A Smart Move? (Video Card Upgrade)

[DragonFire1170]

I've been eyeing a video card for some time, not yet decided to buy it though, but would it be a good move for this upgrade:

Current (Specs According to Site):

Card: Galaxy Nvidia 9500 GT
Core Clock: 550mhz
Stream Processors: 32

Memory:

Effective Memory Clock: 800 mhz
Memory Size: 1GB
Memory-Interface: 128-bit
Memory Type: GDDR2

Target Card (Specs according to site):

EVGA Nvidia 9800 GTX+
Core Clock: 738mhz
Shader Clock: 1836mhz
Stream Processors: 128

Memory Stats:

Effective Memory Clock: 2200mhz
Memory-Size: 512mb
Memory-Interface: 256-bit
Memory Type: DDR3

Price: $130

[Rally]

Probably not. Don't get me wrong, the 9800 is a great card, but it's an almost exact copy of the 8800 which is 3 years old now. It was great in it's time and still performs fine today. You can get it and it'll run MWLL pretty well, but why would you when you can get newer cards now with features like DX11 for a similar price?

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

I agree with Rally.  I have a 8800gt and love it to bits.  Runs MWLL around 20-30fps at 1400x900 med details. BUT i'm eying new cards myself as the new midrange almost double my current performance all for under $200.

[DragonFire1170]

I just spotted one on that same site for only $99, its an ATI HD 5670 with DX11 support.  Thanks for some of the pointers.

[[MPB]OM_Sannyasi]

how much are you looking to spend? i bet i can find you a better card than that for the same price- though, if you get a high dollar card that ram is going to bottleneck. i went from ddr2 800 to ddr300 with same setup (new mb of course) and i got a 15 fps increase with same settings. with that price range though you should be pretty well balanced. just depends on price and what you're looking for

EDIT:

just checked prices on newegg, the cheapest one is about 130-140. dish out another 10-20 and you could get a cheap 260, 4870, or 5770, nvidia in that class is known to run crysis smoother but i have experience with a single and crossfired 4870s, they are also very good cards. i have a friend with a 5770 and it does about the same and supports eyefinity and crossfire on them performs very well if your planning ahead+ dx11, i have read a few reviews about eyefinity with 5770 and you have to run most games with very low settings to get descent performance but it still is capable, for work purposes 3 monitors on one card is very useful. i personally have a 5870 now and i love the shit out of this card but they are quite pricy right now. hope this helps, take care

[[MPB]OM_Sannyasi]

how much are you looking to spend? i bet i can find you a better card than that for the same price- though, if you get a high dollar card that ram is going to bottleneck. i went from ddr2 800 to ddr3 1600 with same setup (new mb of course) and i got a 15 fps increase with same settings. with that price range though you should be pretty well balanced. just depends on price and what you're looking for

EDIT:

just checked prices on newegg, the cheapest one is about 130-140. dish out another 10-20 and you could get a cheap 260, 4870, or 5770, nvidia in that class is known to run crysis smoother but i have experience with a single and crossfired 4870s, they are also very good cards. i have a friend with a 5770 and it does about the same and supports eyefinity and crossfire on them performs very well if your planning ahead+ dx11, i have read a few reviews about eyefinity with 5770 and you have to run most games with very low settings to get descent performance but it still is capable, for work purposes 3 monitors on one card is very useful. i personally have a 5870 now and i love the shit out of this card but they are quite pricy right now. hope this helps, take care

[DragonFire1170]

I looked at this site called PassMark, and the Radeon HD 5670's rather high on the charts compared to my current card, here's a link to the search.  I'm willing to spend up to $120, I mainly look at the best rated items on Newegg when searching for specific parts.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=Radeon+HD+5670

[[MPB]OM_Sannyasi]

note that the 5870 rates higher than the 5970. don't always go off of one benchmark- each game differs. crysis likes nvidia a bit better so check each game and decide how much you are going to play it before making a decision and compare as many benches as possible, each are a bit different so take an average of all that you find, at least 5-10. i did a shit load of research before settling on every part of my system and i'm very very glad i did

[DragonFire1170]

Hm...I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to picking a card, got any suggestions (DX11 capable) within the 120-140 dollar range? (I prefer Nvidia anyway)

EDIT: I'm also looking for one that'd run rather well on Crysis and other high-end games.  Also, it has to be a PCI Express 2.0 x16 port.

[[MPB]OM_Sannyasi]

i would go with a 260, the cheap ones are 145ish, if you wait a bit you might be able to catch an open box one for 120, though they only have a limited warrenty and may not come with every single addapter and cable you need

[DragonFire1170]

Alright, thanks.  And for reference, if the 260 is out of reach (incase I don't want to spend that much), what would a good fall-back be?  I'm more than willing to spend up to $110 for the fall-back card.

EDIT: Googled for a list of Top 10 cards in 2010, a Diamond Radeon HD 5670 is rated #3, for the price of $130 (TigerDirect).  The site said nothing about Nvidia, stating ATIs are currently the best buy.

[CHHš Rampage]

I am not sure how the websites you are looking at rate the video cards but in this review the HD5670 got trounced by all the cards that people were recommending to you. They said it would be a good card to replace onboard graphics. If your goal is to play MWLL then you may want to get something a little stronger. Review is here:

http://www.geekinvaders.com/?p=1873&page=9

[DragonFire1170]

I've decided I'll go for a GTX 260, the multi-core in it would no doubt take quite a load off my FPS.  Thanks for all the help guys, the 9500 GT's been good to me for a while (compiled with my system, I could run MWLL on semi-highest settings), and I'm looking forward to upgrading.

[[MPB]OM_Sannyasi]

very good choice especially for crysis, i've used a 250 which i installed in a family members puter and tested crysis with and it does a great job, the 5670 is more of a media type graphics card, not really for gaming- i am sure you will be satisfied with ur choice

[Rejectallevils]

Flatout Crysis/MWLL is more CPU heavy than GPU. I have a 9800 GTX+ and a Core2 Duo 2.67 and believe me.. the CPU is dragging my performance down. I can barely play on all low settings when there are 20+ people in a server.