When I get a new job...

I plan on buying a 8800GTX. I got told by my PC mechanic that its the fast card in the world or something good like that anyway.

I will upgrade my Mobo to a Asus A8N-SLI SE to go with my card as my currect Mobo cant handle it...

Will the rest of my spec manage and will the "new" mobo hadle it too?
I know LFS is more CPU demanding that GPU demanding, so will my CPU be alright?.

PC Spec:

Motherboard - Abit NF-M2 nView nF430 Socket AM2

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 3800+ AM2

RAM – 2 x Kingston 1GB 667MHz DDR2

Gfx - ATi Radeon X1600 Pro 512MB

Disk - 320GB Maxtor D/Max SATA2

Case - Aspire Discovery Black

PSU - EZCool 600W ATX PSU 12cm Silent Fan

Software - Microsoft Windows XP Pro

Thank you

You'll probably want to upgrade your processor but I think it'd be more important for us to know what you're going to be needing that 8800GTX for.

My concern is that you're going to be getting the 8800GTX but not use its full potential. LFS, for example, runs at 90+FPS on a PC with an Athlon 64 X2 5200+ and a X1950PRO.

Ultimately, it's your call. The 8800GTX is a great card but it might be a bit overkill for your needs.

What do you suggest that isn't so overkill mate?

EDIT: I will be using it to get the Maximum out of LFS and not have to worry about the other games I play every now and again.

An 8800 GTS is more suited imo. alot cheaper and as future prove as the 8800GTX

LFS i guess will be direct x10 eventually, The 8*** series were the first direct x 10 cards. Most new games now support direct x10.

IMO the 8800GTS is the best bank per card on the market today.

Bought a system and I run a 640mb 8800 GTS, and it runs great. Runs a lot of the latest games on maximum settings, and I love it . I'd definitely be able to pull a bit more FPS from games if I had even crazier hardware, but the 8800 GTS is just fine. Though, because your other hardware specs are not very similar to mine (cpu, memory, etc), I'd assume a GTX would compensate for that... so you'd be alright.

I might go for the GTS thinking about it...

Its almost half the price and just as good.

I can run everything on full now, but if I have high res tracks, it starts it struggle, around 20 fps

If I got the 8800GTS, would I be able to run everything on high as usual but with high res tracks comfortably?

There's an American expression. "There's no substitute for cubic inches". Get the biggest you can afford.

My plan exactly Mr. Man.
But on seconds thought, I dont wanna spend £400 on a card when I can do the same with £250ish.

Quote from The General Lee :

What do you suggest that isn't so overkill mate?

EDIT: I will be using it to get the Maximum out of LFS and not have to worry about the other games I play every now and again.

My X1950PRO (top of the line ATI equivalent to the NVIDIA 7-series) works fine with everything LFS, Battlefield 2142, and Guild wars throw at it with the maximum graphics settings in the games and stock graphics card settings.

Go with the 8800GTS. It might be a bit of overkill for LFS but it'll be a competitive graphics card for quite a while.

Thanks for everyones advice.

I think I will go for the GTS.

Thanks again, when I get my job sorted I will keep you all updated.

I would like to see what Jakg has to say though, even though he is a noob, he knows his shizzle

The 8800GTX is only needed right now if you plan on playing something like Oblivion on max settings, 4xAA 16xAF, and at a crazy resolution like 2560x1600 while maintaining a minimum of 30fps. So basically, it is overkill and will only elongate your E-penis .

Don't forget to upgrade your processor! I can recommend the Athlon 64 X2 5200+ because it's an inexpensive, high-quality, and fast processor.

I hope you haven't bought the 8800GTX yet. For LFS; i think it'd be best to get a Geforce 7 card (maybe used, a GTX or a GTO (downclocked GTX). Current AMDs (K8 architecture) can't really exploit the full Geforce 8 potential, you need a Core 2 Duo for that. And in some cases (especially LFS) even that would be too slow. Unless running 2 30' LCDs

I haven't bought it yet, I need a job first

I will go for the GTS I think. Maybe Dual Core, all depends on what happens.

Quote from The General Lee :

I haven't bought it yet, I need a job first

I will go for the GTS I think. Maybe Dual Core, all depends on what happens.

Try this link for the 8800 GTS (see first link) and since your on about a new cpu you might aswell get the AMD athlon X2 6000 since they have drop from £145 to £97.99 with the 9th april drop.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ ... 1&catid=56&subcat

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ ... mp;catid=6&subcat=803

Thats the CPU I would go for Thanks.

This is the GTS I would go for I think...
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products ... B+KO+ACS3?productId=26694

What resolution do you play at?

The 320mb version is fine for up to 1600x1200, 1920x1200 in some cases. It'll save you £100 and you really wont see much/any performance difference, unless as I say you use a > 24" screen (roughly speaking).

Personally I'd go for this: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/125183 or this http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/125117 as both are overclocked from standard and BFG and eVGA have massive warranties.

I play at 1280x960 but I plan on buying a second 17" monitor to go with my currect 17" monitor.

Don't you want to buy Intel Core 2 Duo processor? atm your processor is going to be bottlenecked!
But if you want AMD, then go with AMD, I'd suggest you go with good C2D.

I'm going to get the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ CPU and rather the 8800GTX or GTS. Maybe a RAM upgrade also. Also, I will need to change my MoBo to suit the Dual Core.

Quote from The General Lee :

I'm going to get the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ CPU and rather the 8800GTX or GTS. Maybe a RAM upgrade also. Also, I will need to change my MoBo to suit the Dual Core.

the 6000 sucks - get a GTS320 and a nice E6320, 2 GB of DDR2 G.Skill RAM and an Asus P5K and overclock, or keep your ram, get a cheaper mobo a C2D and a nice 22" Xerox TFT, £187.

Damnit, time to get on the plane (posting from the departure lounge coming back from my holiday)

That's strange you're getting such low fps with high-res textures on your current system. You have twice as much gfx memory & twice as much ram as I do, as well as a faster processor. 20 fps! Really?

Anyway, I'd advise on getting any of the new DX10 cards, but I would probably go with Nvidia, not that I've been keeping up with the driver improvements for the ATI cards. But you'll be future proofing yourself with a DX10 compatible card.

The A8N's are 939, and won't take AM2 cpus, btw

Quote from Tweaker :

Bought a system and I run a 640mb 8800 GTS, and it runs great.

Yeah , just got one also mate , they rock , got XP and Vista Ultimate partitioned , gonna test it on both OS's , see how she goes.

usually when i look for GPU data i go to this page

http://www.tomshardware.com/us/

As you can see there isnt that big of a difference. In some point 8800GTS 320 is eaven better then the 640 one. But the higher you go with resolution and details the 640 will go to fore. I would go for 640 one instead of GTX. Cheaper and not that much of a gap to the GTX