Would be interesting to see how much of a performance gain it would be. Also how much GTX 480 would be bottlenecked.

Trank wrote:

Would be interesting to see how much of a performance gain it would be. Also how much GTX 480 would be bottlenecked.

That was kind of my thought as well. Since the RX460 is going into my main rig I don't really want to abandon the GTX 480

I've only used the GTX 480 briefly, it draws a lot of power, makes a lot of noise and heat. You will need a PSU with a 6 pin + 8 pin PCIe power connector.

I like the GTX 580 a lot more, it basically does everything the 480 does, just better.

And don't discount the mainstream cards like the 460 1 GB or 560 Ti.

I own a GTX 480 not a 580 or 460.

I've owned alot of this generation before, but never held onto them, usually got them and put them into a computer i was selling or gave the card away to someone.

I've owned

GT440
GTS 450
GTX 460 768
GTX 460
GTX 465
GTX 470
GTX 480 (ONLY ONE I CURRENTLY HAVE)
GTX 560
GTX 560 TI 448 SLI (BOUGHT THIS NEW AND LOVED THE SETUP BACK IN 2011)
GTX 570

No worries. Just try it out and see how it works for you.

At Christmas I will be replacing my 8800GTX with a 750Ti. This in a C2D 2.67Ghz XP machine. I expect a pretty good bump in performance, with a huge drop in power consumption and heat generation. Good luck with your upgrade, hope the GTX 480 turns into a nice bump up for you.

I'm not expecting much, the 8800gts rarely hits 100% load

candle_86 wrote:

I'm not expecting much, the 8800gts rarely hits 100% load

If you're not maxing the 8800GTS on that CPU then either:

A.) You have a serious issue
B.) You're playing games too old for the card
C.) Your playing at too low of settings/resolution

I regularly max out my 8800GTX playing Oblivion, Crisis, and similar games on a 2.4GHZ C2D.

I play mostly older games like FarCry, Halo ect on the XP box 🤣 usually at 1920x1080 if supported or 12x10 if the game isn't wide screen supported

candle_86 wrote:

I play mostly older games like FarCry, Halo ect on the XP box 🤣 usually at 1920x1080 if supported or 12x10 if the game isn't wide screen supported

Then I see no reason to upgrade beyond what you have. Keep in mind newer cards and drivers like to cause issues with older games. You're probably better off sticking with you're current setup. Its not worth the headaches of dealing with visual glitch's, games refusing to start, and occasionally PhysX DLL errors. I personally use Q2 2007 XP drivers with my 8800GTX when its under XP, Q1 2009 drivers when its under Vista or 7. I tend to find anything newer introduces more issues and performance drops than it's worth due to the drivers being more and more optimized towards higher end cards. This becomes especially apparent on DX10 cards using post-DX11 drivers, its an absolute nightmare. I've personally had to downgrade drivers by years just to get some games to start because the newer drivers just didn't properly communicate some fine detail correctly between the Game, OS, and Hardware.

My recommendation if you change anything on your current setup is actually to downgrade to something a bit older and more inline with the games you play on your system. A few quick examples would be:

NVIDIA GeForce 6800/GT/GS/GSO/
NVIDIA GeForce 7600/GT
NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT/GTX
NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS/GT
NVIDIA GeForce 7950GT/GX2
ATI Radeon X800 Pro/XT
ATI Radeon X1800 Pro/XT
ATI Radeon X1950 Pro/XT

Any of those with correct drivers would likely provide a superior experience. Upgrading to something newer than an 8800GTS however, will only cause you trouble.
Keep in mind your using a card that can reasonably well handle Crysis for games meant to run on GeForceFX series cards.

The 8800gts is held back pretty much by the slow athlon64 x2.

8800gts sli is about gtx280, gtx 280 sli is about gtx480 (not completely but you get the picture). So, it is 3-4 times as fast as the 8800gts.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Then I see no reason to upgrade beyond what you have. Keep in mind newer cards and drivers like to cause issues with older games […]
Show full quote

candle_86 wrote:

I play mostly older games like FarCry, Halo ect on the XP box 🤣 usually at 1920x1080 if supported or 12x10 if the game isn't wide screen supported

Then I see no reason to upgrade beyond what you have. Keep in mind newer cards and drivers like to cause issues with older games. You're probably better off sticking with you're current setup. Its not worth the headaches of dealing with visual glitch's, games refusing to start, and occasionally PhysX DLL errors. I personally use Q2 2007 XP drivers with my 8800GTX when its under XP, Q1 2009 drivers when its under Vista or 7. I tend to find anything newer introduces more issues and performance drops than it's worth due to the drivers being more and more optimized towards higher end cards. This becomes especially apparent on DX10 cards using post-DX11 drivers, its an absolute nightmare. I've personally had to downgrade drivers by years just to get some games to start because the newer drivers just didn't properly communicate some fine detail correctly between the Game, OS, and Hardware.

My recommendation if you change anything on your current setup is actually to downgrade to something a bit older and more inline with the games you play on your system. A few quick examples would be:

NVIDIA GeForce 6800/GT/GS/GSO/
NVIDIA GeForce 7600/GT
NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT/GTX
NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS/GT
NVIDIA GeForce 7950GT/GX2
ATI Radeon X800 Pro/XT
ATI Radeon X1800 Pro/XT
ATI Radeon X1950 Pro/XT

Any of those with correct drivers would likely provide a superior experience. Upgrading to something newer than an 8800GTS however, will only cause you trouble.
Keep in mind your using a card that can reasonably well handle Crysis for games meant to run on GeForceFX series cards.

I have a pair of 7900GTX cards sitting in a drawer 🤣, next to a 7950GT, 7900GS and a pair of 7800GTX cards

candle_86 wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Then I see no reason to upgrade beyond what you have. Keep in mind newer cards and drivers like to cause issues with older games […]
Show full quote

candle_86 wrote:

I play mostly older games like FarCry, Halo ect on the XP box 🤣 usually at 1920x1080 if supported or 12x10 if the game isn't wide screen supported

Then I see no reason to upgrade beyond what you have. Keep in mind newer cards and drivers like to cause issues with older games. You're probably better off sticking with you're current setup. Its not worth the headaches of dealing with visual glitch's, games refusing to start, and occasionally PhysX DLL errors. I personally use Q2 2007 XP drivers with my 8800GTX when its under XP, Q1 2009 drivers when its under Vista or 7. I tend to find anything newer introduces more issues and performance drops than it's worth due to the drivers being more and more optimized towards higher end cards. This becomes especially apparent on DX10 cards using post-DX11 drivers, its an absolute nightmare. I've personally had to downgrade drivers by years just to get some games to start because the newer drivers just didn't properly communicate some fine detail correctly between the Game, OS, and Hardware.

My recommendation if you change anything on your current setup is actually to downgrade to something a bit older and more inline with the games you play on your system. A few quick examples would be:

NVIDIA GeForce 6800/GT/GS/GSO/
NVIDIA GeForce 7600/GT
NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT/GTX
NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS/GT
NVIDIA GeForce 7950GT/GX2
ATI Radeon X800 Pro/XT
ATI Radeon X1800 Pro/XT
ATI Radeon X1950 Pro/XT

Any of those with correct drivers would likely provide a superior experience. Upgrading to something newer than an 8800GTS however, will only cause you trouble.
Keep in mind your using a card that can reasonably well handle Crysis for games meant to run on GeForceFX series cards.

I have a pair of 7900GTX cards sitting in a drawer 🤣, next to a 7950GT, 7900GS and a pair of 7800GTX cards

Before I make any further suggestions, what motherboard is the XP Box using?

ASUS M2N-E SLI

Nforce 500 aka Nforce 4 SLI AM2

Full Specs

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 2x1MB L2 (89W)
4gb DDR2 800 Samsung
ASUS M2N-E SLI
EVGA Geforce 8800GTS 512
1tb Hard Drive
DVD-RW
650W Seasonic PSU

I'm eager to see some before and after benchmarks if possible 😀

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I'm eager to see some before and after benchmarks if possible 😀

I will as soon as Gigabyte returns the RX460 it's waiting to be shipped back after they replaced the GPU on the board. Once its back ill have the GTX 480 free.

candle_86 wrote:

ASUS M2N-E SLI […]
Show full quote

ASUS M2N-E SLI

Nforce 500 aka Nforce 4 SLI AM2

Full Specs

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 2x1MB L2 (89W)
4gb DDR2 800 Samsung
ASUS M2N-E SLI
EVGA Geforce 8800GTS 512
1tb Hard Drive
DVD-RW
650W Seasonic PSU

Then it's an SLI Capable board. Why not run those 7900s in SLI? Or if you MUST have 20x the power you need, get a 2nd 8800GTS for SLI?

I did at one point look in the doom3 thread 😁

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I've only used the GTX 480 briefly, it draws a lot of power, makes a lot of noise and heat. You will need a PSU with a 6 pin + 8 pin PCIe power connector.

I like the GTX 580 a lot more, it basically does everything the 480 does, just better.

And don't discount the mainstream cards like the 460 1 GB or 560 Ti.

I agree with phil. I love the GTX 480 - I had 2 back in the day - I have two gainward cards now - but I'm kind of afraid to use them because of how hot they get - I don't want to kill them. Until I can buy a custom cooling solution for these (AC or Zalman) I'll stick to running benchmarks on them. Performance in modern games is about equal to a GTX 960 witch is impressive.

The GTX 580 is cooler and faster. Get that if you can - although they can still be rather expensive in some places.

I think the optimum (and coolest) configuration for your setup would be two GTX 7900/7950 cards. They're pretty cheap and easy to find. Performance should be a bit under the 8800GTS, but not by much. If not leave the 8800 in it. If you want a lot of performance and less heat / power draw, find a GTX 460. It should easily top out your athlon X2.