The 8800, 9800, GTS 250, GTS 450 are basically the same card with some new features added to each generation. The 8800 was a top level card when introduced and cost around $600, the subsequent models are considered mainstream cards in the sub $150 price range. These are my personal favorite nVidia cards of all time and two of any model in SLI will give nVidias' top dog, the GTX 480, a run for the money.
Go for it, it will blow your card out of the water, especially if you want to stay loyal to Nvidia and have the DX11 Experience, if not then your shall do fine.
I have the GTX 460 and it rules.
And if you don't want to be loyal you could also consider a 6 series seeing the price difference isn't that much..I went from a 9800gtx to a 5850 but the 6 series were'nt around then....or
You could wait for a little while and see what NV do with the 5 series..the 580 is an improvement on the 480..cooler uses less power is a better card period...you can bet NV will release a 560 etc etc and the price will need to drop markedly or ppl will buy a 6 series ati that runs just as well or better than the 580 for less than half the asking price of a 580
thanks for the advice... currently just waiting to see what graphic cards will be offered as black friday dealz online... I really don't know about ATI though, because in the past my first wannabe gaming rig (lol) was built by an ebay seller and had sli but only one 7900GT so I bought another 7900GT and ran with that for a good while but upon getting an HP computer I only had the option of single card solution so I bought ATI but I couldn't get any of the drivers to work with every program I ran and eventually returned it to ATI to see if it had problems, and they reported that it did and issued me another card that was even a slight upgrade to the previous but still I had issues with drivers and certain programs I ran.... finally I gave up on ATI and got the 9600 factory overclocked GT through newegg because I had read that it should be about the same strength as 2 7900GT's running in SLI... ever since then I haven't trusted ATI products and I have never had issues with Nvidia...
As a side note: I am no longer using the HP I have listed as my system in my profile, I have recently built something of a budget gaming PC but I'm still using the 9600GT from the previous system for now
current system specs:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Case: NZXT Lexa S
PSU: Cooler Master GX 650
Mobo: Biostar A770E
Optical drive: LiteOn (iHAS424-98)
CPU: AMD Athlon 450 Rana 3.2 Ghz (Unlocked into a Phenom II X4 B50 3.2 Ghz)
CPU Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 (Push pull with 2X120MM fans)
Ram: PNY 6 Ghz @ 667 Mhz (mixed it up for duel channel with matched sticks but 2 gig chips in first two dimms and 1 gig sticks in second two dimms)
Hard drives:2X Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200RPM
Graphics: 9600GT (To be upgraded to GTX 460)
Case cooling: 2X140 exhaust fans on top, 1X120 exhaust in the back, 2X120 intake fans
I have always heard of ATI going wrong, whilst i have also heard of NV going wrong m8. I would go for a DX11 Card from NVidia if you do not trust ATI.
If you are needing a card sooner than later, try the Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 796MB, they are low enough price unless you have a low budget m8.
Personally i would go for that or buy a kick ass NVidia.
Umm well I have had no problems with cards from either company..The ATI card and the current drivers I am using (V10.10) are running all the games I am currently playing, BC2,Fallout 3 New Vegas,Starcraft2,WoW, without issue.
However I know ATI drivers can be flaky supposedly but I have had no problems with the last 3 drivers released by them. Crossfire tho is a whole nother issue..lotsa problems and I personally would'nt run 2 cards in xfire.
If you are still going with NV I would think that it would be a smart move to wait and see what NV do re a 560..its going to be cooler and will (if the 580 is anything to go by) be a 15 to 20% improvement in performance over the existing 460.
Last edited by simmo; 17 Nov 2010 at 04:23. Reason: because I'm a mushroom
Might go ATI after all... Kinda liking the XFX 5830... Currently $165 on newegg...
Funny story... Woke this morning and saw the GTX 460 OC 1Gb edition being offered by tigerdirect in a sales add for $89.99 after rebate... Couldn't get that price through the website so I spoke to live help and they said the sales add would be honored and I needed to call live support to place the order at the sales price and use a priority code to receive the sales price... I called and the guy basically fought up and down that I was lieing and there was no sales add, implying that I was being ridiculous to believe for a second that anyone would offer that card at that price and until he saw proof he wouldn't do a thing for me... So I took a screen shot of my proof and mailed it to his provided email address... He immediately got off the phone with me and minutes later the add was changed to depict a price of $189.99... the picture of the add is in the post on the next page... just thought someone may have found this whole thing amusing
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