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Upgrade advice
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Upgrade advice // Roundtable
Post by splinters // Aug 7, 2008, 7:38am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Ok, normally pretty good at PC and tech stuff I though I would just get advice from a larger user base.
I currently have an AMD X2 6000 dual core, 4Gb DDR2 800 and an XFX Geforce 7900GT.
Pretty nice system, I just run Photoshop, tS and a few games; the most demanding of which would be Bioshock but I always get itchy feet for upgrades.
As far as I am aware my Mobo can take a Phenom 9500/9600 but these are now discontinued and replaced with the 9550/9650.
Anyway, I am looking at dropping in a Phenom 9650 and maybe a new graphics card.
My local store has a PNY Geforce 9600GT 512mb for a little over £100 and an 8800GT 1Gb for around £140.
Would tS, in particular, benefit from either of these upgrades (Cpu and Gpu) especially as I do more design work than gaming. I would be looking at around £300 for both...and I see online from the same store a whole PC base with an Intel Dual Core Quad 6600 with 3Gb Ram and inbuilt graphics (spare PCI-E though) 320Gb HD and Vista Home Premium for only £285 delivered.
Makes you wonder if it is worth upgrading my own PC.
Anyway, any advice welcome. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 7, 2008, 7:53am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Unless you catch a really good deal I'd wait a while longer. There's a lot of new tech coming soon. Particularly interesting is that Intel's Nehalem cores are looking to be another leap in performance and nVidia and AMD's ATI division both have stuff in the works that will reduce costs of their chipsets.
Here's a good place to catch up on the current news:
http://www.anandtech.com/ |
Post by splinters // Aug 7, 2008, 8:09am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Cheers Jack, perhaps I just needed someone to talk sense to me (and my wallet!)...;) |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 7, 2008, 8:22am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Glad to help. :)
I've been eyeing the ATI HD 4850 cards so I could be DX 10 compliant and stop having to worry about nVidia driver issues, but so far I've resisted temptation. :D
XFX cards are nice btw. The two 7900GS cards I have here are both XFX cards and they are still running great even overclocked. The only sore spot has been the nVidia drivers... *sigh* |
Post by Daaark // Aug 7, 2008, 8:29am
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Daaark
Total Posts: 45
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Your system looks pretty good. You might just want a new generation graphics card, but the only new features in the 8xxx and 9xxx series graphics card are for high end games.
A dual core is good for now. I've seen lots of talk that quad cores are running some programs a lot slower than dual cores. Because the individual cores have lower clock speeds and the apps don't handle multithreading too well yet.
Just something to consider. |
Post by splinters // Aug 7, 2008, 8:31am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Well I seem to be getting £300 better off during the course of this thread. Cheers guys....:) |
Post by stoker // Aug 7, 2008, 9:33am
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stoker
Total Posts: 506
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Makes you wonder if it is worth upgrading my own PC.
Y bother..?:cool:
Spend the money down the pub!:D |
Post by RAYMAN // Aug 7, 2008, 9:50am
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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Paul if Truespace is one of your main applications then I´d wait for the
specifications of TS 8 and the right hardware for that.
We can be almost 100% that there will be a native 64 bit version
so you would want to have as much ram as you can get your hands on !
Plus a new motherboard to handle that.
If I were you I´d save my money and only invest for now if something
in your computer breaks !
Peter |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 7, 2008, 9:56am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Agree 100% with Peter. Your next upgrade should make the leap to 64bit. You'll also want to start checking to see which of your music gear and software will migrate. A lot of audio products are having a really hard time with the Vista x64 environment. Roland/Edirol look like they've got the best x64 support at the moment, btw. |
Post by Breech Block // Aug 7, 2008, 9:58am
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Breech Block
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Hi Splinters. I recently upgraded my graphics card and chose a GeForce 8800 GT. The reason I didn't go for a GeForce 9 was that I read that in order to extract any real benefit from the card your mobo needs to be PCI-E 2.0 compliant.
In addition, you may wish to wait and see what impact Big Bang September will have on the GeForce range of cards. Apparently, September will see a hugely significant driver release programme from Nvidia. Check out the link for more info:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38649/135/ |
Post by Daaark // Aug 7, 2008, 10:07am
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Daaark
Total Posts: 45
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Yeah, September is the month that everyone's older model graphics cards seem to get 5-10% slower. ;) |
Post by splinters // Aug 7, 2008, 10:34am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Y bother..?:cool:
Spend the money down the pub!:D
Hello Mark, long time no hear. How the hell are you?
Did you enjoy your trip to Buddy World (say something nice...:D)?
Good to see you are still around....:D
I think I will spend it at the pub instead. |
Post by stoker // Aug 7, 2008, 11:56am
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stoker
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Hello Mark, long time no hear. How the hell are you?
Am or8 m8 ta!:) and ano, it has been a while but time seems to fly at the moment with work an all that.
Did you enjoy your trip to Buddy World (say something nice...:D)?
Yeah - pretty cool, not bad for you;):)
Why didnt I Get a DISCOUNT?;) |
Post by brotherx // Aug 7, 2008, 12:06pm
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brotherx
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Video card - my advice is the new Radeons...the 4850 is around 130 GBP if I remember correctly and is DX10.1, the only card except for the 4870 that is including the new geforce 200 series cards.
also, it performs as well as the 9800GT and it is inbetween the price range for the 9600 and the 8800 but will give you more performance than both.
It is PCIe 2.0 so you'd get the benefit if your motherboard supports them.
I got a gigabyte 4850 just 2 weeks ago and couldn't be happier - worth every cent. All my vista issues, a combination of card and driver issues, gone with a 5 minute swapover.
aaah bliss. |
Post by splinters // Aug 7, 2008, 1:46pm
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Yeah - pretty cool, not bad for you;):)
Why didnt I Get a DISCOUNT?;)
You never asked! |
Post by TheLion36 // Aug 8, 2008, 7:16am
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TheLion36
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If you have to chose between the 8800GT and the 9600GT go for the 8800GT, because it has twice the transistor count that the 9600GT has... They're both quite good cards, however be sure to check your mainboard vendor website to se if your mainboard works with the 8800GT since its what my mainboard vendor called a Gen2 card and it wouldn't work with my mainboard (which is why I ended up going for the 9600GT).
I'm amazed people always complain about the NVIDIA drivers, never had any real troubles with them myself... I did have loads of trouble with ATI drivers and I remember the user-made ATI drivers (third party) where always better than the official ATI drivers.
Then again my last ATI card was a Radeon 9800 PRO so that has been a while and they might have improved their drivers by now... :)
I always check http://www.tomshardware.com/ before buying anything hardware related, they also have some nice graphics charts where you can compare cards with eachother.
I helped a friend pick a graphics card not long ago and she ended up going for the Zotac 8800GT AMP edition, which did quite well in quite a few benchmarks, I managed to find the website with one of the benchmarks again so if you're interested in an 8800GT make sure to at least check this one out:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1262/zotac_geforce_8800gt_amp_edition/
EDIT: Looking at your system specs tho they seem to be quite adequate, if I where you and I didn't run into any trouble with my games or TrueSpace 7.6, I would wait with upgrading... :) |
Post by splinters // Aug 8, 2008, 7:39am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Nope, you are right..so I am off to get Guitar Hero 3 for my Wii and have a play with that tonight...:D |
Post by splinters // Aug 9, 2008, 2:50am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Well, I got Guitar Hero 3 and that was much more fun than working...but while I was there I spotted an XFX Geforce 8800GS 384Mb Alpha Dog edition reduced to £89.99..not brilliant I guess but looking at the boxes, they were all 1GB versions. I looked on their site (PC World) and indeed all they have listed is the 384mb version, but on the rack there are no 384mb just these 1GB versions. Now I like a bargain as much as the next man, so I could reserve one and get it for less than £90...
I just can't seem to find anything about a 1GB version anywhere on the net.
Is it a bargain or does the extra memory not make much difference to this card?
I realise my 7900GT is fine but I have a spare Mobo and some memory and thought about upgrading/rebuilding my daughters PC to use the 'leftover' stuff.:D
Any thoughts? |
Post by TigreStripe // Aug 9, 2008, 3:04am
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TigreStripe
Total Posts: 75
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Well, I got Guitar Hero 3 and that was much more fun than working...but while I was there I spotted an XFX Geforce 8800GS 384Mb Alpha Dog edition reduced to £89.99..not brilliant I guess but looking at the boxes, they were all 1GB versions. I looked on their site (PC World) and indeed all they have listed is the 384mb version, but on the rack there are no 384mb just these 1GB versions. Now I like a bargain as much as the next man, so I could reserve one and get it for less than £90...
I just can't seem to find anything about a 1GB version anywhere on the net.
Is it a bargain or does the extra memory not make much difference to this card?
I realise my 7900GT is fine but I have a spare Mobo and some memory and thought about upgrading/rebuilding my daughters PC to use the 'leftover' stuff.:D
Any thoughts?
At the moment, no. 512Mb would be the sweet spot. In the close future though 1GB and up will make a difference when the GPUs are used for other things like video encoding etc.
I'm not trashing Nvidia as they do make the faster cards these days but I run TS off a old ATI X800GT 256Mb and it handles it fine so you may want to go for a ATI 4850. Price for performance is excellent and they trail just behind the Evidia cards but much cheaper. If your a hard core gamer, go for Nvidia. |
Post by splinters // Aug 9, 2008, 3:09am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Oh well, I am intrigued though as I cannot find any 1gb 8800GS, not even on the XFX site. Could this be a nice mistake in my favour?
Could it be a GT in disguise? 1GB does seem a lot on a 8800GS...:confused:
I checked closely yesterday as I thought it was a GT originally and it definitely states 1GB DDR3 on the box....:confused::confused: |
Post by TigreStripe // Aug 9, 2008, 3:10am
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TigreStripe
Total Posts: 75
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Unless you catch a really good deal I'd wait a while longer. There's a lot of new tech coming soon. Particularly interesting is that Intel's Nehalem cores are looking to be another leap in performance and nVidia and AMD's ATI division both have stuff in the works that will reduce costs of their chipsets.
Here's a good place to catch up on the current news:
http://www.anandtech.com/
Cost is going to be a factor when it comes to Nahalem. You would have to jump to the X58chipset, only DDR3 for now. The cpus are a new socket, 1339 I believe but their performance is out there!
Intel does away with the FSB for something simular to Hypertransport for AMDs.
I held back upgrading for the time being. :D |
Post by TigreStripe // Aug 9, 2008, 3:13am
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TigreStripe
Total Posts: 75
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Oh well, I am intrigued though as I cannot find any 1gb 8800GS, not even on the XFX site. Could this be a nice mistake in my favour?
Could it be a GT in disguise? 1GB does seem a lot on a 8800GS...:confused:
I checked closely yesterday as I thought it was a GT originally and it definitely states 1GB DDR3 on the box....:confused::confused:
I'm not saying that you shouldn't get it. It's just if cost is your concern.
Me, I'd go for 1GB even if I didn't need it. I went for 256MB in a time when they said no game or app would need to use it for quite some time. My upgrade cycle is about 5 years so I've done okay. |
Post by splinters // Aug 9, 2008, 3:16am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Still I am intrigued at what this card is. A google search shows no XFX 1GB 8800GS or any other make.
Just what is it? |
Post by TigreStripe // Aug 9, 2008, 3:31am
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TigreStripe
Total Posts: 75
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Still I am intrigued at what this card is. A google search shows no XFX 1GB 8800GS or any other make.
Just what is it?
That's a good question. check this site, look down near the bottome. There is a 8800GT with 1gb. All the GS are 384 etc.
Box printing error? |
Post by TigreStripe // Aug 9, 2008, 3:35am
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TigreStripe
Total Posts: 75
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Still I am intrigued at what this card is. A google search shows no XFX 1GB 8800GS or any other make.
Just what is it?
oh yeah, and of course the link to the site would be good.
http://www.shopbot.com.au/c-83-0-184-1.html |
Post by splinters // Aug 9, 2008, 3:48am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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That is definitely the box :
http://www.shopbot.com.au/pp-xfx-geforce-8800gt-1gb-ddr3-pv-t88p-zhf4-price-106233.html
but the one in the shop is clearly labelled as a GS...it is the transparent sticker on the end of the box that says 1GB (and on the main print I believe)...
Oh well...:o |
Post by TigreStripe // Aug 9, 2008, 4:00am
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TigreStripe
Total Posts: 75
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That is definitely the box :
http://www.shopbot.com.au/pp-xfx-geforce-8800gt-1gb-ddr3-pv-t88p-zhf4-price-106233.html
but the one in the shop is clearly labelled as a GS...it is the transparent sticker on the end of the box that says 1GB (and on the main print I believe)...
Oh well...:o
Well, if you go for it and end up with a 384Mb your ahead of ram on me. If it is a 1GB, you still win. |
Post by splinters // Aug 9, 2008, 4:40am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Looking on the site, they have a 1GB 8800GT but none in stock at the store yet there are around 10 of those labelled as 8800GS 1GB.
So, I could end up with an 8800GT 1GB for £90...or not.
Chance you take eh? For that price the 8800GT would be a steal! |
Post by splinters // Aug 9, 2008, 6:49am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Mystery solved-went to the store (walking distance)and they had put an 8800GT 1GB in a GS sleeve and on the shelf with all the 8800GS's. No other GT's in the store..strange.
Back to work now...:D |
Post by TigreStripe // Aug 9, 2008, 4:53pm
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TigreStripe
Total Posts: 75
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Mystery solved-went to the store (walking distance)and they had put an 8800GT 1GB in a GS sleeve and on the shelf with all the 8800GS's. No other GT's in the store..strange.
Back to work now...:D
Hmm... it is strange. In Australia, there are many local shops with staff that have no clue about component sales. Have you delt with this shop before?
When I bought my X800GT it was under the assumption that my X700 Pro had crashed and burned as I didn't have another system to test it. The sales person said the GT was a bit under the X700 even thought it was a higher model. Anyway, that's the way it is with some shops. |
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