I have a chance to upgrade (also upgrade news for AGP BFG owners)

[Jheusse]

In the aftermath of Black Friday and Cyber Monday I'm looking to snag an upgrade or two.

My current system (the big pieces):
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
XFX GeForce 8600GT XXX 256MB Card
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Windsor 2.8GHz S Dual-Core Processor
Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
XP Pro
2 160 GB 7200 RPM HD
22" widescreen monitor

I run a group of 4 right now. I often reboot just before starting to play to offset any memory leaks. I occasionally will get artifacts on one or more of the slaves, or that whole window goes yellow, then I have to reboot. I know that's a potential heat issue, and my house is dusty, I regularly have to blow out my Antec case (I might remove the filter screen from the front intake too, it may be choking airflow in, and there are other entry paths for dust anyway), it's a Sonata with a newer PSU.

Anyway, I might be able to get a new video card without triggering domestic aggro, getting up into the nvidia 9x series. I could go Radeon, but honestly I don't know them well, I got hooked on the unified driver architecture years ago, and now it's nvidia from XFX or BFG pretty much exclusively.

I can't increase memory without changing OS (not in the cards right now) and mobo or processor aren't an option, they're only 6 months old, and it'd be pricey to try and go quad core (and I *hate* BIOS flashes to get quad working on that mobo).

I've been looking at various 9800 GT level cards at newegg, since my budget is about 100-150 bucks. I think this will bring a significant increase in performance but I'm asking the board if I'm right, and some slight guidance on choosing among the flock (zanthor I saw gave some incredible feedback on a similar thread that I almost bumped).

Oh and on a "just missed" irony and news for any fellow MBers who might have a BFG Tech 6x or 7x AGP card laying around that still works, BFG is offering a free upgrade to a PCI-e card depending on what your card is, or a swap to a 9800 GT OC for $50. http://www.bfgtech.com/freeupgrade.aspx

I've bought XFX or BFG exclusively for years due to their true lifetime warranties (ptui PNY for one) and just happens that my 6600 GT is XFX, so I missed. Thought I'd share so others could benefit.

[pengwynman]

this is tough... if you're on a 32-bit OS and you upgrade your video card, you're likely going to be cutting down addressable system memory. The one you currently have is only 256 mb, 9800 gt's come in 512mb and 1gb flavors. check your memory usage in performance monitor to see how much memory is being used when running all instances of wow. you should still see an fps increase from upgrading your video card, but you may also be dipping into your page file more.

[Jheusse]

yeah I'm in kind of a narrow niche in terms of my options, and tbh this isn't a "need" upgrade, this is more a target of opportunity due to the time of year and sales and wifely patience. I'll have to look at what my performance is with all 4 windows cranking. I also doubt I can get into the 1GB flavors of 9800 GT for the budget window I'm looking at.

Discarding the system memory limitation, I assume I'll see a real improvement going from an 8600 GT with 256 to a 9800 GT with 512?

Also had a thought earlier today, I run with 1 big and 3 small windows, with the affinity split between both cores. Wonder if I'd get an increase moving all 3 slaves to one core and leaving the main solo on core ).

To 5 box (or especially to 5 box in LK) I'll have to play my main on my secondary single core box and monitor and the 4 slaves on the dual core with big monitor. Or go to a beastly machine, which won't be well received.

[pengwynman]

yeah I'm in kind of a narrow niche in terms of my options, and tbh this isn't a "need" upgrade, this is more a target of opportunity due to the time of year and sales and wifely patience. I'll have to look at what my performance is with all 4 windows cranking. I also doubt I can get into the 1GB flavors of 9800 GT for the budget window I'm looking at.

Discarding the system memory limitation, I assume I'll see a real improvement going from an 8600 GT with 256 to a 9800 GT with 512?

Also had a thought earlier today, I run with 1 big and 3 small windows, with the affinity split between both cores. Wonder if I'd get an increase moving all 3 slaves to one core and leaving the main solo on core ).

To 5 box (or especially to 5 box in LK) I'll have to play my main on my secondary single core box and monitor and the 4 slaves on the dual core with big monitor. Or go to a beastly machine, which won't be well received.go for it, imo. a 9800 gt will be a pretty good improvement over an 8600 gt, should offset any decreases you MIGHT see from 256mb less system memory :P

[Jheusse]

I went for it alright.

Bought a BFG 9800 GT OC on the way home, the price was similar at Best Buy to what I saw online for similar, and I had the instant gratification side of it.

Get it home, pull all my component crap out of the closet to signal to the wife that computers are gonna be opened up tonight.

Install that big bastard (barely fit).

640x480 resolution on 4 bit color.

After a call with BFG tech support it turns out I need 26A on the 12V rail and my coolermaster 600, while beefy for every other task I set it to, isn't getting it done with only 18A on the 12V rail.

So now I either take it back or try and grab another power supply. This will trigger domestic aggro, but can't be helped.

I'm way out of touch with which manufacturers are the best and which ones are the bang for the buck models these days, anyone help? I could hit anandtech but they tend to be bleeding edge overclocker snobs, or used to be.

I like the idea of the modular cords that PSUs are coming with now as a more standard item. Help?

[pengwynman]

I went for it alright.

Bought a BFG 9800 GT OC on the way home, the price was similar at Best Buy to what I saw online for similar, and I had the instant gratification side of it.

Get it home, pull all my component crap out of the closet to signal to the wife that computers are gonna be opened up tonight.

Install that big bastard (barely fit).

640x480 resolution on 4 bit color.

After a call with BFG tech support it turns out I need 26A on the 12V rail and my coolermaster 600, while beefy for every other task I set it to, isn't getting it done with only 18A on the 12V rail.

So now I either take it back or try and grab another power supply. This will trigger domestic aggro, but can't be helped.

I'm way out of touch with which manufacturers are the best and which ones are the bang for the buck models these days, anyone help? I could hit anandtech but they tend to be bleeding edge overclocker snobs, or used to be.

I like the idea of the modular cords that PSUs are coming with now as a more standard item. Help?oo man that sucks, i would have thought a 600w PSU would be able to handle a 9800 :P

take a look at thermaltake's power supplies, those are pretty solid in my experience. only problem is when you start going over 600w for a psu, they start getting more expensive than that video card. if you want a little bit of future-proofness, a good 800-1000w PSU is gonna set you back $200-300+ :(

[Jheusse]

Hmm I'm going to have to try this again.

The card requires 26 amps on the 12V rail. My PSU runs 2 12V rails at 18A each. The card has a 6 pin power socket and comes with an adapter that takes 2 4 pin molex connectors and combines them into the 6 pin.

My power supply has a 6 pin socket and multiple 4 pin molex. The PSU supplies 18A each on two separate rails if I recall right (at work atm). I tried connecting the 6 pin by itself, two separate molex connectors through the adapter, no go.

But I've been thinking, I assume that the different molex connectors are associated with one or the other 12V rail. Perhaps I wasn't actually connecting both rails, perhaps it was two molex fromthe same rail, though both were in different "bundles". I'll have to check that again tonight, since I assume that connecting two 18A capable lines would be additive and be sufficient on paper. It's a coolermaster 600 (can't find on their website) I'll have to pull the manual if I can find it. of course I might be right and still not have enough juice, running 2 HD, an audigy 2, a DVD burner, and the board itself might have enough load to torpedo me anyway.

The eternal balance between buying a PSU locally and getting a little less selection and higher prices instantly against going online and getting better prices but having to wait (and have it show up on plastic).

[Bovidae]

Bridging your two 12v rails is an option, but the question I ask is WHY did seperated rails become so popular? What a gimmick.

If you are in the market for a new psu with a single large 12v rail, check out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703005&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL120408&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL120408-_-PowerSupplies-_-L1B-_-17703005 for only 59.99 after rebates, it's a must buy. I got one.

WARNING: It is not modular, so if looks are important to you, but not important enough to crack a psu, this might not be for you

[pengwynman]

Bridging your two 12v rails is an option, but the question I ask is WHY did seperated rails become so popular? What a gimmick.
apparently the multiple rails came about because of some EU mandate, they're popular because they're often made with lower-quality parts because the power per rail is lower, thus cheaper power supply.

[Jheusse]

trying the multi-molex didn't seem to work, and my research over the last day says my existing PSU is basically a POS. Effectively the thing likely operates at about 375W.

leaning towards the BFG ES-800 which is a current hot deal on newegg, though I don't like rebates much. Might try that one linked above too, I'm sure either one would easily get the job done, and either one will easily get the hairy eyeball from the wife.

[pengwynman]

trying the multi-molex didn't seem to work, and my research over the last day says my existing PSU is basically a POS. Effectively the thing likely operates at about 375W.

leaning towards the BFG ES-800 which is a current hot deal on newegg, though I don't like rebates much. Might try that one linked above too, I'm sure either one would easily get the job done, and either one will easily get the hairy eyeball from the wife.that PSU looks good, i'm generally a fan of BFG.
whatever power supply you go with, make sure it has PCI-Express 2.0 connectors. most (all?) 9800's require at least one pci-x 2.0 connector, and i tend to avoid using power adapters if at all possible. that bfg one has 2x 6+2 pin pci-x connectors, which = pci-x 2.0 so you'd be good with that. (other one linked doesn't, would require an adapter)

[Jheusse]

Turns out it wasn't the power supply after all. Was a driver conflict. BFG tech told me wrong.

I've swapped between nvidia cards in the past without issue, but this time I had to remove the drivers via add/remove hardware and then reinstall.

So now I'm sailing on the 9800 GT OC, though I had barely gotten started when I got tapped playfully on the shoulder by my wife, hit DNP, /quit. Which means when next I log on I'm likely to be mobbed by Gordunni.

Still might aim for an updated PSU for christmas though, as a present and to go modular cable.