9800GT vs GTX+

[trekkie00]

I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card a bit, mostly to fold on it but also to play the occasional game. Mostly I just play Half Life 2 - engine based games (HL2, Garry's Mod, TF2, stuff like that), but sometimes I do mess around a bit in Flight Simulator X. Computer is the desktop in my signature below.

Considering my 7600GT runs most of these games most of the time, I'm sure either of these cards will work.

I know ATI cards are a bit faster at newer games, but I've heard they don't fold quite as well, I haven't had the best experience with them in Linux, and I'm intrigued at the new PhysX client for Nvidia's GPUs.

When I was looking through the different cards, two stood out:

Asus EN9800GT Ultimate for $150 - $25 MIR
XFX 9800GTX+ for $200 - $30 MIR

I have an XFX card now, and it's fairly good, but this card is a fair bit more expensive. I've had decent luck with Asus stuff too - I'm using a cheap Asrock motherboard right now, and it's pretty good for what I paid for it, and I've had three older HPs that I really haven't had any problem with the motherboard.

According to the Newegg spec sheet, both cards are roughly equivilent speedwise - both have 128 stream units, the core clock and memory clock in the GTX+ are about 13mhz and 200mhz faster, respectively. This seems like a pretty minor overclock though, hardly worth the extra $50.

Not sure if it makes any difference, but I'm fairly sure that I don't have a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, just an original PCIe one. Should the card still work, and will there be a very noticeable performance hit?

Oh, also, I'm using a fairly low wattage PSU, so I'll most likely need a new one. Any recommendations for a decent budget one?

Thanks for all your help, and sorry about the wall of text.

 

[ricanflow]

Since you only have a 4000+ and play lower spec games, this would be your best bet:

Newegg.com - PNY VCG88512GXEB-FLB GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

pci-e 1.0 and 2.0 are backwards compatible, there will be no performance hit.

what psu are you running??

 

[aaronkupen]

If the card you currently have plays all the games you want it to well... why upgrade?
And if you choose to upgrade, why not just go with what is the cheapest since you are already content with the performance you get?

 

[trekkie00]

Found it (still for sale, apparently!) Antec Basiq 350W
It barely reaches some things in my case, and I'm practically out of plugs on it.

I'm mostly updating so I can fold on the card, but a gaming improvement would be nice too. In Garry's Mod, if people start putting a lot of props on screen, I usually drop down to ~7-8 fps, which gets irritating.

I was kind of thinking of making an intermittant upgrade. I was hoping to switch to one of the new Intel i7 processors shortly after they drop in price - maybe middle of next year - so I figured I might as well spend the extra $30 now and get a slightly faster card than find out next year that I want a bit more performance and want to buy another.

 

[ricanflow]

If the card you currently have plays all the games you want it to well... why upgrade?
And if you choose to upgrade, why not just go with what is the cheapest since you are already content with the performance you get?

The 7600GT is very dated, an 8800 card will do him good and max those games out plus let him fold for us.

Found it (still for sale, apparently!) Antec Basiq 350W
It barely reaches some things in my case, and I'm practically out of plugs on it.

I'm mostly updating so I can fold on the card, but a gaming improvement would be nice too. In Garry's Mod, if people start putting a lot of props on screen, I usually drop down to ~7-8 fps, which gets irritating.

I was kind of thinking of making an intermittant upgrade. I was hoping to switch to one of the new Intel i7 processors shortly after they drop in price - maybe middle of next year - so I figured I might as well spend the extra $30 now and get a slightly faster card than find out next year that I want a bit more performance and want to buy another.

That psu is fine, i can run two 8800GT's on a 380w Antec.

I would go with either a 9600GSO or 8800GT, both will perform very well
and you wont have to upgrade your psu. You wont drop down to 7-8fps either.

 

[jfenwick]

Yeah, I think the 8800gt would serve you well, the ppd folding difference isn't that big. I have about a 1.2k ppd difference between my 8800gt and my 9800gtx+ but neither is maxed out on their OC so that number isn't that accurate for a true gauge of difference. Right now I have mid 4k ppd on my 8800gt and almost 6k on my 9800gtx+. I got the 9800gtx+ because it went on clearance sale and was almost the same price as the 8800gt, otherwise I would have just gotten another gt.

 

[AP4LIFETN]

A 9800GT is the same thing as a 8800GT(112SP), HOWEVER, the 9800GT(128SP) Ultimate is a 8800GTS/9800GTX flashed with a 9800GT name, so get the 9800GT ultimate. It will give you performance close to that of a 9800GTX+ (725mhz core vs 738mhz core)