GPU Value Comparisons

Ok so here's the situation.

I currently have a XFX 8800GTS and it's not performing so great with the newer games.

I have about R1500 worth of ebucks that I can use for a replacement card (max R1900) so I have to buy from either wantitall, digitalplanet or kalahari.

What would you guys suggest? I have always been more of a Nvidia man (spent too much time troubleshooting ATI driver issues)
 
@warchylde:
Unfortunately none of those 3 sites offer any good deals on graphics cards.
The best I saw at one of those 3 sites was the MSI GTX460 Cyclone 1GB OC card for R1923.

A much better deal would be the MSI HD6870 Hawk 1GB for R1899 (incl shipping), but unfortunately they don't take eB.

Kalahari offers great specials on other PC products, like screens and games, but I've never seen someone quote a good price on graphics card from either of those 3 places that you've given.
 
Thanks pada. I was looking at MSI cyclone but the rating seemed to be only slightly more than I have now, that's why I wanted to check on the forum first. Will see what I can figure out.....

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/edit

Purchased the cyclone
 
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Warchylde: which card did you go for then? I'd guess you went for the Cyclone one from Kalahari.

I have 2 of those cards in my PC and I'm also very impressed with them for the performance that they give at 2560x1600 ;)
 
Pada said:
Warchylde: which card did you go for then? I'd guess you went for the Cyclone one from Kalahari.

I have 2 of those cards in my PC and I'm also very impressed with them for the performance that they give at 2560x1600 ;)
Click to expand...

Yep went the cyclone route. Been running duke all weekend max settings and it ran smooth as all Hell.


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Let me know how the cyclone goes - and if you plan on overclocking it id be even more interested :P
Im looking to go SLI and duno if I should go for the cyclone or hawk. Ive already got the 460 GTX hawk, its capable of quite a beastly clock.

How hot does your card get under full load? My hawk maxes out at 56 - 58 degrees.
 
_Maximus_ said:
Let me know how the cyclone goes - and if you plan on overclocking it id be even more interested :P
Im looking to go SLI and duno if I should go for the cyclone or hawk. Ive already got the 460 GTX hawk, its capable of quite a beastly clock.

How hot does your card get under full load? My hawk maxes out at 56 - 58 degrees.
Click to expand...

I will have to spend some time looking at it from all the technical aspects like heat etc but that will only happen in a while - atm I am so loaded with working not getting much sleep. All the games I have tried I have played at Max res and settings and no issues.
 
I would suggest that you get another hawk, because pairing up a cyclone and a hawk would require tweaking such that the clock and memory speeds are the same.
I'm running 2x GTX460 Cyclone 1GB OC cards and they're fantastic for BF:BC2 on 2560x1600.

Just make sure that your motherboard has at least 8x + 8x PCI-E 2.0 with SLI support.
 
Pada said:
I would suggest that you get another hawk, because pairing up a cyclone and a hawk would require tweaking such that the clock and memory speeds are the same.
I'm running 2x GTX460 Cyclone 1GB OC cards and they're fantastic for BF:BC2 on 2560x1600.

Just make sure that your motherboard has at least 8x + 8x PCI-E 2.0 with SLI support.
Click to expand...

Pada again :) Sorted out the PSU, and yes my MOBO has 8x + 8x support. Im stressing cause im not sure how much space my mobo will have for a 2nd hawk, the cooling it has it massive. asus p8p67 m pro has 3 PCI-E lanes, but the 8x + 8x are placed underneath each other - hence my interest in the cyclone (the cooling system looks a bit smaller).

And yes Id have to overclock my cyclone to match that of the hawk. Its not too far off at stock though - 725 for the cyclone vs 780 for the hawk. Wouldnt get as much of a performance out of the hawk though if I wanted to OC further :( What CPU are you running by the way?
 
Your top graphics card are going to run hotter than the bottom one since there's going to be no space between the 2 graphics cards.
The specs of your motherboard are confusing:
2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x16, x8, x8 or x16, x16, x1)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x1
Click to expand...
because it sounds like the you can use the blue one at 16x and the black one at 8x from the first line, and then according to the 2nd-line, the black port is limited to 4x!?

With my case (CM 690 II Adv) and motherboard (Asus P6T Deluxe v2), I have 1 PCI-E slot inbetween my 2 graphics cards, so my top one isn't running so hot, but my bottom one has virtually no space between it and the PSU, so it runs hotter than the top one.

The MSI Cyclone should be able to do 850MHz easily. I would suggest that you put the Hawk at the top, since it has the better cooler and the Cyclone at the bottom.

I'm running an i7 940 @ 3.8GHz (with TurboBoost & EIST enabled) at like 1.4V, and the FSB at 167MHz. Unfortunately I got tricked when I bought my i7 940 from someone at Carbonite.co.za, because I got an Engineering Sample, which has a locked memory multiplier and it can't OC that well either.
 
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I had to reread my user manuel to understand how SLI on my mobo works haha. The desription you got I presume was from the Asus web site - and yes its very misleading.
Simply put - I can use the blue PCI-E (top lane) with the white PCI-E (second lane - excluding the small PCI-E x1) and those will run at 8x and 8x.
If I use the blue PCI-E (top lane) with the black PCI-E (third lane - again excluding the small PCI-E x1) and these will run at 16x, 4x respectively.
Ive heard that the performance difference isnt that much when running 16x 4x against a 8x 8x setup.
The hawk, which I will put at the top like you suggest, will leave about 2-3 cm of space if I were to plug my 2nd card into the white PCI-E (second lane). Not sure if thats going to give more heat issues than you have, as im sure there is a bit more space on your motherboard?
850Mhz for the cyclone - is that with no voltage changes? I get up to 865Mhz with no voltage change on the hawk. Keen to break 950 or so with some voltage tweaking though :D Have heard it gets up to 1Khz but im not that crazy.
Thats a nice setup uve got, that tower case sounds like it does a good job of keeping everything cool. Ive got a Sigma Raptor, not as fancy but still does the job well.
 
I haven't managed to exceed 900MHz with my 2x GTX460's. I had to tweak the voltage to reach 850MHz.

I'm pretty sure the performance will be better in the 8x + 8x configuration. You're more than welcome to run benchmarks for us in both configurations ;)
 
Cool thanks for the update. And yes the benchmarking - will be worth of note im sure. Will get back to you once ive got my SLI setup.
 
warchylde said:
Ok so here's the situation.

I currently have a XFX 8800GTS and it's not performing so great with the newer games.

I have about R1500 worth of ebucks that I can use for a replacement card (max R1900) so I have to buy from either wantitall, digitalplanet or kalahari.

What would you guys suggest? I have always been more of a Nvidia man (spent too much time troubleshooting ATI driver issues)
Click to expand...

I'm currently in the same ebucks situation and in need of a card, what card did you get? I see we can spend ebucks at incredible as well now.
 
DanH said:
I'm currently in the same ebucks situation and in need of a card, what card did you get? I see we can spend ebucks at incredible as well now.
Click to expand...

Ended up getting the gtx460 cyclone - very impressed - so far able to run everything maxed out on 1920x1200
 
Wootware & Rebeltech is now selling the Inno3D GTX560Ti for under R2100, which is quite a good price considering that the Gigabyte/Asus GTX560Ti's are going for around R2400 now since the exchange rate has gone down the drain.
 
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