9800GT Still viable for gaming?

[awongsurawat]

I have two video cards, a 9800GT, and a HD4670. I was planning on using the 9800GT in a new build on a budget, (AMD FX-6300, MSI 970A-G46, 2x4GB RAM), and I am wondering if that is still a viable card, and with the FX-6300 it won't be the limiting factor regarding what resolution I play at? I am currently playing Skyrim, and Diablo III. If not, any suggestions for a good card on a budget, either nvidia or AMD, no matter? Another option would be for me to get another 9800GT and run SLI. I was budgeting for around $400 total, for CPU, Motherboard, RAM, SSD. I already got the SSD, so that took around $100 off that budget. I may be able to spend up to another $100 for the video card, so $500 total.

 

[Face2Face]

9800 GT is pretty old now. When my HD 7950 was out for RMA, I played Skyrim and D3 with a GTS 250 1GB card and it actually did pretty good with medium settings @ 1080p. Though gts 250 is not much faster, but i'm sure the 1GB of vram helped quite a bit. I wouldn't advise going SLI will such an old card.

Take a look at this article - http://www.anandtech.com/show/7888/best-video-cards-march-2014 - R7 250X or if you can stretch for a R7 265/ GTX 750 Ti

 

[BUnit1701]

As long as you are willing to turn some detail down, it will certainly play current games, but don't expect it to perform miracles.

 

[Techhog]

I'd say use it for now and save up for something better for later. Saving up for a $200 GPU would do just fine.

 

[awongsurawat]

It looks like an R7 250/265 may be what I get, or perhaps a GTX 660? These are starting to creep up closer to $200, which looks like what I need to spend to get performance gains over the 9800GT. I may use the 9800GT for now, then upgrade when I sell more old parts!

 

[Techhog]

It looks like an R7 250/265 may be what I get, or perhaps a GTX 660? These are starting to creep up closer to $200, which looks like what I need to spend to get performance gains over the 9800GT. I may use the 9800GT for now, then upgrade when I sell more old parts!

Exactly. that's the best choice. Save up a but, and you'll likely even manageto get an R9 270(X).

 

[DominionSeraph]

270X for $180
http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usa...CGAX-R927X614&manufacture=Club3D&promoid=1020

 

[nwo]

9800GT is still good for DX9 and perhaps DX10 games such as Diablo 3, but any more recent demanding titles such as BF3, BF4, Titanfall, etc, will greatly struggle and also possibly look a lot worse due to the lack of DX11 support.

I wouldn't really recommend a $150 Radeon 265 at this point. They are still pretty rare and understocked. However, 270s are a dime in a dozen and often can be had for as low as $160 which makes it a significantly better choice than a 265. A suitable alternative and perhaps the best bang for the buck card would be a $180 270X.

 

[awongsurawat]

That is exactly what I am looking for, the best bang for your buck, and it sounds like the R9 270x. So now, seeing that I would want to opt for a more expensive video card, should I get a AMD FX-6300 over an Intel i3 or i5?

Also, would I need an upgraded power supply? Current one is only 500W.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

That is exactly what I am looking for, the best bang for your buck, and it sounds like the R9 270x. So now, seeing that I would want to opt for a more expensive video card, should I get a AMD FX-6300 over an Intel i3 or i5?

Also, would I need an upgraded power supply? Current one is only 500W.

I would argue that a 7850 for $110 after rebate is a really good deal, especially if you are willing to do a little overclocking

Fx 6300 (OC?) and i3 are fairly equal. Can sometimes find deals on the AMD's that make them a bargain. For a gaming rig I would go i5 if you can at all afford it.

 

[Leyawiin]

Get a new card. Out of curiosity I tried my old 8800 GTX (OC'd to 648 Mhz) with Skyrim and it crippled along at medium settings - fairly choppy game play in many situations. A 9800 GT would probably have similar performance. Grab that HD 7850 that monkeydelmagico just posted. I have an HD 7850 2GB in one of my PCs and it plays Skyrim on Ultra quite smoothly.

 

[awongsurawat]

Is the R7 260x a rebadged Radeon 7850? I would rather spend the money eventually on a video card instead of processor for gaming, unless that is the wrong way of thinking? Not sure if I can afford an i5 over an i3, but would one choose an FX-6300 over an i3-4130 or no?

 

[Leyawiin]

No, its a rebadged HD 7790. The R7 265 is the rebadged HD 7850.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=36205066&highlight=#post36205066

If you have a Fry's nearby, they have the i3 3240 on sale according to their Wednesday ad online (http://www.frys.com/ads/page10#AdNavi) for $88. Oddly enough, it doesn't show at that price on their website and it doesn't adjust even if you choose in-store pickup, but since it's in their ad I'd assume the store will sell it to you at that price.

i3 3240 and a 7850 for around $200.- is a killer basis for an inexpensive gaming rig. You live near a microcenter?

 

[awongsurawat]

I don't live near a Frys or Microcenter, the nearest Microcenter is about 3.5 hours away, and the nearest Frys is probably 4.5 hours away.

Sometimes I miss living in a bigger city.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=36205066&highlight=#post36205066

i3 3240 and a 7850 for around $200.- is a killer basis for an inexpensive gaming rig. You live near a microcenter?

 

[Techhog]

I don't live near a Frys or Microcenter, the nearest Microcenter is about 3.5 hours away, and the nearest Frys is probably 4.5 hours away.

Sometimes I miss living in a bigger city.

I live in a big city, and I'm still 1.5 hours away from MC.

 

[nwo]

I would argue that a 7850 for $110 after rebate is a really good deal, especially if you are willing to do a little overclocking

Fx 6300 (OC?) and i3 are fairly equal. Can sometimes find deals on the AMD's that make them a bargain. For a gaming rig I would go i5 if you can at all afford it.

I would absolutely agree that a 2GB 7850 at only $110 is a great choice. It's only about 15-20% slower than a 270x but it's about 40% cheaper.

If it was between an FX 6300 and a Haswell i3, I would probably opt for the Haswell i3. That way you can always sell it and upgrade to an i5 or i7. The new Haswell HT is a good improvement over Sandy/Ivy HT, which is evident in gaming benchmarks. But prices would have to be taken into consideration. But when doing so, you have to keep in mind adding an additional $20-30 for an aftermarket HSF if you are planning on OCing the FX 6300 while the i3 will run on stock cooling since it cannot be OCed (much).

 

[tweakboy]

Get that 7850 and make room for yourself for your next video card updatek, hopefully youll last for fouple more years,,,

 

[awongsurawat]

If I go with Intel, it would be a Haswell i3, any suggestions for motherboard to go with that? I would like to have four RAM slots, if possible, and two PCI-E slots, one x16 and the other at least x4 if not x8. I may have to go with a less expensive motherboard than the one I was thinking about for the FX-6300.

If I could swing it I would get the 2GB 7850, but that may have to wait a bit.

I would absolutely agree that a 2GB 7850 at only $110 is a great choice. It's only about 15-20% slower than a 270x but it's about 40% cheaper.

If it was between an FX 6300 and a Haswell i3, I would probably opt for the Haswell i3. That way you can always sell it and upgrade to an i5 or i7. The new Haswell HT is a good improvement over Sandy/Ivy HT, which is evident in gaming benchmarks. But prices would have to be taken into consideration. But when doing so, you have to keep in mind adding an additional $20-30 for an aftermarket HSF if you are planning on OCing the FX 6300 while the i3 will run on stock cooling since it cannot be OCed (much).

 

[nwo]

If I go with Intel, it would be a Haswell i3, any suggestions for motherboard to go with that? I would like to have four RAM slots, if possible, and two PCI-E slots, one x16 and the other at least x4 if not x8. I may have to go with a less expensive motherboard than the one I was thinking about for the FX-6300.

If I could swing it I would get the 2GB 7850, but that may have to wait a bit.

Odds are that the longer you wait on the GPU upgrade, the better. The market is finally getting stabilized and saturated with the new Radeons and we are seeing prices of some cards fall below MSRP for the first time since their release.

As far as the board... You could go with an H87 which should have all the features you are looking for. Or, a Z87 chipset for slightly more $$ which would be useful if you plan on upgrading to an unlocked i5 or i7 CPU and then overclocking it.

 

[Yuriman]

If I go with Intel, it would be a Haswell i3, any suggestions for motherboard to go with that? I would like to have four RAM slots, if possible, and two PCI-E slots, one x16 and the other at least x4 if not x8. I may have to go with a less expensive motherboard than the one I was thinking about for the FX-6300.

If I could swing it I would get the 2GB 7850, but that may have to wait a bit.

I just ordered this board to pair with an i3 for my wife's PC:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My second choice would be ASRock's B85 board, but it's a few dollars more expensive on newegg.

H81 will not have 4 RAM slots or two full length PCIe slots, B85 is the minimum chipset for that. H87 adds RAID, more USB3 ports, and more SATA 6gbps ports. Z87 adds overclocking, but i3's are locked.

Boards will have one 3.0 16x slot and one 2.0 4x slot (full length) unless they include another chip to add lanes. I think this is because of the limited number of lanes included on 1150 chips.

 

[Headfoot]

You should really consider buying used.

You can get a GTX 560 Ti for $70-80 easily these days, which is a lot of bang for your buck. You can also find 6970s for as low as $130. Otherwise, if you can actually find a 7850/265 for $110 that's a killer deal. You can probably also gimp by on that 9800 GT for a little while at minimum settings until you can afford to move up. It should work fine for DX9 games

 

[tullnd]

Amy? Lol that has to be you. This is Neil(335i you bought my exhaust).

Msg me if you need something picked up from MC and shipped or something.

I even have a PC for sale right now, but it's a HTPC case(very low slim line) and no room for a discrete video card without modding.

 

[awongsurawat]

It's Adrian, but yeah, I remember you. I am thinking of building up an i3 to start with 8GB, and would like a motherboard with four RAM slots. I would use one of our old cases, so I can put the discrete video card in there. How's it going?

Amy? Lol that has to be you. This is Neil(335i you bought my exhaust).

Msg me if you need something picked up from MC and shipped or something.

I even have a PC for sale right now, but it's a HTPC case(very low slim line) and no room for a discrete video card without modding.

 

[awongsurawat]

I just ordered this board to pair with an i3 for my wife's PC:

MSI Computer Corp. Motherboard Micro ATX DDR3 1333 LGA 1150 Motherboards B85M-G43

My second choice would be ASRock's B85 board, but it's a few dollars more expensive on newegg.

H81 will not have 4 RAM slots or two full length PCIe slots, B85 is the minimum chipset for that. H87 adds RAID, more USB3 ports, and more SATA 6gbps ports. Z87 adds overclocking, but i3's are locked.

Boards will have one 3.0 16x slot and one 2.0 4x slot (full length) unless they include another chip to add lanes. I think this is because of the limited number of lanes included on 1150 chips.

I think I will consider that motherboard from above...MSI Computer Corp. Motherboard Micro ATX DDR3 1333 LGA 1150 Motherboards B85M-G43 for my i3 build. I like the fact that it has more than one full length PCI-E slot. Thanks for the suggestion!