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Geek Culture / How does my system rate today?

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Fallout
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Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 2nd Jul 2007 12:39 Edited at: 2nd Jul 2007 12:41
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Ok, I've been out of the game purchasing mentality for a while, but I'm thinking I might pick up a few of the new games coming out. I think I'll need to upgrade my gfx card, but I reckon the rest of my system will be ok for a while. I built it about 2.5 years ago:

AMD4000+, 2GB RAM, SATA Harddisks. PCI-E slot for gfx card and SLI capable. It's on a Gigabyte mobo. Not sure of the specs, but it was a decent one. The RAM was top spec stuff if I remember rightly. The highest spec game I own is Oblivion and I think I ran that on medium settings with no slowdown. Current GFX card is a 6600 256MB twin GPU, so effectively 2x6600 128MB in SLI mode.

Do you guys who've been following hardware and system spec recently think that rig will last me a bit longer if I just update the gfx card? And if so, what's a good card to aim for to give me another year say of use before updating the whole system? (So I dont want a really expensive card, I'll get a new one when I build a new system).

Cheers chaps.

Edit: I'm thinking about getting games like Stalker, the new Quake etc.


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Van B
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Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 2nd Jul 2007 13:17
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You'd probably be able to run Stalker already, not the new quake but Stalker is only about the same as HalfLife2 in terms of spec hunger.

Maybe just getting a 8500 or something would be enough for a while.


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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Fallout
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Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 2nd Jul 2007 13:32
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Cheers Van. I read a few posts from various places that Stalker can be really stuttery and spec hungry? I can run Half Life 2 fine, although I think I have the graphics on about medium on that too. Will check out that 8500 though and see what the stats are like. Cheerage.


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Chris K
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Joined: 7th Oct 2003
Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 2nd Jul 2007 15:09
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Hmmm I don't know, I've always felt is was better to go for a card that was, at one stage, top of the range rather than one that was designed budget...

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
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Van B
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Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 2nd Jul 2007 15:13
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He's just looking to patch things up to keep it going though, that's why I suggested that. Don't think Fallout wants to spend hundreds on a graphics card right now - it's not the best time to buy a card anyway, not until we see what ATI have to offer.


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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MikeB
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Joined: 5th Apr 2007
Location: My Computer, Shropshire, England
Posted: 2nd Jul 2007 19:25
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Quote: "He's just looking to patch things up to keep it going though, that's why I suggested that. Don't think Fallout wants to spend hundreds on a graphics card right now - it's not the best time to buy a card anyway, not until we see what ATI have to offer."


I know you can have four of their latest graphics cards in your pc at once .


Mike

Call me Mike please
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the_winch
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Joined: 1st Feb 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posted: 2nd Jul 2007 23:51
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I a 8500 actually better than what he already has?

Nvidia has a bit of a history of releasing budget cards which have a hard time standing up against the previous generation cards. The fx5200 for example. Supported all the directx 9 shader stuff but too slow to use it in a game.

By way of demonstration, he emitted a batlike squeak that was indeed bothersome.
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Steve J
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Joined: 22nd Apr 2006
Location: Vancouver, Washington
Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 00:00
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Get the HD 2400!

It beats the 8500 in benchmarks, and is better for video decoding, ect.

Newegg has one.

Time is ticking away.
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CJD
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 00:30
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Quote: "I read a few posts from various places that Stalker can be really stuttery and spec hungry?"


That's the Stalker i experience I can run HL2 on max settings fine with my 7600GT but as soon as i turn on full dynamic lighting on Stalker my fps goes way down. I think Stalker is badly coded because its on an old engine and runs worse than Oblivion. However please bear in mind i know very little about the development of Stalker or any of the big games for that matter

Your signature has been erased by a mod because it's larger than 600x120
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Van B
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 09:40
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I played through HL2 and Doom3 on a FX5200 - not on high detail, but it looked about as good as the XBox versions.

I didn't think the 8500 was too much of a budget card, you can get decent variants I think, or even an 8600 - I thought the lowest of the low of the 8 series was the 8400?

I got my 7950GX2 setup yesterday, very nice card, 110,000 on Aqua Mark 3.


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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Fallout
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Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 11:04
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Hmmm, well I've found an 8500 for about £60 and an 8600 for about £100. So the question is, how much do I want to spend, how long do I want it to last, what games do I want to buy, and how good do I want it to look?

If you could answer all those question for me, that'd be great.

...

Ok, at the moment I still favour the £60 price range, but I would consider the 8600 at £100+ if the difference is significant enough?


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Van B
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 11:12
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It's a dilemma huh!

We should look at some sort of scoring to compare them, and see if the difference is worth £40...
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38769

Comparing an 8500GT and an 8600GT, looks like the 8600 is more than twice as fast as the 8500. I think you should stretch to the 8600, then later if you want to improve matters further you could buy another 8600 and SLI them together. If you get an 8500, then it's pretty much not worth holding onto on your next upgrade IMO, whereas the 8600 might be.


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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Fallout
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 11:34
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Yeah, good find! It does indeed look like it's twice as fast. I didn't realise with the different cards they changed the core clock and then had doubly fast vid ram. I thought the RAM was clocked up a bit, kinda in-sync with the GPU. Shows how out of the loop I am.

Ok, I'll look for the best bargain on an 8600 I can find and see if I can justify it. The only thing that bugs me is this nice lil' twin GPU 6600 that has served me so well won't be any use to me, or anyone else. I think it's designed to work with my mobo only, but I'm not sure. I really should bench mark it though just to make sure it's a good deal slower than the 8600 before I chuck it away.


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Chris K
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Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 12:13
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Honestly, unless you specifically want it to be DX10, you should get a high end 7 series.

I'm not getting a DX10 card until I can afford an 8800.

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
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Fallout
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 12:38
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Hmm, you have a point. If we're going to start to see a lot of pretty DX10 optimised games imminently, then I should really get a DX10 card, but if we're not, then perhaps a 7 series is the way to go if it'll give me higher frame rates.


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