GTS 250 from 8800 GTS Upgrade - Worth It ?

[technoid]

I've been out of the upgrade business for a while and now since I'm retired I don't have that much money for it. But I'm wondering what kind of performance increase I would get if I upgrade to a GTS 250 from an 8800 GTS? My current system is in the sig below. I'd only be upgrading the graphics card, nothing else.

The games I play.

FEAR2
Crysis
Crysis Warhead
STALKER
STALKER Clear Sky
Need for Speed Carbon
Need for Speed Most Wanted

Is the 512MB board okay for me or should I get the 1GB? I play at 1280x1024.

[Maverick123w]

What GTS do you have? If you have the 320/640 series like I did I say why not. I went from an 8800 GTS 320MB to a Radeon 4770 (trades blows with the GTS 250) and the increase was unbelievable. Of course I game at a much higher res so the difference would probably be more noticeable to me than to you.

Edit: Also that at res even with moderate AA/AF I don't think you would benefit much from the 1GB version.

[JasonPC]

I would say it's not worth it. It would be more worth it to go to a GTX 260. You'd get nearly twice the performance from a 260 while you'd get minimal gains from a 250. The price difference between the two is also not very much compared to the performance you'd get. Of course your PSU could be a problem though.

[CaptNKILL]

As Maverick said, if you have a 320\640Mb GTS it'd be well worth it.

If you have a 512Mb it would give you a small but noticeable performance boost but you'd be better off just saving up a little more for a GTX 260.

Also, if you absolutely have to get a GTS 250, get a 1Gb model. They're much better.

[Koko56]

Originally Posted by JasonPC

I would say it's not worth it. It would be more worth it to go to a GTX 260. You'd get nearly twice the performance from a 260 while you'd get minimal gains from a 250. The price difference between the two is also not very much compared to the performance you'd get. Of course your PSU could be a problem though.

It's a seasonic. Should be completely fine.

[technoid]

Originally Posted by Maverick123w

What GTS do you have? If you have the 320/640 series like I did I say why not. I went from an 8800 GTS 320MB to a Radeon 4770 (trades blows with the GTS 250) and the increase was unbelievable. Of course I game at a much higher res so the difference would probably be more noticeable to me than to you.

Edit: Also that at res even with moderate AA/AF I don't think you would benefit much from the 1GB version.

I have an EVGA 8800 GTS 640MB at stock clocks. I was thinking the upgrade to the GTS 250 would allow me to always play with 4xAA or better where the 8800 GTS sometimes doesn't allow that and get the smoothness I like in gameplay. I'm really sensitive to frame rate so I always keep my settings at a place to maximize frame rate with good visuals too. Of course most everything I play right now is old enough I can keep 4xAA on, but of course a few of them I can't.

Thanks for your input I appreciate it.

[technoid]

Originally Posted by JasonPC

I would say it's not worth it. It would be more worth it to go to a GTX 260. You'd get nearly twice the performance from a 260 while you'd get minimal gains from a 250. The price difference between the two is also not very much compared to the performance you'd get. Of course your PSU could be a problem though.

I think my power supply would be okay for a 260 but the problem is my case, the 260 would hit the hard drive cage and not fit unless I cut something. I hate that but I don't want to buy a new case too. At least the 8800 GTX was too long for my case and I think the 260 is the same length.

Thanks... I appreciate your input.

[john19055]

If you have the 8800GTS 640mb ,you will see a performance increase,but not that much,you would be much better off getting a GTX260 and newegg has some for $155.

[JasonPC]

Could you move the HDD cage or is that the only spot for it? Might have to take some dimensions down and measure if it could fit or not. With a 250 you're going to be very limited with AA considering you'd be going down in memory capacity, although you are at a lower resolution... So it's hard to say. But in my thinking a 250 is basically a 9800 GTX, which is basically an 8800 at heart. You won't be seeing much of a difference compared to the 640 mb version of the 8800 GTS, 320 mb version yes. You'd actually probably see a bigger increase in performance if you had 8800 GTS 640s in SLI. But it wouldn't really be worth it, you'd get a little better performance out of 1 GTX 260 without the problems of SLI and more VRAM.

[technoid]

Originally Posted by JasonPC

Could you move the HDD cage or is that the only spot for it? Might have to take some dimensions down and measure if it could fit or not. With a 250 you're going to be very limited with AA considering you'd be going down in memory capacity, although you are at a lower resolution... So it's hard to say. But in my thinking a 250 is basically a 9800 GTX, which is basically an 8800 at heart. You won't be seeing much of a difference compared to the 640 mb version of the 8800 GTS, 320 mb version yes. You'd actually probably see a bigger increase in performance if you had 8800 GTS 640s in SLI. But it wouldn't really be worth it, you'd get a little better performance out of 1 GTX 260 without the problems of SLI and more VRAM.

Thanks. Everything here is about what I expected to hear, some performance increase but not a lot. I'll probably wait till the next generation ships and then buy something. I haven't looked at the hard drive cage recently but from what I remember it's fixed and you can't move it.

Thanks again to everyone for sharing your thoughts with me.

[john19055]

If you need something shorter then the ATI HD 4870 might be a better choice ,since they have some that are just 9.8 inches long.

[technoid]

Originally Posted by john19055

If you need something shorter then the ATI HD 4870 might be a better choice ,since they have some that are just 9.8 inches long.

Thanks, I'll look at it.