Noticeable jump? 8800 > 4780

grizzly

Going from a 8800gt (512mb) to a ATI 4780 (512mb) would I get a decent jump in performance? Would it be more noticeable for new games? I'm using a Mac Pro (so this is my current, limited choice) and play games in XP.

Sqaull20

No need.

I upgraded from an 8800gtx to a GTX 260, then sold that as I was kinda disappointed and got a 1gb 4870 for the same price I sold the gtx 260.That card was slightly worse than the gtx 260, as drivers were flakey.Anyway while they are better, there aren't many games that show that difference.

It was all a big waste of money and I sold them all and picked up a lovely 8800gtx with a zalman cooler for 75e posted.I learnt my lesson the hard way and wont be buying a new card until something super comes out next year.You should do the same.

Dont even think about sli/crossfire, biggest load of crap ever imo.

uberpixie

grizzly wrote: »

Going from a 8800gt (512mb) to a ATI 4780 (512mb) would I get a decent jump in performance? Would it be more noticeable for new games? I'm using a Mac Pro (so this is my current, limited choice) and play games in XP.

Depends on what games you are playing and at what resolution/settings.

The 8800GT is still a very solid performer, the only reason to replace it would be if you are running games at either 1680 x 1050 (22") or 1900 x 1200 (24") resolutions and want to run everything on high settings.

At lower resolutions or if you don't mind dialing things down a little there is no real reason yet to replace the card.

You certainly won't notice a huge difference in most games bar the most demanding. As squall mentioned: you only really should replace a gfx card when your current one is too slow to play a game you want to play.

The only reason I replaced my 8800GTS 320mb for a 4870 512mb was that I had just gone from a 17" (where a 8800 GTS 320mb is grand running at 1280 x 1024) to a 22" ( 8800GTS 320mb runs like a dog @ 1680 x 1050).

grizzly

I've gone up to a 27" @ 1900 X 1200. I don't play anything too taxing, but have ordered Empire: Total War and think this may be more punishing on my current card.

edit...

I had a look at some benchmarks...

Benchmarks @ 1280x1024 showed a improvement of 12%

Benchmarks @ 1920x1200 AA showed a improvement of 38%

I hadn't figured on a bigger screen benefiting so much more on a better card.

Solitaire

Bigger screen often means higher native resolution, and most LCDs suffer poor quality when running below their native resolution (unlike old CRTs) so running games at high resolutions is now more important than ever before. And when resolution has increased from 1024x768 from a few years back to the modern 1900x1200 you can see how important it is to get a good card for your particular setup.

In any case you can get HD4870s new for under €170 in some places so its not like a few years back where you'd be stuck paying €300+ for a mid-range card...

RoyalMarine

if your interested, i have 2 8800gt 512mb. my motherboard fried last week and my replacement cant have sli. so 1 will be going somewhere in the bin if i cant sell it.

Lukker-

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

if your interested, i have 2 8800gt 512mb. my motherboard fried last week and my replacement cant have sli. so 1 will be going somewhere in the bin if i cant sell it.

I'd be interested what make model is it and how much are you looking for?