8800, 2900, or other?

[skool h8r]

Hey all,
Long time no see (don't ask), but i need some advice. I haven't been keeping up with new components recently (since about june/july) and i'm thinking of getting a new GPU upgrade for christmas. My 7600 is starting to show it's age (even in games like WoW), and i wanna upgrade to the latest, but something less than £200. Now, i've narrowed it down to one of the following:

* 8800GTS
* 8800GT
* 2900Pro 512mb
* One of the 3800 series

I'm most tempted to go with the 2900Pro 512mb simply due to the fact it's got the most memory and 320 stream processors compared to what the NVidia parts have, as well as 512-bit 8 channel interface. I want a single card solution, no need for SLi or Crossfire, however, i want to be able to play Crysis, UT3 and CoD4 on decent settings with a good FPS(consider the fact my 7600 can play both pretty well - excellent, any of the choices should make a major difference).

I really want the best bang per buck GPU that's less than £200, so, anyone help me out?

Cheers,
Scott.

[Favu]

I am very happy with my 320 Mb 8800GTS, it's plenty fast enough for playing most current games at full settings at 1600x1200 (UT3 included), although games such as Crysis do chug along better at medium, I hope that is just because they aren't fully multi-threaded or are not very well optimised.

If you go down the route of an 8800 I would suggest a pretty beefy powersupply. But I have to note that your CPU is not the fastest anymore by modern standards, and could be the bottleneck of the system. Perhaps a complete system overhaul is in the pipeline soon?

Oh, and how have you been? Long time no see!

[Samuknow]

From what I read, the 8800Gt is the best bang here. It is cheaper than the GTS and somewhat faster with the new core.

Great to see you back Scott.

[skool h8r]

Ah yes, i need to update my sig. Basically, the 580w hiper, well, it's no more. It decided it didn't like me and it's gone back into the box it came from.

Now i have a 600w Ebuyer extra value. Yes, i know, "Bad power", but surprisingly, no problems as of yet. I still play at 1280x1024 so getting a card that will play at that res is no problem, it's just which one. I do understand my system is a bottleneck, but a whole system upgrade is planned. Going for the Q6600 probably, 2GB Corsair, etc. Since i'm claiming EMA for going to college, and i've got a backdate of about £100-160 heading my way within the next few weeks, as well as an additional £20 per week. By christmas, that's about £200. But, christmas present brings me ~£100. That, or the graphics card itself .

I can't believe i'm still with the 7600GT i was planning to upgrade a long time ago.

[Pitch]

8800GT is awesome, but if you're stuck at 1280*1024, probably overkill. Something like a 8600 might be easier on the wallet.

[skool h8r]

Well, after reading a few reviews of the 8800GT and 3870XT, the 8800GT wins it for me.

However, i've now got another slight problem, but one that's been here for a while and doesn't want to go away. Basically, this so-called Dual-channel GeIL value memory DOESN'T want to go into Dual-channel mode. I've lowered my clocks, raised the timings and voltages, but it just crashes one way or another. It's never at the same point, it's completely random. I don't remember having problems like this with my Corsair 1gb kit. Since i'm now a WoW player and have been for a few months, i'm moving onto 25-mans, which is sending my FPS insanely low (down to ~1-3 when i was tanking the Murlocs in SSC earlier). Even in places like Kara, there's rooms where my FPS will suddenly drop (the guest room before Moroes is one example and the other is in the room before Curator which everyone has said it sends their lag insane (i assume they mean fps as they don't know much about computers) ).

Could it be bad ram as it's been like this since a few weeks after i got it?

WoW can be graphically stressul at times, i realise that, but my 7600gt should be more than capable of playing it at decent FPS constantly...shouldn't it? I'm gonna be moving onto Crysis and UT3 soon so i wanna get the best out of them (which HMV STILL haven't phoned me about my 1 year+ UT3 preorder, despite the game being out almost a week. Going down soon to see wtf happened to it).