Video Card update question

[elacordeonachi]

So I plan on doing a wee bit of upgrading after the holiday season, and I'd like your opinion. Do I wait for NVIDIA to get off it's lazy butt and release DirectX 11 cards sometime next year, or do I go with something nifty in the Geforce 200 series? Currently I'm running a Geforce 8800. And no, I don't want to switch to ATI. Not that I'm a NVIDIA fanboy, but it's more of a "better the devil you know" sort of thing.

Oh, and yes, I'll be throwing other things in there as well (more RAM, Windows 7, bigger hard drive, etc.)

[churchofvirus]

Yes. Wait for the DX11 Nvidia cards. They stopped making many of the 'newer' GTX 200s (285/295). If you get anything else such as the 250/275 you won't be getting a huge performance boost worth the cost of the upgrade and you'd be denying yourself the DX11 and you'd be getting an outdated series. They should be available within the first quarter from what I've heard.

Remember, patience is a virtue.

[Shirukii]

To hell with your fanboyism, ATI is rocking hard right now. Despite incredibly low supply, I recently upgraded to a 5870, this thing is absolutely amazing, it takes everything I throw at it (even max antialiasing!) and doesn't skip a beat. Crysis at absolute max is the only thing that could bring it to its knees.

The reason I say you don't wait is that fermi (gtx3xx) isn't coming until Q1 2010 and even then, the supplies will be horrendous. ATI is having huge problems with their die manufacturers, yields are about 40-50%. nVidia's fermi relies on a process even more fragile than that, yields will be much lower and it'll probably be March-ish before a steady stream of 300-series cards are available for purchase.

I'm no fanboy either way, I go with whatever manufacturer is better at the moment, and undoubtedly, that's ATI right now.

[churchofvirus]

But as soon as Nvidias next series comes out, as usual, they will blow the ATI cards out of the water. Also, GTX 295s beat the 5870s in most benches. ATI makes the cards look better by comparing the 5870 to the GTX 285, which is only a slightly improved 280.

ATI and Nvidia have a history of this leap frog card stuff, but generation to generation, honestly, Nvidia takes the upper hand.

[Jeziah]

I think you should wait until DX10 becomes widely supported before you even consider dishing out ludicrous cash for a DX11 card. If I were you, I'd find a cheap card with 1gb of vram and a considerable single-core clock speed, and be satisfied with that, 'cause there's really no point in buying the latest and the greatest. 1gb of vram is the max XP fully supports anyways and there is absolutely no reason to have a dual-core card, and all the latest and greatest have are improvements in those 2 regions, core amounts and vram cache (I believe).
The day you'll want any more than that is the day video games are no longer made to run on XP.

[pneuma08]

Okay, same question but with a max budget of $200.

[Shirukii]

@ church

The gtx295 can't be compared to the 5870, that's dual card vs single card, hell the 4890s in xfire will do the same. The 5890 (5870x2) will absolutely smoke the gtx295. Yes Fermi, equipped with CUDA and physx will beat the 5870, but as it stands, it doesn't exist, and by the time it does, 5870s will be well stocked while the gtx3xx will not.

Price/performance is another thing to take into account, while the 5870 marginally loses out to the gtx295, it's also much cheaper. Fermi, with its insane transistor count and difficult manufacturing process will be on the order of ~$600.

@ pneuma

HD4890 or gtx260/275, the 4890 being the stronger choice.

I know I sound like an ATI fanboy, but I'm really not, it's just this generation ATI has the upper hand in price/performance. nVidia's 8xxx series held it for a long time, but no longer.

[Whatsit]

If it helps, here's a list of upcoming DX11 games:

[snakeeyes]

Realistically, we won't be seeing a decent influx of DX11 games until the next time you want to do a video card update. Go with a high-end ATI and run with it until 2011-2012, by that time there will be a decent amount of DX11 games on the market, and you'll be able to justify another upgrade.

[elacordeonachi]

Yowch! I guess I should have been more clear, I'm also kinda in Pneuma's boat, but with a bit more flexibility. I was also assuming (yeah yeah, I know, but sometimes you're pleasantly surprised) that there would be a mid-level DX 11 card that would be in that price range since Nvidia usually does that kind of thing (you know, one blazingly fast, blazingly expensive card. Then one middle and one low end.) Silly silly me (after looking at the prices of ATI's 5800 series prices and assuming that Nvidia's will follow suit). So really, what it comes down to is Nvidia GTX 260 (DX10) vs. ATI 5750 (DX11) vs. wait and hope for a mid range ($200-250) DX11 Nvidia sometime in the first half of next year... Hmm...

[pneuma08]

Well, for me the debate was really if I go with the 1G GTS 250 or not, but considering I could pick up an HD 5750/70 for about the same price it seems like a no-brainer. Although the open box GTX 275 is mighty tempting...! (It should also be noted that my current PSU doesn't have a PCIe connector, so upgrading to a card that uses one has a higher real cost as I'll have to replace the PSU as well.)

Of course this is with theoretical funds at the moment. I probably won't be able to do anything for reals until after the holidays.

[Jeziah]

Hmm. looking at the benchmark charts, it appears that your best bet would be to go with the Sapphire Toxic HD4890 1G GDDR5 Vapor-X (HD 4890 1024 MB). It's a new-ish, very high-rated card (according to this), and is only 223$ (free 24-hour shipping!) at PC Connection.

[pneuma08]

$223 is well out of my price range.

$150 is pushing it.

Edit: Hey, the GTS is on sale for $140 with free shipping.

[Jeziah]

I was talkind to elacordeonachi

[pneuma08]

Ah, well if you want to do it that way, the product you linked (and the one in the article) isn't the Sapphire one, it's actually made by Gigabyte. The Gigabyte one you can actually get for cheaper at amazon, buy.com, and this other place, all with free shipping (I can't vouch for the speed of the shipping, however). If you want the Sapphire one in the review you can get it from Newegg for 195, or 194 from here. No free shipping, but more often than not it's less than the $14 difference (shipping from newegg to me costs $7.50).

Oh, and this sweet article at Tom's Hardware concisely puts pretty much everything said in this thread.