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#1
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Gaming PC upgrade. Graphics card/bottleneck opinions needed...
Hi,
I was thinking about upgrading my gaming PC. It's specs are below: Mobo: ASUS P5ND2-SLI CPU: Intel D 805 2x2.66GHz RAM: 1GB DDR2-667 Graphics card: Geforce 6200LE (was previously a number cruncher) I'm sticking with Nvidia after bad experiences with a ATI drivers and Linux. I have obtained the theoretical shader processing rates from Wikipedia and used that to divide the price from Ebuyer to get the price/ gigaflop. The table below shows the results... (sorry about the bad columns) Gflops Price Price/Gflop 8300 GS 21.6 8400 GS 43.2 23.2 0.54 8500 GT 43.2 33.99 0.79 8600 GS 114.2 8600 GT 114.2 40.99 0.36 8600 GTS 139.2 47.25 0.34 8800 GTS-G80 345.6 76.96 0.22 8800 GS 396 97.95 0.25 8800 GTS 504 122.95 0.24 8800 GTS -G92 624 130 0.21 8800 GTX 518 8800 Ultra 576 9400GT 67 38.74 0.58 9500GT 134 46.75 0.35 9600 GSO 396 64.96 0.16 9600 GT 312 73.18 0.23 9800 GT 504 94.99 0.19 9800 GTX 648 9800 GTX+ 754 144.66 0.19 9800 GX2 1152 260 GTX 715 189.97 0.27 260 GTX Core 2 804 280 933 342.38 0.37 From these results we can see that the Geforce 9600 GSO is the best card in terms of bang for buck to buy. As such I have settled on the XFX 9600GSO XXX Edition 384MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card. Do you think I should throw in some extra RAM too? Given that my mobo is a PCI-e 16x 1.0 (I think), will I be crippling the PCI-e 16x 2.0 card? I am of the belief that it is better to buy mid-range/commodity upgrades often, than high end/premium upgrades rarely. Do you concur with this viewpoint? Do you have any alternative suggestions or points of view I have not considered in this simple analysis? Thanks. |
#2
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Gaming PC upgrade. Graphics card/bottleneck opinions needed...
Alex wrote:
Hi, I was thinking about upgrading my gaming PC. It's specs are below: Mobo: ASUS P5ND2-SLI CPU: Intel D 805 2x2.66GHz RAM: 1GB DDR2-667 Graphics card: Geforce 6200LE (was previously a number cruncher) I'm sticking with Nvidia after bad experiences with a ATI drivers and Linux. I have obtained the theoretical shader processing rates from Wikipedia and used that to divide the price from Ebuyer to get the price/ gigaflop. The table below shows the results... (sorry about the bad columns) Gflops Price Price/Gflop 8300 GS 21.6 8400 GS 43.2 23.2 0.54 8500 GT 43.2 33.99 0.79 8600 GS 114.2 8600 GT 114.2 40.99 0.36 8600 GTS 139.2 47.25 0.34 8800 GTS-G80 345.6 76.96 0.22 8800 GS 396 97.95 0.25 8800 GTS 504 122.95 0.24 8800 GTS -G92 624 130 0.21 8800 GTX 518 8800 Ultra 576 9400GT 67 38.74 0.58 9500GT 134 46.75 0.35 9600 GSO 396 64.96 0.16 9600 GT 312 73.18 0.23 9800 GT 504 94.99 0.19 9800 GTX 648 9800 GTX+ 754 144.66 0.19 9800 GX2 1152 260 GTX 715 189.97 0.27 260 GTX Core 2 804 280 933 342.38 0.37 From these results we can see that the Geforce 9600 GSO is the best card in terms of bang for buck to buy. As such I have settled on the XFX 9600GSO XXX Edition 384MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card. Do you think I should throw in some extra RAM too? Given that my mobo is a PCI-e 16x 1.0 (I think), will I be crippling the PCI-e 16x 2.0 card? I am of the belief that it is better to buy mid-range/commodity upgrades often, than high end/premium upgrades rarely. Do you concur with this viewpoint? Do you have any alternative suggestions or points of view I have not considered in this simple analysis? Thanks. There are two versions of 9600 GSO making the rounds. Asus has a model with 96 stream processors, and they make another card $10 cheaper which is only 64 stream processors. This card is listed as 96 stream processors and 192 bit wide memory, so would seem to be a genuine one. Companies sometimes cheap out on the memory, and in the past on some other cards, I've seen a factor of 4 between the best and worst memories included on the graphics cards of the same model. You have to compare the products carefully, to get you money's worth. Sometimes a quick buck artist, makes substandard cards. http://www.xfxforce.com/en-gb/produc...9600GSO.aspx#2 In some countries, there is a rebate for the 9600 GSO, during the month of October. Rebates are renewed on a regular basis, depending on sales and economic conditions. I think at one point, you could get a 9600 GSO for $55, if the wind was blowing in the right direction. As I live in Canada, such bargains are not handed out with the same zeal :-) I understand a respun version of the 9600 GSO will be offered soon, with a different chip. But that could change both the hardware specs and the price, so there is no way to speculate whether that will be a better option or not. If you cannot afford a real upgrade (like me), the 9600 GSO stands out as a bargain for what you're getting. At least, as long as there is a fat rebate applied to it :-) The PCI Express isn't particularly critical, at least for gaming. There could be other bottlenecks, such as whether the system memory controller can deal with the extra traffic or not. I haven't seen a recent article, comparing the impact. In the old Tomshardware article, their finding was that you'd get most of the gaming performance, with a PCI Express x4 Rev 1 interface. But the article has not been refreshed with the latest graphics cards, and the requirement may have changed a bit since then. Paul |
#3
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Gaming PC upgrade. Graphics card/bottleneck opinions needed...
On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:03:57 -0700 (PDT), Alex
wrote: Hi, I was thinking about upgrading my gaming PC. It's specs are below: Mobo: ASUS P5ND2-SLI CPU: Intel D 805 2x2.66GHz RAM: 1GB DDR2-667 Graphics card: Geforce 6200LE (was previously a number cruncher) I'm sticking with Nvidia after bad experiences with a ATI drivers and Linux. I have obtained the theoretical shader processing rates from Wikipedia and used that to divide the price from Ebuyer to get the price/ gigaflop. The table below shows the results... (sorry about the bad columns) Just to be clear, you are now going to use this for gaming, not number crunching, correct? Gflops Price Price/Gflop 8300 GS 21.6 8400 GS 43.2 23.2 0.54 8500 GT 43.2 33.99 0.79 8600 GS 114.2 8600 GT 114.2 40.99 0.36 8600 GTS 139.2 47.25 0.34 8800 GTS-G80 345.6 76.96 0.22 8800 GS 396 97.95 0.25 8800 GTS 504 122.95 0.24 8800 GTS -G92 624 130 0.21 8800 GTX 518 8800 Ultra 576 9400GT 67 38.74 0.58 9500GT 134 46.75 0.35 9600 GSO 396 64.96 0.16 9600 GT 312 73.18 0.23 9800 GT 504 94.99 0.19 9800 GTX 648 9800 GTX+ 754 144.66 0.19 9800 GX2 1152 260 GTX 715 189.97 0.27 260 GTX Core 2 804 280 933 342.38 0.37 From these results we can see that the Geforce 9600 GSO is the best card in terms of bang for buck to buy. Yes, it is probably the best bang for the buck but the other factor is whether it has the minimum performance level you will need for the particular games you want to play until you are ready to upgrade it again, and of course the monitor resolution used and level of eyecandy desired. As such I have settled on the XFX 9600GSO XXX Edition 384MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card. Do you think I should throw in some extra RAM too? Yes, ideally you would have a minimum of 2GB. It will not only make newer games faster but greatly reduce level reload times when the files are cached in memory instead of all of them being reread from hard drive. Given that my mobo is a PCI-e 16x 1.0 (I think), will I be crippling the PCI-e 16x 2.0 card? I am of the belief that it is better to buy mid-range/commodity upgrades often, than high end/premium upgrades rarely. Do you concur with this viewpoint? I do, but some don't. Then again most gamers would argue for the high end and also frequent upgrades... when it's someone else's money of course. Generally it seems a bad idea to pay so much that you can't bare to replace something again in 18 months when playing newer games, so the remaining factor is what the total PC budget is, both today and in the future. Do you have any alternative suggestions or points of view I have not considered in this simple analysis? If you want to play at 1680x1050 or higher with high levels of eyecandy to play current and future games, the 260GTX is closer to that goal, a better choice even given the significant increase in price. If you have lesser needs, the 9600GSO, especially when overclocked (they tend to hit at least 650 core/950 memory if not more, just sliding the tabs in overclocking software w/o need for hardware modifications or a different heatsink) is the best value. Essentially by buying the XXX edition you are getting a pre-overclocked card, but at least one guaranteed to do that and possibly higher spec'd memory that would allow the memory bus to o'c even more than a regular GSO (memory bandwidth seems one of GSO's bottlenecks). Your CPU will bottleneck the 260GTX more, but it should still make more demanding gaming scenarios mentioned above, more playable. Your system is SLI capable so a pair of 9600GSO in SLI mode is another alternative. At some point you'll have to assess whether your current PSU is capable of powering the addt'l load as well as your case cooling. A pair of 9600GSO or 260 is a non-trivial change to the system compared to the very miserly 6200LE being replaced. |
#4
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Gaming PC upgrade. Graphics card/bottleneck opinions needed...
kony wrote: On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:03:57 -0700 (PDT), Alex wrote: Hi, I was thinking about upgrading my gaming PC. It's specs are below: Mobo: ASUS P5ND2-SLI CPU: Intel D 805 2x2.66GHz RAM: 1GB DDR2-667 Graphics card: Geforce 6200LE (was previously a number cruncher) I'm sticking with Nvidia after bad experiences with a ATI drivers and Linux. I have obtained the theoretical shader processing rates from Wikipedia and used that to divide the price from Ebuyer to get the price/ gigaflop. The table below shows the results... (sorry about the bad columns) Just to be clear, you are now going to use this for gaming, not number crunching, correct? Yup. Perhaps 8 or so of those machines would be outdone by the latest quad core machines. How hardware specs flies. Gflops Price Price/Gflop 8300 GS 21.6 8400 GS 43.2 23.2 0.54 8500 GT 43.2 33.99 0.79 8600 GS 114.2 8600 GT 114.2 40.99 0.36 8600 GTS 139.2 47.25 0.34 8800 GTS-G80 345.6 76.96 0.22 8800 GS 396 97.95 0.25 8800 GTS 504 122.95 0.24 8800 GTS -G92 624 130 0.21 8800 GTX 518 8800 Ultra 576 9400GT 67 38.74 0.58 9500GT 134 46.75 0.35 9600 GSO 396 64.96 0.16 9600 GT 312 73.18 0.23 9800 GT 504 94.99 0.19 9800 GTX 648 9800 GTX+ 754 144.66 0.19 9800 GX2 1152 260 GTX 715 189.97 0.27 260 GTX Core 2 804 280 933 342.38 0.37 From these results we can see that the Geforce 9600 GSO is the best card in terms of bang for buck to buy. Yes, it is probably the best bang for the buck but the other factor is whether it has the minimum performance level you will need for the particular games you want to play until you are ready to upgrade it again, and of course the monitor resolution used and level of eyecandy desired. At the moment I've delayed upgrading my monitors and use CRTs. When I do upgrade to TFTs it will again follow the same philosophy so I won't be getting very large ones, just commodity ones. As such I have settled on the XFX 9600GSO XXX Edition 384MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card. Do you think I should throw in some extra RAM too? Yes, ideally you would have a minimum of 2GB. It will not only make newer games faster but greatly reduce level reload times when the files are cached in memory instead of all of them being reread from hard drive. OK. Given that my mobo is a PCI-e 16x 1.0 (I think), will I be crippling the PCI-e 16x 2.0 card? I am of the belief that it is better to buy mid-range/commodity upgrades often, than high end/premium upgrades rarely. Do you concur with this viewpoint? I do, but some don't. Then again most gamers would argue for the high end and also frequent upgrades... when it's someone else's money of course. Generally it seems a bad idea to pay so much that you can't bare to replace something again in 18 months when playing newer games, so the remaining factor is what the total PC budget is, both today and in the future. Other responsibilities call :-). Gaming is both expensive on the wallet and in terms of time; that's why I tend to focus on FPS games which unfortunately can be the most time consuming. Do you have any alternative suggestions or points of view I have not considered in this simple analysis? If you want to play at 1680x1050 or higher with high levels of eyecandy to play current and future games, the 260GTX is closer to that goal, a better choice even given the significant increase in price. If you have lesser needs, the 9600GSO, especially when overclocked (they tend to hit at least 650 core/950 memory if not more, just sliding the tabs in overclocking software w/o need for hardware modifications or a different heatsink) is the best value. Essentially by buying the XXX edition you are getting a pre-overclocked card, but at least one guaranteed to do that and possibly higher spec'd memory that would allow the memory bus to o'c even more than a regular GSO (memory bandwidth seems one of GSO's bottlenecks). Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't know the XXX editions were overclock tested. Your CPU will bottleneck the 260GTX more, but it should still make more demanding gaming scenarios mentioned above, more playable. Your system is SLI capable so a pair of 9600GSO in SLI mode is another alternative. At some point you'll have to assess whether your current PSU is capable of powering the addt'l load as well as your case cooling. A pair of 9600GSO or 260 is a non-trivial change to the system compared to the very miserly 6200LE being replaced. My PSU is a Sansun Black 600W PSU - 20/24pin SATA. The graphics card on my previous gaming PC was a 6600 GT. |
#5
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Gaming PC upgrade. Graphics card/bottleneck opinions needed...
Paul wrote:
Alex wrote: Hi, I was thinking about upgrading my gaming PC. It's specs are below: Mobo: ASUS P5ND2-SLI CPU: Intel D 805 2x2.66GHz RAM: 1GB DDR2-667 Graphics card: Geforce 6200LE (was previously a number cruncher) I'm sticking with Nvidia after bad experiences with a ATI drivers and Linux. I have obtained the theoretical shader processing rates from Wikipedia and used that to divide the price from Ebuyer to get the price/ gigaflop. The table below shows the results... (sorry about the bad columns) Gflops Price Price/Gflop 8300 GS 21.6 8400 GS 43.2 23.2 0.54 8500 GT 43.2 33.99 0.79 8600 GS 114.2 8600 GT 114.2 40.99 0.36 8600 GTS 139.2 47.25 0.34 8800 GTS-G80 345.6 76.96 0.22 8800 GS 396 97.95 0.25 8800 GTS 504 122.95 0.24 8800 GTS -G92 624 130 0.21 8800 GTX 518 8800 Ultra 576 9400GT 67 38.74 0.58 9500GT 134 46.75 0.35 9600 GSO 396 64.96 0.16 9600 GT 312 73.18 0.23 9800 GT 504 94.99 0.19 9800 GTX 648 9800 GTX+ 754 144.66 0.19 9800 GX2 1152 260 GTX 715 189.97 0.27 260 GTX Core 2 804 280 933 342.38 0.37 From these results we can see that the Geforce 9600 GSO is the best card in terms of bang for buck to buy. As such I have settled on the XFX 9600GSO XXX Edition 384MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card. Do you think I should throw in some extra RAM too? Given that my mobo is a PCI-e 16x 1.0 (I think), will I be crippling the PCI-e 16x 2.0 card? I am of the belief that it is better to buy mid-range/commodity upgrades often, than high end/premium upgrades rarely. Do you concur with this viewpoint? Do you have any alternative suggestions or points of view I have not considered in this simple analysis? Thanks. There are two versions of 9600 GSO making the rounds. Asus has a model with 96 stream processors, and they make another card $10 cheaper which is only 64 stream processors. This card is listed as 96 stream processors and 192 bit wide memory, so would seem to be a genuine one. Companies sometimes cheap out on the memory, and in the past on some other cards, I've seen a factor of 4 between the best and worst memories included on the graphics cards of the same model. You have to compare the products carefully, to get you money's worth. Sometimes a quick buck artist, makes substandard cards. http://www.xfxforce.com/en-gb/produc...9600GSO.aspx#2 And I suppose a bit of benchmarking once I receive it would not hurt as well. In some countries, there is a rebate for the 9600 GSO, during the month of October. Rebates are renewed on a regular basis, depending on sales and economic conditions. I think at one point, you could get a 9600 GSO for $55, if the wind was blowing in the right direction. As I live in Canada, such bargains are not handed out with the same zeal :-) I understand a respun version of the 9600 GSO will be offered soon, with a different chip. But that could change both the hardware specs and the price, so there is no way to speculate whether that will be a better option or not. If you cannot afford a real upgrade (like me), the 9600 GSO stands out as a bargain for what you're getting. At least, as long as there is a fat rebate applied to it :-) The PCI Express isn't particularly critical, at least for gaming. There could be other bottlenecks, such as whether the system memory controller can deal with the extra traffic or not. I haven't seen a recent article, comparing the impact. In the old Tomshardware article, their finding was that you'd get most of the gaming performance, with a PCI Express x4 Rev 1 interface. But the article has not been refreshed with the latest graphics cards, and the requirement may have changed a bit since then. Paul Thanks Paul, very informative post. |
#6
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Gaming PC upgrade. Graphics card/bottleneck opinions needed...
On Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:25:17 -0700 (PDT), Alex
wrote: Yes, it is probably the best bang for the buck but the other factor is whether it has the minimum performance level you will need for the particular games you want to play until you are ready to upgrade it again, and of course the monitor resolution used and level of eyecandy desired. At the moment I've delayed upgrading my monitors and use CRTs. When I do upgrade to TFTs it will again follow the same philosophy so I won't be getting very large ones, just commodity ones. Ok, but personally, I find that 22" monitors, 1680x1050, are affordably enough priced that they are commodity... to me, a monitor is such a primary interface device that it's the last place I'd save % on if it resulted in less than 20.x", so, I generally think in terms of 1680x or higher resolutions and/or higher eyecandy levels, since newer games only really shine when their higher eyecandy levels are possible. Essentially by buying the XXX edition you are getting a pre-overclocked card, but at least one guaranteed to do that and possibly higher spec'd memory that would allow the memory bus to o'c even more than a regular GSO (memory bandwidth seems one of GSO's bottlenecks). Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't know the XXX editions were overclock tested. They're quaranteed for their sold-as clock rate, but keep in mind that many other cards can do that speed, they just aren't officially guaranteed to. Your CPU will bottleneck the 260GTX more, but it should still make more demanding gaming scenarios mentioned above, more playable. Your system is SLI capable so a pair of 9600GSO in SLI mode is another alternative. At some point you'll have to assess whether your current PSU is capable of powering the addt'l load as well as your case cooling. A pair of 9600GSO or 260 is a non-trivial change to the system compared to the very miserly 6200LE being replaced. My PSU is a Sansun Black 600W PSU - 20/24pin SATA. The graphics card on my previous gaming PC was a 6600 GT. PSU seems fine if actually capable of the claimed 600W, if it's a brand name instead of "Sansun" which seems a big generic risk. If it is a generic, I would replace it before a video card upgrade because many generics are horribly overrated and have loose shutdown/safety tolerances that could risk new hardware, as well as what you already had, when overloaded past actual (vs. rated) capability. |
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