new graphics card now, or best to wait?

i have a 8800 gts 320mb at the moment. i have just got empire total war and the larger battles bring it to its knees! i have to play on medium with all the "check box" options turned off.

i was looking at the gtx 260 896mb (by bfg) - is this a good upgrade from what i have?

also, i have a core 2 duo e6600 - is this likely to be (part of) the cause for poor FR on ETW?

thanks

i have a 8800 gts 320mb at the moment. i have just got empire total war and the larger battles bring it to its knees! i have to play on medium with all the "check box" options turned off.

i was looking at the gtx 260 896mb (by bfg) - is this a good upgrade from what i have?

also, i have a core 2 duo e6600 - is this likely to be (part of) the cause for poor FR on ETW?

thanks

shutter_speed

You will notice a considerable jump across all games... and the e6600, whilst not the best processor for an RTS game, should still perform reasonably well. I don't know if E:TW sticks to the more CPU intensive, and if you will benefit from a CPU upgrade, and only a smaller bump in GPU... Hopefully someone has a fair idea

RTS's tend to be very CPU intesive. Thats not to say a good gpu isn't important, but the cpu may be part of the problem.

I hear so many people talking about the GTX 285, i think thats a solid card that you really cant go wrong with and wont go wrong with for awhile, it would give you quite the substantial upgrade i think that is a bit shy of the top tier 295.

I personally bought a 295 and im waiting for it to get in, but i just havent bought a top high end card in so long i felt it was time lol so its probably an overkill move but im loookin for the long haul with it.

But that 285 was so going to be my choice pretty much, amazing card from all that ive read and seen.

buy a new video card with g DDR5 memory

such as the ati 4870 or up.

however the 4870s i have my eye on; i am waiting for the price to drop to 150 withOUT rebate hassle

id wait. new 40nm coming out soon

buy a new video card with g DDR5 memory

such as the ati 4870 or up.

however the 4870s i have my eye on; i am waiting for the price to drop to 150 withOUT rebate hassle

choctawfootball

GDDR5 doesn't exactly make a graphics card better...

[QUOTE="choctawfootball"]

buy a new video card with g DDR5 memory

such as the ati 4870 or up.

however the 4870s i have my eye on; i am waiting for the price to drop to 150 withOUT rebate hassle

Sordidus

GDDR5 doesn't exactly make a graphics card better...

it helps but hardly makes it superior. case in point an hd 4550 is about as good as an hd 2400xt,theres about 2 fps difference and one has GDDR2 and the other GDDR3 or is it 4? anyway. its minor imo.

id wait. new 40nm coming out soon

joshuahaveron

that a bit true edgeOfThorns316 how ever if he want to wait a bit 4890 for 199-250$ us i heard will be about 20% better them 4870 1GB (waiting benchmark)
it said to be a worthyt rival of 285GTX as well a option to force nvidia to cut price of is 200GTX series or ATI will crush them with such price if true
Cause a 285GTX is about 330-350$ accordingwhat i know

if you think you want to wait till 2009 Q4 : you will have eitherHD5870 Series orGTX300 (DX11 Optimized Certificated)
it possible ati lead at start as i heard as soon as 2009 Q4 or 2010 Q1 They would have 5870x2 for nvida unknown if there are a named GX2 (tm)
curren tDual GPuSoltuion of Nvidia are 9800GX2 & 295GTX
(For ATI) (4850x2 1GB & 2GB ) 4870x2 (2GB) and i heard of incoming 4995X2 Around june


also it up to you how much you want to spend exemple the 4870x2 can be found ataround 335-350$US
and what game you desire to play if you have a huge lust andwant to game extremely high graphic on such resolution as 1920x1200 only in incoming game around 2009 Q3-Q4 then id suggest to wait and get those nice GTX300 or 5870 Seris (HD5000)

you are the mostly only one to have a idea if you should wait or not topic creator tough you can build ur self somegood idea tough discussion here

you are the mostly only one to have a idea if you should wait or not topic creator tough you can build ur self somegood idea tough discussion here

marcthpro

yeah i do agree with you, but i have been away from the graphics card maelstrom for a while (since i built my rig) and dont know very much about the newer cards, which is why i was looking for some advice

i only game at 1280 x 1024 (native res of my 19" lcd) and i prefer strategy and RPg to anything else, so as someone else said i think the CPU is pretty important for that too. i would rather upgrade both than drop all my cash on just a graphics card.

the BFG GeForce GTX 260 is 215 GBP which is a pretty good price (things more expensive in UK sadly), i don't really want to spend an extra 100 gbp which is what the GTX 285 costs here. then i may look at a new CPU later in the year - need to do some research on quad core as not sure if it will benefit the types of games i play.

one question i wonder if anyone can answer, is it difficult swapping a nvidia card for an ATI card? are there any issues? because i have only really looked at nvidia because thats what i have at the moment, but i have no real preference.

thank you to everyone who responded

I have the E6600 and it runs fine for me paired with my 4870. I have also overclocked my cpu to 3ghz so if you know your hardware and are comfortable with overclocking i would recommend it as i have had this oced for over a year without issue.

buy a new video card with g DDR5 memory

such as the ati 4870 or up.

however the 4870s i have my eye on; i am waiting for the price to drop to 150 withOUT rebate hassle

choctawfootball

I have the asus 4870 with the dark knight cooling system on one of my builds, its a very solid card. It handles being overclocked easily and the dk cooling system is awesome. When i am overclocked, my vc sits at a stable 51 c.