[Razer]

Not had it long but my birthday and Christmas is coming up (A week apart haha) and am looking for something useful to put in my PC. Perhaps another graphics card, need a PSU for that too though. Even a SSD or raptor would be nice but not sure on the performance of said things in game.

Maybe Liquid cooling but I don't OC.

Specs are:
Q8200
8Gb GeIL DDR2 800 (Max mobo can take)
750i SLi
1Tb Samsung HDD
600W StealthXStream
Sapphire HD4870 1Gb

[Carbon]

Christmas is coming up? You realize by December anything I recommend is going to be a little less than half a year out of date, right? Or do you celebrate Christmas in September over there in the UK

[Razer]

Yeah, it'll also be a little cheaper, handy in these hard times!

I'm not one for the latest and greatest. As long as it's good performance and value, I don't much care..

[Carbon]

That's a bad upgrade strategy. Buying old high-end parts for cheap is eclipsed by buying mid-range new parts now that video cards are not $350 anymore.

Another way of thinking about it: would you recommend someone buy a 8800GTX (originally $400, now about $100) or a 4850 now? What do you think has the better performance, even discounting heat, power req, etc?

[Razer]

I'm going to say the 4850.. *Prepares for lesson is current GPU's*

Well is there anything you know of in the near future that I might be able to buy near release? I heard the GTX 3xx series are due and the HD5xxx are nearby too..

[Carbon]

Right on the 4850. The lesson really is that since new parts launch at all price points and those new parts typically destroy even the highest end old parts (in both performance and heat/power), the person that is going to pay $100 or $150 or $200 or even $50 is better off buying the new midrange rather than the old high end. Keeping old hardware is fine, but buying old hardware is usually pretty dumb.

5xxx is coming out in Sept for sure, as is i5. GTX 3xx is kinda unknown as far as I know, I'm not confident nVidia's going to win this one either but crystal-balling is kind of dumb so I'll reserve judgement on that.

[Razer]

Well something attracts me to ATi. Maybe cos I prefer red over green but I know AMD and ATi are as one and AMD seem to be motoring ahead of Intel so maybe some AMD horsepower is rubbing off on ATi. I reckon nVidia will play it cheap and wait for the 5 series' and then combat that quickly with something much faster.. Or they'll just bring some dual cored monster out regardless.

Since the 4870X2 and 4890 are both epic cards, I reckon ATi has some momentum rolling into their new models. But, until both are out and bench tested, we'll never know.

If the ATi 5 series cards are xfire compatible with the late 4 series cards, I might CF them, might as well use my 4870 for something! Again, can't plan until they're released!

[Carbon]

Problem with nVidia is that their strategy usually only works when nobody else is in the game. The big GTX die really killed them because in the midrange they had nothing but old cards (G92). If ATI continues playing to their strengths (the midrange), nVidia has to either make a huge die part that's cheap enough to compete, completely resign the low-end market (and then get destroyed by ATI later), or end up doing a small die part which isn't really their forte.

It's a brilliant strategy on ATI's part, in my opinion. All they have to do is make a half-way decent die that scales well from midrange to high-end, sell it cheap, and nVidia is left scrambling for a way in. Even if nVidia makes a comeback, we should thank ATI for lowering graphics card prices. Without them we'd have more G92s at $300.