Graphics card bottleneck?

[Sicron]

My 8600M GT(laptop card with T7300 (2.0GHZ Dual Core) as CPU) can run Crysis on medium/high on 1280x720. If he uses the same resolution and has a 7900GS which is twice as strong. You could definitly run Crysis on high.

Also, do not get a 9600GT. It isn't that much better than the 8XXX series and you would rather want to get an 8800GT. It's about the same price (slightly more expensive) but it is also a bit more powerfull than the 9600GT. It has more texture units than the 9600GT which means it can process the texture mapping much faster.

Oh and by the way, the X600 cards of nVidia are not "crap" cards. They are just not ment for hardcore gaming. Any X600 card can probably play any game on the market (at the time of release) on medium/high settings at a somewhat lower resolution. The X500 and X400 cards are not ment for gaming, but still doesn't mean they are complete crap, as long as you overclock them. I have seen the 8400M GS card being overclock and coming very close to the 8600M GT card.

 

[TigerGEO]

You can also go on a 9600 GSO it's cheaper and it's near 9600GT. And it's kinda of a difference between that one and the 8600GT.

9600 GSO

Processor Cores 96
Core Clock (MHz) 550 MHz
Shader Clock (MHz) 1375 MHz
Memory Clock (MHz) 800 MHz
Memory Amount 384MB
Memory Interface 192-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 38.4
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 26.4

8600GT

Processor Cores 32
Core Clock (MHz) 540 MHz
Shader Clock (MHz) 1180 MHz
Memory Clock (MHz) 700 MHz
Memory Amount 256MB
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 22.4
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 8.6

9600 GSO beats 8600GT in everything and it's not just a little difference between both it's kinda big (except the MHz). I saw this card yesterday here in a shop and it's 119€ and comes with Assasin's Creed. I own a 8800GTS 640 and I'm very happy with it (running crysis with everything maxed out and it works pretty smooth) although I want to get a 9xxx series card but I'm low on budget now =/

PS: 9600GT beats them both ;p and he will get bottlenecked by the processor if he gets an 8800GT

 

[SSJ4boneVegeta]

Oh and by the way, the X600 cards of nVidia are not "crap" cards. They are just not ment for hardcore gaming. Any X600 card can probably play any game on the market (at the time of release) on medium/high settings at a somewhat lower resolution. The X500 and X400 cards are not ment for gaming, but still doesn't mean they are complete crap, as long as you overclock them. I have seen the 8400M GS card being overclock and coming very close to the 8600M GT card.

Ok maybe crap was an exaggeration but i did say they were all from Mid range straight to Low- end. And that's exactly what they are because here you are explaining they will work on medium/high settings with low res and being overclocked. Not to mention they tend to come with less pixel pipelines, pixel shaders and vertex shaders and sometimes less support for new features.

 

[Sicron]

Crysis works non-overclocked for me. I just overclock whenever I feel like I need some extra power. 1280x720 is not that low of a resolution. Okay, it might not be 1680x1050, but still.

In this case, the latest X600 are fully capable of doing whatever their bigger brothers can do, except they are weaker. Hell, the 8600 could even do more than the 8800 GTS and GTX, since the 8600 came later and had a special video processor for decoding HD movies, something the GTX and GTS did not have.

Most newer cards don't even have pixel and vertex shaders now anymore anyway. It's all unified shaders these days. And of course they have less pipelines and such. But all cards have that. The 8400 has less than the 8500 has less than the 8600 has less than the 8800 GT has less then the 8800 GTX/Ultra. There will always be a difference in power. And whenever you buy your fancy Ultra, within a couple of months there will be a newer more powerfull card. It's all about where you draw the line of what is powerful enough for you. It is not that the 8600 is weak, it's that the 8800 is more powerful. But in that perspective, you could also say the 8800 is weak and the GTX280 is more powerful. Yet all three of them are gaming cards.

@ TigerGEO: Well, if he can save up enough money to get him a dual core processor any time soon, he'd be better of getting a sloghtly more powerfull card that currently gets bottlenecked by his CPU. If he is planning on getting it any time soon, he would be wasting his money on a weaker card now, and having to buy a new one later.

I'd highly recommend getting a Dual Core CPU, an E6600 or E6700 is not the most powerfull, but quite good for gaming, highly overclock able if he wants to and they don't cost that much anymore because they are already getting "old". The P4 is not a bad CPU, but it is geting really outdated these days. More and more games and programs rely on Dual Cores these days, actually, nearly all games get an enormous improvement with dual cores.

 

[Hishi]

Also, do not get a 9600GT. It isn't that much better than the 8XXX series and you would rather want to get an 8800GT. It's about the same price (slightly more expensive) but it is also a bit more powerfull than the 9600GT. It has more texture units than the 9600GT which means it can process the texture mapping much faster.

Actually, the 9600GT is only slightly slower than the 8800GT, I've seen plenty of tests for proof. Considering the 9600GT is $25 cheaper, it's not all that bad of a choice.

 

[Prozac]

Crysis works non-overclocked for me. I just overclock whenever I feel like I need some extra power. 1280x720 is not that low of a resolution. Okay, it might not be 1680x1050, but still.

1680x1050 isn't actually considered highres anymore either.

 

[TigerGEO]

Crysis works non-overclocked for me. I just overclock whenever I feel like I need some extra power. 1280x720 is not that low of a resolution. Okay, it might not be 1680x1050, but still.

In this case, the latest X600 are fully capable of doing whatever their bigger brothers can do, except they are weaker. Hell, the 8600 could even do more than the 8800 GTS and GTX, since the 8600 came later and had a special video processor for decoding HD movies, something the GTX and GTS did not have.

Most newer cards don't even have pixel and vertex shaders now anymore anyway. It's all unified shaders these days. And of course they have less pipelines and such. But all cards have that. The 8400 has less than the 8500 has less than the 8600 has less than the 8800 GT has less then the 8800 GTX/Ultra. There will always be a difference in power. And whenever you buy your fancy Ultra, within a couple of months there will be a newer more powerfull card. It's all about where you draw the line of what is powerful enough for you. It is not that the 8600 is weak, it's that the 8800 is more powerful. But in that perspective, you could also say the 8800 is weak and the GTX280 is more powerful. Yet all three of them are gaming cards.

@ TigerGEO: Well, if he can save up enough money to get him a dual core processor any time soon, he'd be better of getting a sloghtly more powerfull card that currently gets bottlenecked by his CPU. If he is planning on getting it any time soon, he would be wasting his money on a weaker card now, and having to buy a new one later.

I'd highly recommend getting a Dual Core CPU, an E6600 or E6700 is not the most powerfull, but quite good for gaming, highly overclock able if he wants to and they don't cost that much anymore because they are already getting "old". The P4 is not a bad CPU, but it is geting really outdated these days. More and more games and programs rely on Dual Cores these days, actually, nearly all games get an enormous improvement with dual cores.

He never mentioned he wants a new processor.

 

[SSJ4boneVegeta]

Here's another 2 cent from me. The two cards mentioned above from TigerGeo i wouldn't go far. Partly because the memory interface is less than 256-bit. This is something on the card that cannot be changed through overclocking like the memory bandwidth or the fill rate... Given the circumstance that most newer games are using most of 512mb (for example) of vram, this would be wise. Also the fact that you have an 8500 already, assuming specs are decent, i don't think you will find that "boost" you are looking for. And like Sicron said, you will most likely end up having to buy a new card soon after and wasting.

I am personally not in that situation and I have an ATI X800 XT 256mb 256-bit... It's lasted me a while and I can still play games with very good fps. It only lacks the support of new features (so some games I can't play at all). I am about due for a new card though but I am just waiting for the whole physics battle to end ( and to think i almost bought a physx card). If I play my cards right I'll have another card lasting me just as long if not longer.

 

[TigerGEO]

If he gets 9600GT (wich is as good as my 8800GTS G80 or even better since it's on G94)he will have the DirectX 10.1 support (wich 8xxx series don't have) and he will have a good performance in games for less money than 8800GT or GTS... I'm planning to buy one since mine is old and uses 2 ports in my PC case... also 9600GT has 256bit

GeForce 9600 GT

Stream Processors 64
Core Clock (MHz) 650 MHz
Shader Clock (MHz) 1625 MHz
Memory Clock (MHz) 900 MHz
Memory Amount 512MB
Memory Interface 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 57.6
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 20.8

My GeForce 8800GTS

Stream Processors 96
Core Clock (MHz) 500 MHz
Shader Clock (MHz) 1200 MHz
Memory Clock (MHz) 800 MHz
Memory Amount 640MB
Memory Interface 320-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 64
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 24

And also the difference:

 

[Hishi]

Nvidia does not have real 10.1 support, only AMD does. This is not to say Nvidia cannot run under 10.1, it's just not fully supported.

Even so, 10.1 isn't even a selling point in my personal opinion. No games are using it, barely any are even using DX10's features at the moment. To top it all off, Microsoft plans on releasing DX11 along side the release of Windows 7. DX11 will be on Vista aswell though.

Anyway, if you're tight on money it's hard for me to suggest anything cheaper than a 9600GT because you probably won't be happy with it in the long run. In a bind, the 8800GTS 320/640 cards are much more expensive, why this is, is beyond me considering they have MUCH lower performance than recently released products.

 

[TigerGEO]

anyway I'm curios to know which card did you get =]

 

[Hishi]

anyway I'm curios to know which card did you get =]

I bought a 8800GTS in August of last year which was one of the premier (expensive) cards before the 8800GT hit shelves which was in October or November.

As years go by GFX though, you'll find the badass card you bought much much cheaper and/or replaced by many better cards the next year.