From 8800gts 320mb to HD4850

[monovillage]

Well first post here and hope i'm not stepping where i shouldn't. Hardwarecanucks had a good article on the HD4850 and adding an AC Accelero to it. Tables at link.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com...cs-card-review-24.html

 

[SickBeast]

I recently bios hacked my 8800gts 320mb using NiBiTor, and managed to milk a good 20% extra performance from my card. I'd say it's worth a shot if you just need a small boost. You can tweak the fan profile so that it ramps up higher and keeps the card cooler.

I personally don't see the 4850 as enough of a boost to warrant an upgrade from a G80. That said, it will probably be at least 6 months before anything else comes out that can touch it at its current price.

You should also keep in mind the fact that you are more CPU limited than GPU limited on your setup. The 4850 would only put your rig further out of balance.

 

[nanaki333]

i'm trying to decide if i should upgrade my woman's computer that has a 256MB 8800GT to either a 4850 or 4870. i have a few of both cards sitting right here. i can sell the 4870 for more than the 4850, but i'll put a 4870 in if the 4850 won't be much of an upgrade at all. hrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[geoffry]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I recently bios hacked my 8800gts 320mb using NiBiTor, and managed to milk a good 20% extra performance from my card. I'd say it's worth a shot if you just need a small boost. You can tweak the fan profile so that it ramps up higher and keeps the card cooler.

I personally don't see the 4850 as enough of a boost to warrant an upgrade from a G80. That said, it will probably be at least 6 months before anything else comes out that can touch it at its current price.

You should also keep in mind the fact that you are more CPU limited than GPU limited on your setup. The 4850 would only put your rig further out of balance.

How high did you get yours?

Mine was factory overclocked but I pushed mine to 621/whatever the shader gets as its linked / 972 mhz on the memory....I didnt push the memory hard cause its the easiest to fry I think.

 

[dds14u]

Originally posted by: badnewcastle
After jumping on the 8800GT when it came out, I think I can speak from experience when I say just wait and see what Nvidia releases in competition for the 4870.

It's the GTX 260.

 

[kovboi]

i went from a 8800GTS 640mb to a 4850 and i'm pretty happy with it so far. there's a noticeable bump in performance in crysis and call of duty 4. more interesting to me, however, was that the picture quality is genuinely better. i'd always thought these sorts of claims were silly ATI fanboyism (been using nvidia cards for a long time), but i'm blown away by the difference from the nvidia card in subtle textures and vibrance in eve online. fwiw, i used the fan speed trick to raise it to 35% and the temps are slightly higher than the 8800GTS at idle (~54C) but several degrees less at load (~77C).

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: geoffry

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I recently bios hacked my 8800gts 320mb using NiBiTor, and managed to milk a good 20% extra performance from my card. I'd say it's worth a shot if you just need a small boost. You can tweak the fan profile so that it ramps up higher and keeps the card cooler.

I personally don't see the 4850 as enough of a boost to warrant an upgrade from a G80. That said, it will probably be at least 6 months before anything else comes out that can touch it at its current price.

You should also keep in mind the fact that you are more CPU limited than GPU limited on your setup. The 4850 would only put your rig further out of balance.

How high did you get yours?

Mine was factory overclocked but I pushed mine to 621/whatever the shader gets as its linked / 972 mhz on the memory....I didnt push the memory hard cause its the easiest to fry I think.

621/1512/945 (core/shader/memory)

I'm going to try to push it a notch further (648/1548/971) and see what happens.

Our results are pretty typical from what I can tell. This article can give you a pretty good idea of what our cards are capable of.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I overclock mine to 638/865. After that i dont want to push it any further. I paid $79.99 for my card a few months ago, so upgrading to a 4870 isn't worth the $$. Especially with the rest of my system.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Scholzpdx
I overclock mine to 638/865. After that i dont want to push it any further. I paid $79.99 for my card a few months ago, so upgrading to a 4870 isn't worth the $$. Especially with the rest of my system.

At 638 on the core I'm pretty sure you're actually only running at 621mhz. The g80 core uses steps in frequency instead of 1mhz at a time. I'm pretty sure the next step after 621 is 648. The same goes for the shaders and the memory (although I don't have the numbers handy).

 

[geoffry]

Originally posted by: kovboi
i went from a 8800GTS 640mb to a 4850 and i'm pretty happy with it so far. there's a noticeable bump in performance in crysis and call of duty 4. more interesting to me, however, was that the picture quality is genuinely better. i'd always thought these sorts of claims were silly ATI fanboyism (been using nvidia cards for a long time), but i'm blown away by the difference from the nvidia card in subtle textures and vibrance in eve online. fwiw, i used the fan speed trick to raise it to 35% and the temps are slightly higher than the 8800GTS at idle (~54C) but several degrees less at load (~77C).

Thats good to hear, I wanted to know someone who took a G80 GTS to a 4850 and tell the difference as there aren't any reviews pinning the two together anymore.

What resolution do you play at?

 

[geoffry]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Scholzpdx
I overclock mine to 638/865. After that i dont want to push it any further. I paid $79.99 for my card a few months ago, so upgrading to a 4870 isn't worth the $$. Especially with the rest of my system.

At 638 on the core I'm pretty sure you're actually only running at 621mhz. The g80 core uses steps in frequency instead of 1mhz at a time. I'm pretty sure the next step after 621 is 648. The same goes for the shaders and the memory (although I don't have the numbers handy).

Thats right, you can boot up NVmonitor to see what speed your card is truly running at, atleast thats how I checked.

 

[bryanW1995]

or gpu-z.

 

[Magusigne]

so marc...what did you decide?

 

[MarcVenice]

Yes, good question. I've decided to wait. Right now I'm a bit dissapointed with the performance of my 8800gts 320mb in Age of Conan but more people have less then stellar performance with better videocards then I. In other games my 8800gts is still pretty good. To top it of, I'm deciding on buying a LCD TV. I had the oppurtunity to buy a 26" for 310 euro's, pretty cheap, but it was an unknown brand, so I decided not to. Instead I decided to wait for a month, by then I know what I can spend, and I might get AND a LCD TV, AND the HD4850, or just one of those two. So thats it. I appreciate all your opinions, so thanks !

 

[cubeless]

you are cpu limited... i bet u won't see an increase in performance with the 4850... see if u can find a 6000 or the like for reasonably cheap and u will get a nice bump with your existing card...

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Yes, good question. I've decided to wait. Right now I'm a bit dissapointed with the performance of my 8800gts 320mb in Age of Conan but more people have less then stellar performance with better videocards then I. In other games my 8800gts is still pretty good. To top it of, I'm deciding on buying a LCD TV. I had the oppurtunity to buy a 26" for 310 euro's, pretty cheap, but it was an unknown brand, so I decided not to. Instead I decided to wait for a month, by then I know what I can spend, and I might get AND a LCD TV, AND the HD4850, or just one of those two. So thats it. I appreciate all your opinions, so thanks !

Good decision! I believe you are cpu limited as well like cubeless is saying. If you would like I will try Age of Conan demo on my Geforce 8800 GTS 320 with my Intel Duo Core E6420 if you would like to see if I get better performance.

 

[MarcVenice]

I doubt a 3000mhz x2 will be that much more faster then my x2 3800+ @ 2.6ghz. No way I'm dumping more money into this s939 rig though. If I buy a new CPU it's either a e7200 or a e8400

And if I am cpu limited, and the HD4850 won't do me much good, then I suppose it's even better not to buy a new videocard.

 

[mancunian]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
I doubt a 3000mhz x2 will be that much more faster then my x2 3800+ @ 2.6ghz. No way I'm dumping more money into this s939 rig though. If I buy a new CPU it's either a e7200 or a e8400

And if I am cpu limited, and the HD4850 won't do me much good, then I suppose it's even better not to buy a new videocard.

Not unless you do plan on going that E7200 route, which for a modest outlay can give surprisingly good results.

I went from:

Asrock Dual Sata 2 939 board
X2 4200 @ 2.6Ghz with Freezer 64 Pro
2GB DDR 400
Powercolor HD3870
Thermaltake 560W PSU 22a 12v rail

to:

Gigabyte P35 DS3L 775 board
Intel E7200 @ 3.8Ghz with Freezer 7 Pro
2GB DDR2 800
Asus HD4850 with S1 cooler
Corsair VX550 550W PSU 41a 12v rail

This wasn't as expensive as one would think, cost me 360 quid. I got 85 quid back for the old system, minus the 3870, for which I got another 60 quid.

So for 215 quid, this was WELL worth the upgrade. The difference is night and day @ 1680 x 1050.

Edit: I'm forgetting I sold the X2 separate as well, for 25 quid (mates prices). The complete system had one of my old 3200 venice chips in it. So, total outlay 290quid. If you can sell your parts, and can do what I did, i.e. sell the most attractive parts separately (939 X2 and video card), the upgrade could be well worth it.