I've had this computer for a while.  I can't really afford to get a new one yet, but I'm wondering if it would be worth it to at least upgrade my graphic card.  I'm planning on playing SWTOR when it comes out.

Here are the game minimum and recommended specs:

Windows Vista/7 OS:
+CPU: dual-tri core: Intel pentium D, Core dual of 2.4ghz or higher. AMD Atholon 64 x2, Phenom x3, Turion of 2.4ghz or higher.
+Ram: 1GB
+Vidoe card: 512 MB 128-bit or more with directX 10 like the ATI Radeon 2600 series or Nvidia Geforce 8600 series.


Recommended:

Windows Vista/7
+CPU: Quad-core Intel core 2 Dual or AMD Phenom x4 at 2.8 Ghz
+Ram: 2GB
+Video Card: 1GB, 256-bit or more like the AMD/ATI radeon 4870 or Nvidia Geforce 260 GTX.

And here is what I have:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400

3 Gig ram

nvidia Geforce 9800GT

If it's worth it to upgrade, any recommendations would be nice, something not too expensive.

i peronally went with the GTX 580 and it seems to run everything just fine,  I don't antiicate having any problems with SWTOR.

Ok, so I just checked the price on a gtx 580....Maybe you didn't read my post and you just wanted to talk about your shiny graphic card?

You could upgrade, there are some very good cards out there for very low prices. I'd recommend just to be safe to be honest. No need to over do it though.

my bad, i only say you wanted to upgrade.  I'm well beyond trying to impress people with my setup (whih isn't top of the line),.  I was just trying to help,.. soz

Originally posted by mgilbrtsn

my bad, i only say you wanted to upgrade.  I'm well beyond trying to impress people with my setup (whih isn't top of the line),.  I was just trying to help,.. soz

Haha np.  I just found it funny posting about a $500 graphic card when price is an issue :p

Rule of hardware is that it gets cheaper the longer you wait, so wait.. wait untill you actualy have the game installed,and play tested it and see if you realy need the upgrade. if you need it good chance you get a card a few bucks cheaper then its now and if you dont need it you save enough for someting else.

Originally posted by Eladi

Rule of hardware is that it gets cheaper the longer you wait, so wait.. wait untill you actualy have the game installed,and play tested it and see if you realy need the upgrade. if you need it good chance you get a card a few bucks cheaper then its now and if you dont need it you save enough for someting else.

Thanks, I think that's pretty good advice, especially since I'm pretty sure the game will run pretty decently on what I have already.

Hi,

    Upgrading your vid card can make a very large difference. Let me give your a real world exsample.

                    I gave a friend of mine my last system of a

 Intel core 2 duo E-8500 basicly the same as your E-8400

I gave him 4 gigs of ram but since he's only running Vista 32 bit he only can use 3 gigs of that 4 gigs, ( same as your 3 gigs )

He was useing a Nivida 8800GT ( the very same as your current 9800GT , which is a renamed 8800GT ).

we play games like Age Of Conan and other higher end graphics games.

with his 8800GT he could only play Age of Conan and opther games at lower or Mid settings.

                     I gave him a  nivida GTX260 that I have laying around the same as the Recommanded GPU for SWTOR

and he could play Age of Conan on HIGH settings and saw the game TWICE as good looking with twice the graphic effects.

 other games we play had about just as impressive a increase in performance.

                    With this as a real world exsample you could just Upgrade your curent vid card to a fairly cheap newer jeneration vid card of equal performance.

                    For Exsample a Radeon 5770 1 gig ram vid card has simular performance to the Nvidia GTX260 or a little less then a Radeon 4870 ,But is still within the recomemded performance specs for SWTOR.

                    the good thing about the Radeon 5770 is their very common and cheap now . They sell for around $100 to $130 or even cheaper if on sale.

                     and heres the BIG PLUS . the 5770 only need a ( ONE ) plug pcie power copnnecter!!!  you would be able to use your current power supply without having to upgrade it.

                                                                                                                   Best of luck with your system.

Those aren't the system requirements.  Here's the official line:

http://www.swtor.com/info/faq#363

"While we don’t have the minimum system requirements available just yet, the goal is to make the game playable on most PCs."

I'm guessing you did a Google search and found this thread:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=744

That's just some idiot making things up nearly three years ago.  Those are really confused system requirements.  For example, what is a "Quad-core Intel core 2 Dual"?

If the upgrade is for SWTOR in particular, then you might want to wait for the game to launch.  The Radeon HD 7000 series might be out by then, and that's a full node die shrink from current cards.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Those aren't the system requirements.  Here's the official line:

http://www.swtor.com/info/faq#363

"While we don’t have the minimum system requirements available just yet, the goal is to make the game playable on most PCs."

I'm guessing you did a Google search and found this thread:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=744

That's just some idiot making things up nearly three years ago.  Those are really confused system requirements.  For example, what is a "Quad-core Intel core 2 Dual"?

If the upgrade is for SWTOR in particular, then you might want to wait for the game to launch.  The Radeon HD 7000 series might be out by then, and that's a full node die shrink from current cards.

This.

Listen to what Quizzical has said, he is pretty much always right about these things.

---

Originally posted by Eladi
Rule of hardware is that it gets cheaper the longer you wait, so wait.. wait untill you actualy have the game installed,and play tested it and see if you realy need the upgrade. if you need it good chance you get a card a few bucks cheaper then its now and if you dont need it you save enough for someting else.

---

Actually, I think the rule is more "Hardware gets faster the longer you wait"

It doesn't really get any cheaper, you just get faster hardware for the same price.

Or if you want to think about it in terms of "Cheaper" - you can get the same speed for less money, I suppose.

it's pretty easy to figure out actually.  install mass effect 2 and see how your machine plays.  swtor is pretty much based on the same engine. (yes they dont go and build a whole new engine with every game:D)  swtor will be "MMO optimized" meaning the graphics is going to be gimped and the network protocol/packet handling heavily improved.  from the gfx of the ingame videos shown in E3 2011, you machine should play just fine. 

considering their group size is locked at 4 man group and their raids seem to be less then 20 man(unless a ton of people are hiding behind camara in their raid demo) you wont have too much poly's to deal with, not like oldschool EQ raids anyway. 

SSD may help you with load times between instances but thats about all you'll need.  your machine will choke in heavy population areas like town centers where the redundant array of gold spammers hang out,  but aside from that your machine should play fine if you dont go too nuts on the foliage rendering.

Originally posted by mgilbrtsn

i peronally went with the GTX 580 and it seems to run everything just fine,  I don't antiicate having any problems with SWTOR.

Yes same here i got the gtx 580 and i think it's a wonderful card so far !

Originally posted by Tralane

Hi,

    Upgrading your vid card can make a very large difference. Let me give your a real world exsample.

                    I gave a friend of mine my last system of a

 Intel core 2 duo E-8500 basicly the same as your E-8400

I gave him 4 gigs of ram but since he's only running Vista 32 bit he only can use 3 gigs of that 4 gigs, ( same as your 3 gigs )

He was useing a Nivida 8800GT ( the very same as your current 9800GT , which is a renamed 8800GT ).

we play games like Age Of Conan and other higher end graphics games.

with his 8800GT he could only play Age of Conan and opther games at lower or Mid settings.

                     I gave him a  nivida GTX260 that I have laying around the same as the Recommanded GPU for SWTOR

and he could play Age of Conan on HIGH settings and saw the game TWICE as good looking with twice the graphic effects.

 other games we play had about just as impressive a increase in performance.

                    With this as a real world exsample you could just Upgrade your curent vid card to a fairly cheap newer jeneration vid card of equal performance.

                    For Exsample a Radeon 5770 1 gig ram vid card has simular performance to the Nvidia GTX260 or a little less then a Radeon 4870 ,But is still within the recomemded performance specs for SWTOR.

                    the good thing about the Radeon 5770 is their very common and cheap now . They sell for around $100 to $130 or even cheaper if on sale.

                     and heres the BIG PLUS . the 5770 only need a ( ONE ) plug pcie power copnnecter!!!  you would be able to use your current power supply without having to upgrade it.

                                                                                                                   Best of luck with your system.

There is a HUGE difference between the 8000 series and the 9000 series in terms of power.  Upgrading to a 260 will net him better Direct X but not much better performance 

I have a 9800 GX2 and will be building a new system shortly.  I considered upgrading my current card months ago and after the research I've done beyond getting directX 11 support the 400 series wouldn't net me any noticable gains.

Save your pennies and get yourself a 500 series around christmas time when there are deals going on.

Originally posted by rimaxo14

Originally posted by mgilbrtsn

i peronally went with the GTX 580 and it seems to run everything just fine,  I don't antiicate having any problems with SWTOR.

Yes same here i got the gtx 580 and i think it's a wonderful card so far !

580's are very nice cards.  I will be likely buying two of them and going SLI by christmas time... unless the 600 series is out by then.

Originally posted by Bainwalker

There is a HUGE difference between the 8000 series and the 9000 series in terms of power.  Upgrading to a 260 will net him better Direct X but not much better performance 

 

I have a 9800 GX2 and will be building a new system shortly.  I considered upgrading my current card months ago and after the research I've done beyond getting directX 11 support the 400 series wouldn't net me any noticable gains.

 

Save your pennies and get yourself a 500 series around christmas time when there are deals going on.

 

580's are very nice cards. I will be likely buying two of them and going SLI by christmas time... unless the 600 series is out by then.

Wow.  There is so much wrong with that post.  Let's try to unpack it.

At the lower end, the 9000 series did improve on the 8000 series.  At the high end, it didn't.  A GeForce 9800 GT is the same thing as a GeForce 8800 GT.  A GeForce 9800 GTX is the same thing as a GeForce 8800 GTS, except clocked slightly higher.  A GeForce 9800 GTX+ is a half node die shrink, and clocked a bit higher yet.  The top 9000 series cards are thus only a bit better than some nearly identical cards from the 8000 series.

And the corresponding 8000 series cards weren't even the high end.  Those were the budget option that was not quite the high end.  The high end was the G80-based cards, the GeForce 8800 GTX, and later, GeForce 8800 Ultra.

A GeForce 9800 GX2 is basically two underclocked GeForce 9800 GTX cards in SLI on a single physical card.

The GT200 die, and GeForce GTX 260 and 280, on the other hand, did improve substantially.  Shader count went from 128 to 240, among other things.  GT200b was a half node die shrink, which allowed higher clock speeds and better yields.  But that's all ancient history, as the GeForce GTX 260 and 280 launched more than three years ago.

Around Christmas time this year, the GeForce 600 series isn't going to be out yet.  Nvidia is using TSMC's 28 nm HP process node, and it isn't going to be ready on time.  Nvidia hasn't historically been good about moving to new process nodes quickly, either, so the cards could be delayed long beyond the time when the process node is ready.

For recent history, check what happened at 40 nm, the current process node.  AMD released what they intended to release at the high end in September 2009.  Nvidia released a disastrous mess of a high end card in April 2010.  Nvidia finally released what they intended to release at the high end in November 2010.  Nvidia barely managed to beat AMD's next generation, which launched in December 2010.

The Radeon HD 7000 series, on the other hand, will be out by Christmas.  Rumors say it could launch as soon as September of this year.  AMD confirms that it will launch this year, but won't say more precisely.  Rumors say that the Radeon HD 7000 series is using TSMC's 28 nm HPL process node, largely because TSMC will have it ready sooner.  That's targeted at lower performance, lower clock speeds, and lower power consumption, so it isn't really meant for GPUs.  That means that the cards might not get the gains that one hopes for from moving to 28 nm, but apparently AMD thinks there are big gains to be had or they wouldn't be using it.

Interestingly enough, Nvidia doesn't really have that option, for architectural differences.  GeForce GPUs clock much, much higher than Radeon GPUs.  Most GeForce GPUs since the 8000 series have had the shaders clocked at at least 1 GHz.  That includes all of the desktop cards since the 9000 series, including the low end and even integrated graphics.  Some have clocked over 1.8 GHz.  Meanwhile, the highest clocked Radeon GPU ever was only 900 MHz.  A process node that can't do high clock speeds well is a non-starter for Nvidia, but might suit AMD just fine.

If the Radeon HD 7000 series launches and gets more or less the gains that you'd hope for from a full node die shrink, then that makes everything else obsolete at the high end.  Nvidia might try to dump their cards at fire sale prices just to get rid of them.  This could take the form of huge rebates, as with the GeForce GT 240.  One could argue that this is already happening with the GeForce GTX 460.  Or they might do what they did last time, and discontinue the cards, while leaving the bit of remaining inventory on the market at stupid prices, so that Nvidia will at least make money on the fanboys who will buy Nvidia no matter how overpriced it is.

But even apart from all of this, Christmas is a horrible time to buy computer hardware.  Anything that is ready around the end of the year will launch in early January.  Often you'll be able to get something vastly better by waiting two weeks rather than buying it at Christmas.  If hardware were to launch on December 20, then people who bought the latest and greatest hardware as a Christmas present for someone else a week before Christmas might see it be obsolete by the time the present is opened.  That leads to lots of returns, and retailers hate that.

That means that most of the hardware that "should" have launched in December will launch in January instead.  That means that a lot of hardware launches in January, but very little in December.  Cayman did launch last December, but that was only because it was supposed to launch in November and was delayed, and the delays were getting embarrassing.  Thus, buying at Christmas means you tend to get older hardware than you would if you waited a few weeks.

I'm in pretty much the same situation as the OP, my rig is

C2D E8400 3.0ghz

4gb ram

Win 7 64 bit

Dual 8800 GT in SLI

Is there a single card I can buy that won't be bottlenecked in my system that will give me a decent  performance increase for a reasonable price? The reason I am asking is one of my 8800GT is starting to take a crap on me and honestly I just don't want to mess with SLI anymore at this time. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

It's really a question of your budget, how high your performance standards are, and how soon you need it.  If you've got $1200+ that you wouldn't mind spending on a new computer, then replacing the computer would probably be the way to go.

Otherwise I'd say, if it works fine for you today, then keep it until you decide that you need something better for one reason or another.  When you find that you do need something better, then you can figure out where the bottleneck is, and whether upgrading just one part will fix it.  That computer should have quite a bit of life in it yet, so I don't see any need for a dire rush to replace the computer.

Sometime around next April, Ivy Bridge, Zambezi, Trinity, Sandy Bridge-E, Southern Islands, and Kepler should all be out.   All of those except for Trinity and Sandy Bridge-E are a full node die shrink from their predecessor products, and Trinity should be massively better than Llano, if only because the processor side of Llano is a mess.  After that, you'd probably have to wait a long time for substantial further improvements, so that would be the perfect time to buy a new computer.  If you're just thinking you'd like to get a new computer sometime in the next year or so, then I'd wait until that hardware is out and then have a look.  After that, it's plausible that there might not be any huge improvements until 2014, as the only die shrink coming in 2013 or later in 2012 is AMD probably moving to 22 nm processors in 2013.  And even that might not matter much for a desktop.