Upgrade Video Card with current specs?

[dajogejr]

Jedi...I think we're getting way off base here...

Sure...you can push a Buick to the Moon...but it's going to take a billion dollar space program to get it there...

You dig?

Eitherway...Jet is quite clear this is not practical nor in his budget...

[Bullion]

yes lets all buy a 2500mobile and get a gauranteed 2700mhz on air...................................NOT LIKELY, some random and rare chips may do it, most wont. A 2500mhz tbred whilst it wont give the highest benches, when it is coupled to a top end graphics card, it will be able to play any game at a more than healthy frame rate

[dajogejr]

Agree...

He could spend another 500 to 600 bucks to upgrade his CPU and Vid Card...for what? A few FPS..and emptier pockets?

Hmmm...I'm actually very impressed with his OC on that CPU now....although, the ol 1700 Tbred is an OC'ers dream....quite a classic, actually!!

[Someone Stupid]

I would hold off. Both cards have yet to truly play their full hands and won't for a bit. I'd overclock the 9700 and just play at a lower res for a bit. I'm doing that, but with a 9800. SM 3.0 once FULLY used will allow the nvidia cards to crush the competition if nothing is out by then, but by then it will probably be another gneration of cards as SM 3.0 is being used (at least in FarCry) for only areas that suffered heavy from SM 2.0 on nvidia's cards. 3Dc for X800's will also be out soon enough for FarCry. I'd at the VERY least wait until that happens. Though I'm waiting for benches from more games even though I would be happy with either card now, I don't want to upgrade in 6 months because 3Dc doesn't float (another Truform) or SM 3.0 gets ditched, or one sinks the other. I'm betting they'll stay about the same though - but I will say there is more POTENTIAL in the nvidia card, just it's a matter of other companies unlocking it completely. That's the problem. It can get in the game, it just can't get completely in.

Just when Jakk and Vamp post, note that you are getting the extremist views of the community. Maybe one day they will both get together for a few beers and Jakk will lavish praise on nvidia and Vamp will do the same for ATi (and I'll win the lottery).

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Originally posted by Someone Stupid
[B]SM 3.0 once FULLY used will allow the nvidia cards to crush the competition if nothing is out by then, but by then it will probably be another gneration of cards as SM 3.0 is being used (at least in FarCry) for only areas that suffered heavy from SM 2.0 on nvidia's cards.

Incidentally, given that the optimisations included in the Far Cry SM3.0 path are mostly based in the realm of SM2.0b, one of the guys at B3D has developed a patch to enable the SM3.0 path on SM2.0 cards, he's ironing out a few kinks with the Ati implementation (as to run the patch you have to trik the game into thinking your running an Nvidia card) and isnt goign to release it until v1.2 arrives, but from what he's said, the Nv3x cards run perfectly under the SM3.0 path with healthy performance improvments in areas where lots of lighting features etc. are used, while frame rates with AA have gone up quite a lot.

--Jakk

[JediOfDarkness]

Yeah, sorry, I think I'm confusing everyone. I'm trying to get the point across that he doesn't need to update his CPU. I'm trying to say that he wouldn't get any better speeds out of a AMD32 chip without going to water cooling or phase change, unless, like bullion said, he gets a rare chip that can get those high clock speeds. I've seen it done, but like I said I can't get my Athlon XP 2400 to hit 2.3GHz, let alone touch the speeds he's getting now with his chip.

And if you really want to get a new card but don't want to spend a lot, maybe think about ATI's "trade-up" policy to get something a little better, like a R9800 Pro for now. Or even go with nVidia's GeForce 6800 Standard, like I think I said before. But I actually agree with everyone else in that you should just stick with your card for now and deal with lower detail settings. But if you just can't stand playing the newest games without all the eye candy, then I'd say just update your video card and leave your CPU be.