Accidentally downgraded video card?

[Etheric42]

I have a Dell XPS (2x3.2 ghz processor running XP) I bought in 2008 or 2007. My graphics card (an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT) was giving up the ghost. I play a lot of League of Legends and apparently their coding doesn't play well with NVIDIA (according to their forums). My GPU would heat up to 80+ degrees, then I'd start developing artifacts, leading eventually to full system crash. I figured it was getting old and dying (I have cats and I was negligent about cleaning out dust/hair so the fan was probably on its last legs anyway) so I should replace it.

A decade ago I was pretty up-to-date about computer info and how things worked, but along the way I lost track of what things I need to look out for in a piece of hardware. Seeing my graphics card was something like 6 years old, I assumed nearly any off-the-shelf mid-low end card would vastly outperform it. After all, I didn't pay big bucks for the 8800, it is just what came bundled with the machine.

So I pick up an ASUS 6670 for 70 bucks, take it home, slap it in, and it runs LoL perfectly... but it does seem to take a bit longer to load games than it used to. Probably just my imagination.

Then I decide to dust off Shogun 2: Total War. Not only is it unplayable, but I just navigating the menus and start-up take forever and I have not been successful in getting into the video options to turn it down enough to play.

Then when browsing a forum, I see this rather scary remark:"a Radeon HD 6770 is closer to a NVidia 8800-series card.
But if you need a card under $100 try looking for Radeon HD 6750 which is only a little bit slower than 6770."

!!!!

So my card, which is very old, and factory pre-bundled is probably SUPERIOR to the one I picked up off the shelf?

Is that right?

Do I need to take this card back, suck it up, pay an extra 50 bucks (or more) for a card that is EQUIVALENT to my old one?

Surely I'm just imagining things... but if I do need to take this bad boy back to Fry's, what should I pick up in its stead? I'd hate forking over a chunk of change for marginal benefit, especially when I had assumed a marginal bit of cash was going to net me a solid upgrade.

[Radiator]

The 6670 is a fairly low end card, while the 8800 GT still kind of holds up today, because it was just that good, in fact they kept rebranding the same bloody GPU for years until they finally stopped and ditched it.

But no, you didn't downgrade, the 6670 is quite a bit more powerful, I suppose it's simply a case of Shogun 2 being the problem.
Might have something to do with your drivers, though seeing as you switched from an nVidia card to an ATi card without a clean wipe. Clean your PC from all the crap the nVidia drivers leave behind and then install the newest drivers for the 6670 and it should remove most problems... though in case of Shogun 2, it might simply be a case of the game just being horribly unoptimized for ATi cards (of this I am not certain, merely an educated guess).

[ultima]

No you are not imagining things.

The 6670 is a low end part.

The first 6 is the series.
The second 6 is the class. Goes from 5 up to 9
The last two numbers is how powerful the card is in that class.


So yes sadly you did down grade your video card.
Just cause a video card is newer , does not mean faster.....

Kinda like cars

[Radiator]

Originally Posted by ultima

No you are not imagining things.

The 6670 is a low end part.

The first 6 is the series.
The second 6 is the class. Goes from 5 up to 9
The last two numbers is how powerful the card is in that class.


So yes sadly you did down grade your video card.
Just cause a video card is newer , does not mean faster.....

Kinda like cars

No he did not, the 6670 is clearly more powerful in the great majority of games.
Did you actually look up any benchmarks? I did, just to be certain.
And also, the "670" part means it's more or less the mid-end part, the low end bits generally end with 450/470 and 550/570.
But it is more powerful than the 8800GT, that much is objective fact.

[xPLORERRRRR]

I play lol also XD

[Stubby]

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards....=544&card2=654

i put up the specs for the the GDDR5 version but at 70 bucks you probably have the GDDR3 one.

As you can see from a spec point of view it is 6 of one and a half dozen of the other for the GDDR5. Your newer card will perform better in recent titles because its drivers are more recent and thus will handle the latest directx etc. better.