Insanity check

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 12:44 pm

Hi!

Again in videocards arena. For somehow I haven't yet decided what videocard to buy. Asus GTX260, the one was very quiet in SPCR review is about 175â‚¬'s... But pricey, bit hot... very tempting.

Now is it insane to buy GTX 260 for 22" 1680x1050 resolution monitor? Is it not insane just plain stupidity? I wish to have GFX card that can run for me 2 or 3 years without need of changing cooler.

My Modded HD 4850 is absolutely fine... I've just started to drool GTX 260 for some reason. .. Sapphire HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 is only about 147 â‚¬'s but its not been verified by SPCR to be quiet.

*thinks*

Edit: perhaps I just shut be shut up be happy with my HD 4850 and buy bargain Sapphire HD 4830 for Teriatry as its almost as expensive as HD 4670 GDDR4. Instead buy GTX260 for game rig and put HD 4850 into Tertiary...

Why man can't be happy what he already has?

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 1:46 pm

You PROBABLY don't need a GTX260. It's longer and slightly less power efficient - not to mention harder to cool because of a lack of good compatible 3rd party coolers. The performance increase is there, but it's not big... Are there any games that are struggling on the HD4850 at your resolution? And if not, why bother upgrading now?

Meijer · Post by **Meijer** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 1:47 pm

You have a problem with your current HD4850?

I wouldn't expect any major performance differences between the HD4850 and the GTX 260, so I would keep the HD4850. The Sapphire Radeon HD4870 makes a lot of noise, at all fan speeds, at least with the reference design cooler. The cooler of the GTX 260 is better and makes less noise, but it still does more than enough for my liking. Not worth the money for the "upgrade" I would say. If you had an older card it would have been a harder choice. So really, be happy with it

.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 2:13 pm

I guess I could drop some details from Far Cry 2... Thanks guys. There is probably no need me to upgrade card for perhaps another year. I'll just buy HD 4830 for my tertiary. 80â‚¬'s is pretty decent price for HD 4830. And its over 90â‚¬'s cheaper than GTX260.

I am still getting a graphics adapter (HD 3200 just can't cut with HL2 engine in 22" resolution ). But it seems its pretty pointless to upgrade game rig as in idle fans spin about 800 rpm's ( all 120mm ) so adding GTX 260 would probably increase noise somewhat atleast in the load I presume.

And there' always a random factor of coil whine. My system is pretty coil whine free, except that sucky seagate, which I muffled with foam. I guess waiting the GT300 and HD 58x0 is wisest thing to do. After all we get more 40nm cores.

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 5:27 am

I have a single reference 4850. It was fine at playing all the games i wanted on my old 22" monitor. Maybe i had to turn down some of the settings from "ultra" to "high" but thats it.
Now i have a 28" 1920x1080 monitor, and still the single 4850 is capable of playing my games at max or near max settings.
You do not need 2 GTX260's, that i guarentee. In fact i would say you do not need to upgrade at all yet. Wait until you have to lower settings to medium in new games, thats the time to start thinking about upgrading IMO.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 8:03 am

FartingBob wrote:I have a single reference 4850. It was fine at playing all the games i wanted on my old 22" monitor. Maybe i had to turn down some of the settings from "ultra" to "high" but thats it.
Now i have a 28" 1920x1080 monitor, and still the single 4850 is capable of playing my games at max or near max settings.
You do not need 2 GTX260's, that i guarentee. In fact i would say you do not need to upgrade at all yet. Wait until you have to lower settings to medium in new games, thats the time to start thinking about upgrading IMO.

True, besides I am thinking that before I actually change my VGA card, I probably should change my Motherboard though... More horse powers next generation cards will provide, unfortunately my P35 board doesn't have HT 2.0... which limits some of the bandwith.

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:05 am

8400GS. 'nuff said

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 9:09 am

LodeHacker wrote:8400GS. 'nuff said

You will be burried with that 8400 GS when you die in heart-attack in venerable age of 134 years after chasing nurses in retirement home... *grins*

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:27 am

@jamppa: If talking about how I'm going to die then it goes like this: I get the yellow fever at the age of 40, take any plane to Japan, hunt down hot chicks and get a heart attack when finding out otaku Jamppa-san has taken the hottest girl in Japan. Something you didn't know was that I had implanted a microchip to my neck, which finds out whether blood is flooding or not. When I'm completely at the edge the microchip calls a local dealer for a 8400GS and pays automatically with my VISA. I get buried with my precious. At this point I'm already in Heaven, looking down to you how you dared to touch my girl and with telepathic communication skills I overvolt your Radeon cards and when you come home you'll find your screen with corrupted visuals and scream "NOOO!!!!11!1!1". Then suddenly you find that damn 8400GS you got as a gift from me for your birthday and start praying for forgiveness.

So to sum it up: 8400GS. 'nuff said

Dr Prozac · Post by **Dr Prozac** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 3:33 am

I'd suggest buying a new graphics card when you really need it. HD4850 should be sufficient at the moment and int he future you will be able to buy better cards than the GTX 260 for the same price.