8800gt on its way to the grave; looking at a budget upgrade

[xatnys]

My 8800GT is starting to give (I can luckily do desktop work but basically no gaming without awful screen distorting freezes), and I'm starting to look at a sadly necessary upgrade. I game at a modest 1440x900, so I'm wondering what the optimal upgrade path would be on a ~150-200 budget.

Currently thinking on a 5770, but I hear it isn't that much of an upgrade compared to others.

 

[Squilliam]

Its a useful little upgrade, see here: link

It'll give you DX11, lower power consumption and a useful boost in performance. Its not an earth shattering upgrade but it'll probably see you through quite a while.

 

[xatnys]

Cool site! Poking around a bit, the 4890 looks pretty nice too. It's apparently (barely) under $200 and seems significantly faster than the 5770, though I wonder if it will be so impacting at my res, or if I should consider DX11 a bigger factor than pure performance.

 

[Squilliam]

I would suggest DX11 would be more important at your resolution as the HD 4890s main advantages are from the wider memory interface. However the card does suffer from significantly higher load/idle power draw which makes the 5770 a better candidate, future DX11 performance aside even. It also helps that you can get them cheaper as well. I've seen 5770s go for $150 on Newegg and as always you have the option of overclocking.

 

[homerdog]

+1 for the 5770. Can be had for $150 plus shipping on Newegg.

 

[xatnys]

Thanks for the input guys. I'll get a 5770 then. Man I hate how volatile the video card market is. I don't want to buy one day and then find prices drop the next. Oh well, that's how the ball rolls.

 

[Squilliam]

Thanks for the input guys. I'll get a 5770 then. Man I hate how volatile the video card market is. I don't want to buy one day and then find prices drop the next. Oh well, that's how the ball rolls.

Actually prices probably won't even look to come down unless Nvidia steps up to the plate and delivers along with TSMC's promised doubling of capacity in Q3. Trust me, you are quite safe and infact had you got a 58xx card at launch you'd have paid less than people do now.

 

[homerdog]

Man I forgot how far behind NVIDIA is these days

 

[Erinyes]

Theres a great deal on the Radeon 5830 at newegg. $215 with free shipping, 199 with a mail in rebate. And a free Avatar DVD thrown in too! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102878

 

[Davros]

how does a 5830 compare to a 8800gt ?

 

[Squilliam]

how does a 5830 compare to a 8800gt ?

Like a sacred double terrabyte of gaming goodness compares to a terrabyte of gaming goodness.

 

[Malo]

I went from an 8800GT to 5770 XXX and definitely noticed the difference in performance.

 

[Davros]

Just done a little research and the 5830 seems to be in between the gtx260 and the gtx275
and a little bit faster than the 4890

 

[Blazkowicz]

5830 is a high voltage salvage part, which uses a bit more power than a 5850 and is a bit more faster than the 5770 (about 15%) ; not much worth it.