7800GS graphics card... worth it?

1 GB PC3200 DDR RAM
Athlon 64 3000+
AGP 3.0
200 Front Side BUS on my mobo

I wonder if my CPU will bottleneck the 7800GS?

I've seen a benchmark that basically says F.E.A.R. is so-so playable at
1280X768 at max details on that video card. Completely unplayable at
higher resolutions.

Ouch. That's not what I want to hear before plunking down $300 on yet
another video card. Sometimes I think I'm better off keeping the same
PC for 10 years, and spending $600 on an XBox360 or PS3. Consoles tend
to have a shelf life of 6 or 7 years, and you never worry about
compatibility and performance issues with every single game that comes
out. That's a heckuva lot cheaper than plunking down $300 every 18
months or so.

I've seen a benchmark that basically says F.E.A.R. is so-so playable at
1280X768 at max details on that video card. Completely unplayable at
higher resolutions.


Perhaps FEAR is so-so with FULL AA & AF on, but I'd think it would run
smooth as butter without those settings and it's perhaps the most
graphically demanding game out there.

Also remember there are different 7800 GS cards out there also, BFG &
evga make overclocked ones and I think leadtek makes one with an actual
7800 GT chip in it.

Tom's Hardware has a review - under the graphics section entitled
"7800 GS becomes a better buy" - I'd recommend reading it if you
haven't already.

wrote in message
ups.com...
1 GB PC3200 DDR RAM
Athlon 64 3000+
AGP 3.0
200 Front Side BUS on my mobo

I wonder if my CPU will bottleneck the 7800GS?

I've seen a benchmark that basically says F.E.A.R. is so-so playable at
1280X768 at max details on that video card. Completely unplayable at
higher resolutions.

Ouch. That's not what I want to hear before plunking down $300 on yet
another video card. Sometimes I think I'm better off keeping the same
PC for 10 years, and spending $600 on an XBox360 or PS3. Consoles tend
to have a shelf life of 6 or 7 years, and you never worry about
compatibility and performance issues with every single game that comes
out. That's a heckuva lot cheaper than plunking down $300 every 18
months or so.

So-so playable? I have a 6800GT and a P4 3.06.. and FEAR was entirely
playable on my machine at 1280x1024 with settings on high or max. The
7800GS should rock with your CPU.

RF.

I think you'll have to spend more than that to get a card which can
play FEAR with all settings maxed out, including 4xAA and 16xAF, above
1280x960 and stay above 30fps.

Mark

I have an 7800 GT that I spent 300 cdn on - and for interest sake I
set everything to the max just then ran the test settings. Minimum was
23 and only 1% percent of the time it was below 25 fps - average was
45. I have decent other specs and the card is overclocked, but maxing
FEAR isn't out of the question for 300 dollars.

That's of course assuming the test is indicitive of real gameplay but
I don't have time to go back and actually play as I'm involved in
oblivion right now. Rest assured I don't have oblivion maxed out,
though.

"Michael Romes" wrote in message
...
schrieb:
I have the misfortune of being stuck with an AGP motherboard. I'm
don't feel the need to ditch my Athlon 64 3000+ just yet, but at the
same time I don't feel comfortable investing money into a dead
technology like AGP.

Most of the fancy new cards are PCI-Express only, and I can't really
use 'em unless I overhaul my entire system. So at this point... is the
7800GS worth my $300? Or would I be stupid to spend any money on a
dead technology?

Speaking of "dead" technology:
I have yet to run into that kind of problems - I just upgraded my
videocard from a Geforce 2 Ti to a Geforce 3 Ti 200 ;-)

Perhaps next year I´ll upgrade my AMD Duron 1600 to an Athlon :-)
bye
Michael
In its day, the Geforce3 Ti200 was a pretty good card in my opinion. In
fact, my computer used to have one until I just recently got an FX5600
because I'll be trying out Vista soon, which requires a DX9 video card that
supports pixel shader 2.0 for Aero Glass. If it weren't for that, I'd still
be using my Geforce3 Ti200 right now. It still is a pretty hefty card in
some games.

wrote in message
ups.com...

Butterfield wrote:

What are you running now besides an Athlon 64 3000+?

Butterfield


Athlon 64 3000+
1 GB RAM
Radeon 9800 Pro


Would the 7800GS give any significant performance increase over the
9800 Pro? Would the CPU bottleneck the video card?

Honestly, while my current PC isn't fast enough to run the latest and
greatest games, it's still good enough for everything else I do.
Surfing the web, watching movies, playing music, video editing, minor
programming, surfing the web, word processing, and so forth. Besides
gaming, I can't even imagine any activity that my PC can't handle for
the next 5 or 10 years. That's why I'm very reluctant to completely
overhaul a perfectly good PC right now just so I can play games with a
PCI Express graphics card.


A couple things to consider.

The 78900GS is a significant improvement over the 9800 Pro. The 9800 Pro is
a great card too, just getting dated. I would say it is a wise investment.

Secondly, assuming your motherboard will accept the latest Athlon64 chips,
you can always add an Athlon64 dual core or even a 3800+ single core down
the road. While the 7800GS is not "top of the line" it should be able to
handle the latest released games for the next couple years.

And lastly, of course memory. You can always add another GB down the road as
well.

I have an AGP sytem with an Opteron 175, 2GB RAM, WD Raptor hard drive, and
an X800 XT PE AGP. I am reluctant as well to upgrade because it runs great,
but would like to go for the newer cards, forcing me to replace my PC, but I
can carryover everything else, except the mobo. Just keep that in mind. A
new decent PCI-e mobo will run you about $100US, but gives you future
expansion, and most likely will have no problems with the latest Athlon64
CPU's should you decide to update that down the road.

I had a 6800GT and got a 7800GS a few weeks ago on a 3.4GHz P4 AGP
mobo. The 6800GT got me through good gameplay with Doom 3, Call of Duty
2, Fable, Quake 4 and F.E.A.R. as well as continuing with Battlefield
2. But all of them after Doom 3 were a little choppy and some features
couldn't be set to the highest settings without some performance hit.

The 7800GS isn't a huge leap in performance compared to the 6800GT,
less than twice as much for just raw speed increase. But it runs a lot
smoother and the auto-detects now set everything to High with 2XAA or I
can set all settings High with no problem. I think more SM3.0 features
are turned on also, as the image and lighting quality seems to be
improved quite a bit. It made Quake 4, F.E.A.R. and Call of Duty 2
buttery-smooth, although I had finished those and just checked them
out. It really smoothed out Fable and makes Battlefield 2 a real joy to
play now. I upgraded mainly for Oblivion PC and the auto-detect there
set everything to High with HDR. Oblivion is smooth as silk now and the
only slight burps are due to the hard drive loading scene areas. I am
not sure about GRAW but it looks like it might be worth getting, so it
will be interesting to see how that performs.

I am building a Conroe machine later this year (nobody is mentioning
the early Conroe benchmarks totally kicking AMD butt over on
Anandtech?). That will be in about 6 months and that is all I expect
the 7800GS to last. I usually have some other use to move older
computers to, with the lowest end going to charity and I take a hefty
deduction, so it is worth it for me.

"HockeyTownUSA" magma at comcast dot net wrote in
:

A new decent PCI-e mobo will
run you about $100US, but gives you future expansion, and most likely
will have no problems with the latest CPU's should you decide
to update that down the road.

Not too far down the road (more like the end of the driveway), the "lastest
Athlon64 CPU's will be M2 socket.

I just swapped my 9800Pro for an eVGA 7800GS N507 OC. I don't see any noticeable increase in speed doing the daily mundane tasks but I'm pleased with the marked increase in speed and graphics quality when running my RC flight simulators. I paid $284 at NewEgg and I'll receive a $15 mail in rebate bringing the price down to $284. Here are my 3DMark benchmarks before and after (Notice the huge increase in 3DMark03 scores);
9800Pro (My Card) 6800GS 7800GS
3DMark 03 5783 10,000 11,400
3DMark 05 2695 4321 5393
3DMark 06 680 1910 2717

7800GS (My Card) 6800GS 7800GS
3DMark 03 12721 10,000 11,400
3DMark 05 5218 4321 5393
3DMark 06 DNF 1910 2717


The 6800 & 7800GS marks are from Guru of 3D and they are about the same as
other sites I've checked. BTW, My 9800 PRO/128 memory speed is 338MHz.




wrote in message ps.com...
I have the misfortune of being stuck with an AGP motherboard. I'm
don't feel the need to ditch my Athlon 64 3000+ just yet, but at the
same time I don't feel comfortable investing money into a dead
technology like AGP.

Most of the fancy new cards are PCI-Express only, and I can't really
use 'em unless I overhaul my entire system. So at this point... is the
7800GS worth my $300? Or would I be stupid to spend any money on a
dead technology?

I'm not very picky with my PC games. I'm perfectly content with
1280x768 resolution *without* AA, as long as all the other details are
close to maximum. I don't need to be playing at 120 fps all the time
either. I can tolerate an average framerate of 45-50 fps, but not any
lower.

With that in mind... how long will the 7800GS keep me content with the
latest games until it can no longer satisfy my requirements? 9 months?
18 months?

I am building a Conroe machine later this year (nobody is mentioning
the early Conroe benchmarks totally kicking AMD butt over on
Anandtech?). That will be in about 6 months and that is all I expect
the 7800GS to last. I usually have some other use to move older
computers to, with the lowest end going to charity and I take a hefty
deduction, so it is worth it for me.

I'm just waiting to see the final prices. It looks impressive but I'm
quite certain that if there is a way to screw this up, intel will do it.