I need a new PCIE video card

[Jay_S]

The only game I'm playing these days is Oblivion, and at 1680x1050 my 6800GS is just barely cutting it with all settings (except resolution!) turned way down. Grass is off, no shadows, medium textures (yuk), medium-low buildings and foliage distances, low blood decals, etc. It's not pretty, but it's still playable.

I've been playing with these settings for a few months now, and while it is playable, I miss the higher settings I could achieve with my old 1280x1024 monitor - especially the larger textures.

So, back to needing a video card. I made the mistake of buying the 6800GS right before the release of the 7600GT, which benchmarks considerably better in Oblivion supposedly due to more efficient core architecture in the 7-series. The 8-series handles oblivion better than the 7-series, but I don't want to make the same mistake I made with the 6800GS. At the resolution I play at, I'm looking at the 8800GTS. No AMD/ATI for me because I dual-boot linux, and their high-end is proving to be a bad buy compared to Nvidia at this point. With rumors of new Nvidia products due in November (9800GTX/G92/whatever), should I wait until x-mas time to start shopping?

I figure that once the 8800-series replacement is released (9800-series or whatever they call it), the 8800GTS should get a price drop.

A stop-gap solution would be a 8600GTS for around $150 to get me through the months before the next Nvidia release. The 8600GTS appears to do quite well in Oblivion (and worse than the 7600GT in just about everything else). But since Oblivion is still playable with my 6800GS, I'm not very enthusiastic about spending ANY money on something I'll soon replace.

The rest of my system is:
Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 socket 939 motherboard
Venice core Athlon64 @ 2.4GHz
1GB DDR 400 dual channel
400W FSP Green PSU


Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jay

[GamingGod]

I hate to break it to you but an athlon 64 would almost certainly bottleneck an 8800gts, and I'm certain that the reportedly 2x faster 9800gtx would be bottlenecked by that system. Maybe you should upgrade the rest of your system to a e4300 with 2 gigs of ram and overclock the $h!nikes out of it. That should be enough cpu power to keep up with the new video cards for a while.

My e4300 runs easily at 2800 without any volt changes and is super fast. Then in a few months you could buy a 9800gts for $400-450 or so, and be rockin`.

[Max Slowik]

I hate to break it to you but an athlon 64 would almost certainly bottleneck an 8800gts

No it won't. AMD processors at 2.6GHz and higher are enough for even SLI 8800GTXs. 2.4 is plenty for a single card, and probably enough for 9-series. Although I don't believe for a minute any of NVIDIA's performance claims. Did anyone really believe that ATI's HD 2900 XT for $400 would outperform an 8800 GTX?

The difference in FPS between a socket 754, single-channel, single-core 2.4GHz 1MB processor with an 8800GTX is only about 10-15% slower than a dual-core, 3GHz AMD 2x1MB processor. The gap narrowed to 1-5% with high anti-aliasing levels turned on. I know this because I've tried it.

[Max Slowik]

Anyway, I'm buying a pair of 8800GTS 320s for a build I'm putting together this week. I think it's fine time to buy; the inflation of the 9-series will make it unreasonable when it's first released.

[Jay_S]

Maybe I "bolded" the wrong sentance in my original post. I should have emphasised this more:

I figure that once the 8800-series replacement is released (9800-series or whatever they call it), the 8800GTS should get a price drop.

I want the 8800gts 640. It should do everything I want it to do. But if the 9-series release triggers an 8-series price drop, it makes some sense to wait - given that I can play all day long with my 6800GS and reduced settings right now. And buy the 8800GTS 640 if/when prices drop in November.

I'm not super interested in the 9-series yet. Not because of the CPU bottleneck, although there will likely be some. But more because I doubt my PSU is ready for the 9-series, even if there is a die-shrink. I don't buy Nvidia's steep power and current requirements for the 8800GTS, but according to them my PSU is borderline acceptible for the 8800GTS.

Maybe you should upgrade the rest of your system

No kidding - what advice! Please show me how dual core and DDR2 will have a real world affect on fps in Oblivion. As far as I can tell, dual core doesn't mean much in games, DDR2 doesn't mean much in games, intel/AMD doesn't mean much either. A few fps here and there. There are a lot of really good reasons to go multi-core, but right now gaming isn't one of them.

Look again at that first chart in the AnandTech article - sure the 1900XT crossfire is cpu bound at this low resolution, but still nearly doubles the framerates acheived by the 1800XL. So CPU bound or not - double the frame rates is double the frame rates.

This page at Firing Squad regards 8-series CPU scaling in Oblivion. Every cpu tested is GPU bound with the 8800GTS and GTX (except at low resolutions that shouldn't matter to people buying 8800's). One could argue that Intel's processors can do better, but really - we're looking at a spread from the 3800+ all the way to the FX-62 and there's AT BEST a 2-3 fps difference. I doubt an intel CPU would add much if anything given the GPU bottleneck.

Socket 939 isn't useless just because it's no longer in production. There will come a time when I will have to make the switch to more modern gear and this system will replace the "ancient" P4 northwood shit in my home theater (that's doing its job just fine), but I see no need at the moment. I'm hitting 2.4GHz with a semi-passive ninja. I can probably go higher with a fan on it. But really, I'm not sure it's necessary. I am severely GPU bound right now.

the inflation of the 9-series will make it unreasonable when it's first released.

Again, sorry - I should have emphasized that I didn't want the 9-series. I'm trying to get feedback on the possibility of the 9-series deflating the 8-series prices.

Jay

[Max Slowik]

There are usually sales and other shelf-clearing tactics, but prices don't usually drop until after the first quarter of the next generation.

The CPU price war has spoilt everybody.

[Alex]

Yes I belive Max Slowik is right.
I once wrote that the G80 series should drop in price but I realize that it is probably a very marginal drop. Just consider that the 8800 GTX still has about the same price as last December. As stated by Max GPU price drop seems to be very small compared to price changes (drop) for CPUs.

[Jay_S]

The CPU price war has spoilt everybody.

Totally!

the 8800 GTX still has about the same price as last December

I think this is because there has been no competition from AMD/ATI on the high end. If anything AMD/ATI made the wrong move by pricing its 2000HD stuff so high. Prices for mid-range 8600 stuff have dropped since launch.

Without competition and while demand remains high for the 8800 parts, prices should stay high. Hopefully competition from Nvidia's own 9-series will drive it down.