GeForce 7900 to GeForce 8600 GTS = no improvement?

[sorrowharvester]

Hey all,

I just got an 8600 GTS with 512mb RAM. (From a 7900 series w/256 mb)
I upgraded from 2gb system memory to 3gb.

No improvement??

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ ~ 2.4GHz
I'm running 5 accounts (2560x1024 Horizontal span) on this 1 machine

I'm running main on left monitor at 1024x768 and the other 4 on right monitor 800x600.

Any tips on optimization here?

Thanks

[Ughmahedhurtz]

If upgrading your graphics card doesn't speed your graphics up, then it wasn't your graphics card that was holding you back but your CPU or memory/front-side bus speeds.

[sorrowharvester]

Yeah, I feared as much.

It's a LITTLE better, but, not worth the money I put into it.

I guess I'll have to upgrade the motherboard and CPU next :D

[sorrowharvester]

I take it back... main screen is now running 25-30 fps and alts are at 20 fps. (was 20fps and 10fps)

Still not the improvement I was expecting.

Don't know why it was running like poo before :/

[zanthor]

The 8600 isn't an upgrade over the 7900. You are talking an 8000 series low end card VS a 7000 series high end card...

The 7900 -> 8800 is BARELY an upgrade, on only saw a 10 FPS gain going 7900gt to 8800gtx...

[sorrowharvester]

Yeah but, faster clock speed and 256 mb more memory.
It HAS to help? :)

[Lost Ninja]

GPU memory is almost entirely used for textures, and while WoW does need some texture memory as its designed to run on such a wide variety of machines texture memory is unlikely to be a sticking point. Pure power is far more important.

[sorrowharvester]

Yeah I know, before I was constantly thrashing swapping textures in and out. The card also does skeleton bone transforms and such.

I've since made some discoveries with this though.

1) It loads MUCH MUCH faster.
2) If I use the /console maxfps and maxfpsbk, my game runs a LOT better. Main is running at around 30 and alts are running at 15.

I'm happier with it than I was originially, but, I do think it's time to upgrade the ol' CPU and Motherboard.

Thanks for all of the input!

[Taipan]

Greetings,

Tom' Hardware "Overall All Game FPS" chart will confirm.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=711&model2=1058&chart=318

7900 GT 256 is about 15% faster than a 8600 GTS 512.
7900 GS 256 is on par with a 8600 GTS 512.

I personnaly got better FPS with a Duo2Core 6850 3.0ghz no O/C with ATI X1950 256 under XP than with a QuadCore 6600 O/C 3.0 ghz with Nvidia 8800 GT 512 under Vista, both on Raptor 10,000 rpm 150go, while 5 MBs.

I'll try the latest setup soon with XP for fair comparison but I still suspect ATI drivers to be more efficient for WoW in gaining more CPU raw power than Nvidia ones into FPS.

Note : MB load time in heavy-populated areas such as IronForge is longer with DuoCore but once done, FPS is deffo better.

/salute

[sorrowharvester]

OK, I gave in.

I took all the stuff back to Fry's and bought:
~ 4gb DDR2 PC6400 RAM
~ BFG GeForce 8800GT OC 512mb ($250 on sale at Best Buy!)
~ New MSI AM2 motherboard
~ AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 6400+ Black Edition (3.2ghz)

Upgrading/Repairing XP now... we'll see what happens :)

Wish me luck...

[zanthor]

I'm interested in knowing how this panned out Sorrowharvester... updates?

[-silencer-]

The 7900 -> 8800 is BARELY an upgrade, on only saw a 10 FPS gain going 7900gt to 8800gtx...
I did too.. until I also upgraded the CPU/mobo/memory. 8800gtx is MUCH faster than 7900gt if cpu/memory bottlenecks are removed for 1920x1200 resolution at high quality settings. If you're running a lower resolution, you probably won't see much of a difference unless you crank up FSAA settings.

[sorrowharvester]

I'm interested in knowing how this panned out Sorrowharvester... updates?

~ 4gb DDR2 PC6400 RAM
~ BFG GeForce 8800GT OC 512mb ($250 on sale at Best Buy!)
~ New Asus AM2 motherboard
~ AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 6400+ Black Edition (3.2ghz) Thanks for asking!

If you want to read the LONG version, it's here:
Hellish Upgrade ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=2821')

Short version:
Everything finally worked out great. I dropped the MSI board and got an Asus one.
I had a lot of problems and finally realized that my powersupply was the issue. :cursing:
I got a 650w cooler master (after rebates it was $5 at Fry's!).

Addendum:
I started using Keyclone's maximizer instead of the wowmaximizer. I set up MaxFPS to 50fps and MaxFPSbk to 20.
Main runs in the 40s and alts run at a solid 20. In big cities: main runs at 20-35ish and alts hang around the 15-20fps mark.

So all in all, 1 machine, 2 screens, I'm very pleased.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Glad to hear it. I just dropped $1200 on the parts for a new main rig tonight, so I'm pretty jazzed about next week. :)

[sorrowharvester]

Glad to hear it. I just dropped $1200 on the parts for a new main rig tonight, so I'm pretty jazzed about next week. :)Sweet man, let us know how yours goes as well :)

[MaxD]

I didnt read all of the posts so if it was said I am a dee-tee-dee but how video cards numbers work are. First number in this case 8 equals what series. The next number is the quality of the card from 1-9 The next 2 numbers are the modification numbers of that card. so 7950 > 8600. The 7950 is just a tad faster than some of the 8800s if I remember right. However the 8s do have advantages over the 7s especially if you are running Vista and want to take advantage of the DirectX10 graphics accelerator.

I went with the 8800gt and I like it. It it wasnt as cheap and on a single card slot I would have stuck with my 7950

[-silencer-]

I didnt read all of the posts so if it was said I am a dee-tee-dee but how video cards numbers work are. First number in this case 8 equals what series. The next number is the quality of the card from 1-9 The next 2 numbers are the modification numbers of that card. so 7950 > 8600. The 7950 is just a tad faster than some of the 8800s if I remember right. However the 8s do have advantages over the 7s especially if you are running Vista and want to take advantage of the DirectX10 graphics accelerator.

I went with the 8800gt and I like it. It it wasnt as cheap and on a single card slot I would have stuck with my 7950
No, the 7950 isn't even a tad faster than some of the 8800s. The first number is the series, that much is true. That's the architecture of the GPU. The 2nd number is now it relates to other models - within that series. They're usually separated by cutting the gpu/memory frequencies, number of shader units, memory bandwidth, and memory size. Aside from the 'low' model 200 or 300 models in the geforce series, which aren't designed for good gaming, the series number is usually always going to be an improvement over most models in the previous series.
Here's an example of how the 8800GT (not even GTX) destroys the 7950GT:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3140&p=11
It's not even close - It's nearly twice as fast in all resolutions. Compare the slower GTS-320MB to the GT, and you'll see that the GTS is still much faster (around 50% faster) than the 7950GT. The numbers aren't as pronounced in tomshardware.com VGA charts, but the 8800GTS is still a faster card. If you step down to the 8600 (mid-level) models, the 7950GT is faster, but not by as much as you'd expect. I would never recommend that someone buy a top model card from a previous series when mid-level current series cards are available. That's like suggesting someone should buy a high end P4 D when mid-level E6300 Core2's are out for around the same price.. architecture improvements make a huge difference.