailers. Very good bang for the buck.

[puppychow]

People who are talking about running WoW just fine -- GO INTO DALARAN. I was fine on my 8800GT all the way through TBC and even while I am leveling in Northrend I am ok, however, Dalaran takes a huge dump on my performance -- I go from 40-60fps while outdoors to under 5 fps in dalaran.

I am actually planning on moving from a single PC / 5 WoW config to a 2 box config, because even the latest and greatest video/CPUs don't seem to handle dalaran ok 5 boxing. And I want flawless follows and gfx turned all the way up while on 5 flying mounts, not crawling through the city like a quadraplegic leading 4 blind people.

[Tsunami]

sli and crossfire will only support one monitor. unless you use a spliter and set the resolution to 2500x800. this is the only way to do it. look up matrox duelhead2go.

[Hakaslak]

sli and crossfire will only support one monitor. unless you use a spliter and set the resolution to 2500x800. this is the only way to do it. look up matrox duelhead2go.http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_180.48_whql.html


Enables NVIDIA SLI Multi-monitor support, giving you the ability to use two monitors with your GeForce graphics cards in SLI mode. Now you can easily switch between multi-monitor desktop mode and full screen 3D gaming mode. Learn more here ('http://www.slizone.com/object/sli_multi_monitor.html'). http://www.heathersanimations.com/dbz/vegeta11.gifBIG BANG ATTACK! TWO!!

[Tsunami]

sli and crossfire will only support one monitor. unless you use a spliter and set the resolution to 2500x800. this is the only way to do it. look up matrox duelhead2go.http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_180.48_whql.html


Enables NVIDIA SLI Multi-monitor support, giving you the ability to use two monitors with your GeForce graphics cards in SLI mode. Now you can easily switch between multi-monitor desktop mode and full screen 3D gaming mode. Learn more here ('http://www.slizone.com/object/sli_multi_monitor.html'). http://www.heathersanimations.com/dbz/vegeta11.gifBIG BANG ATTACK! TWO!!nvidia's sli multi-monitor support doesn't work for both cards displaying a 3d program. that will work if you want to display a webpage on one monitor and wow on another. but to run 2 different 3d programs on 2 different monitors will require you to use duelhead2go and extend the resolution for both monitors.

[Hakaslak]

I only have crossfire, so I guess it doesnt.

But erm, you have to be dumb to use crossfire/sli..... a quick google search proves it doesnt work at all. In fact, crossfire, for example, is detreimental to FPS.

[pengwynman]

I only have crossfire, so I guess it doesnt.

But erm, you have to be dumb to use crossfire/sli..... a quick google search proves it doesnt work at all. In fact, crossfire, for example, is detreimental to FPS.for WoW anyway... there are plenty of games out there that see a performance increase from SLI. just wanted to clarify that point ^^