Video Card advice
Community Forums/General Help/Video Card advice
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| I'm going to update my old nVidia 7200 card, and I was thinking on a 9600 or 9800. Is there a big difference on them? I see 9600 begin a lot more cheaper. Also, would you recommend an ATI card? I could get a 9800 for about 70€, and the 9800 is about 100€. There's also the GeForce GTS 250 1GB Dark Night GDDR3, by 140€, but it is too expensive for what I'm after. |
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| ATI vs. NVIDIA doesn't appear to matter that much, although you'll find horror stories on both sides saying that they'll never again buy a card from the other one. If you're buying a new card, keep in mind that DirectX 11 is just around the corner as well. If you wait just a little bit longer you can either get one that supports DX11, or if nothing else the prices for the DX10 cards is bound to drop again at that point. |
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| Thanks xlsior. finally I did buy a 9800 GTX and it is very very fast! |
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| I just got an ATI 4670 -- Not top of the line by any means, but a lot better than my old card, fast enough to hold me over for a while, and cheap. |
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| Ah yes, that one was my second option |
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| I have never bought a top-of-the-line graphics card, when upgrading, I usually aim for one about 6 months out of date and get a great deal on something that's still competitive enough (admittedly, I don't play the ltest games either, I am usually 6 months to a year behind the "mainstream" there too! ) |
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| I have a 9600m-gt in my laptop, runs everything really well. |
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| I picked up a 512MB 8500GT (PCIE) for £19 last year. So given that I can only recommend what I've got experience of, I recommend that. Not that its a bad card - I only use my PCs for dev stuff but I can't fault it. Its done everything I've ever asked of it. In contrast, I used to have an AGP 256MB 7600GT which cost me nearly £70 and was rubbish. So, don't get that. |
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| "I am usually 6 months to a year behind the "mainstream" there too!" I've been buying games on Steam. Most of them I've been wanting it for awhile but by the time I got them, no one's playing them anymore. Ex: Unreal Tournament 3 (Very few players), Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Doom 3, etc. Just kinda sucks but it's better than paying $30-$50 for a new game especially games that don't even work right (Grand Theft Auto IV). I only got that game because it came with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City free though. |
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| I would not recommend any nVidia past 8800 GT. Why? It's simply not worth it. nVidia have not been able to double the speed in 2 generations. 8800GT SLI beats GTX280 hands down. Totally unacceptable considering ATi have done this a lot better: 3870x2 is almost identical to 4870 (power consumption, size, performance). 4870x2, twice as fast. 5870x2 is rumored to be at least 4 times as fast as 4870x2. That is considered progress in my book. I would have recommended 8800GT, ziggy. If you wanted better, then ATi 4850 or 4870 would have done the job. |
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| I think it's generally reported that SLI / Crossfire in their current states are simply not worth it in terms of cost, heat and power-usage to output advantage ratio. |
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| I think it's generally reported that SLI / Crossfire in their current states are simply not worth it in terms of cost, heat and power-usage to output advantage ratio. Totally agree, with the extra card you wil probably have about 20% extra speed. The only case I remember it was worth it was way back with the Voodoo 2 12mb cards from Daimond. With graphics cards it's not only the numbers you must compare, but also the type of that number as well. The difference between a 6000, 7000, 8000 and 9000 series are mostly the extra calculations added in the newer versions like for example shaders and so on for better quality and better support with newer games. A good example was when I couldn't play BF2 just because my Nvidia 4800Ti card didn't had Shaders 2.0 inside :-( A 8600GT card would probably come near the speed of a 9600GT card for example. I own a 9600GTS from eVGA (Last S stands for Superclocked) and it's about the same speed as a 8800GT. Nvidia normally has a line of slow budget cards of every type like the GS series, then come the faster GT series which are at least twice as fast and then for the ones who have the money the GTX cards which are the fastest in most cases. There is even difference in what type of memmory is added to the card. So if you gonna buy a card it's best to check websites like Tom's HW page wich can give you an idea how fast a card is compared to others. And after that check the prices. |
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| I have an Nvidia Geforce 9300. I've heard it's not the BEST video card but it gets the job done. I'm able to play most of my games on high settings. When I got my new computer I wanted an 8800 but I needed to wait till I had more money. |
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| I bought myself a Geforce 9800GX2 right when it came out, cost me about $550 or so. Wasn't worth it. (But I just had to try having the latest graphicscard for once :D) |
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| I doubt 9300 can get the job done with new games at least. (it really depends on what's the purpose of your video card - gaming or just plain decency) I have an 8800GS at work and its fairly weak at running new games. Even call of duty 4 has FPS issues playing at 1280x1024 with medium details and no AA. I'm pretty sure 9300 is even weaker. When 9800GX2 came out it was priced like that for being new :) Now it's almost worth it. Its pretty much the last dual-GPU card that nVidia made the right way. Also, 9800 series are modified versions of the 8800 series. nVidia and rebranding are BFF. That's why I personally consider its not worth getting a 9xxx card UNLESS its custom built by the vendor with 1GB or 2GB VRAM. I used to be an nVidia fan, and only used nVidia from the day I got my GeForce 2 Ultra 'till the day I replaced my 8800GT. When I wanted an upgrade from 8800GT, I couldn't find any good option from nVidia so I switched to ATi and got 4870x2. Sometime later I noticed the whole 4xxx series from ATi are very good, especially in the "shader processing" area. A friend of mine tested his 8800GT SLI vs ATi 4670. Surprisingly 4670 was twice as fast as the SLI setup on heavy shader computation (SSAO mostly), even though it was eating dust when facing high poly count and high resolution+AA. Actually, the first question should have been: what do you plan on using your video card for? 1. gaming - get ATi 48xx series. 2. high-end gamedev (including shaders) - get nVidia 8800 or if you really have to, 9xxx (nVidia has excellent Developer tools, particularly NVPerfHUD) 3. low-end gamedev and multimedia - get either ATi or nVidia, doesn't matter that much, but look for passive cooling and low power consumption |
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| Totally agree, with the extra card you wil probably have about 20% extra speed. Worse than that, a few games actually give you a speed decrease in SLI... The cost difference really isn't worth it. It's typically cheaper to get a single card now, and 6 months down the road get a single higher-up model card, which will be faster than buying two of the original cards all at once. |
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| I'd go with some form of SLI/ Crosdsfire system once the cards and games fully support them for say Phyusics processed by one, and graphics processed by the other. Otherwise, it's like having two chefs in the kitchen. |
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| Hopefully by the time I get a job, Nvidia would have a Geforce 10,000 out or GeForce 10K, that'd be nice... that is, if it's harder/better/faster/stronger. |
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