Buying A New V-card And Need Help.

[Dondada 0]

I'm finnally giving in and deciding to buy a new video card but not sure what I'm going to buy. So far I'm looking for a card within this range...- $100-170- 256MB- ATI, NVIDIA, or any common manufactuer that supports most games.Any opinions on what I should be getting?

[Reaver 0]

Dondada there is a few posts here at astahot that i have posted in aswell advising you on the cards and the war between ATI and NVIDIA. Search Xisto and im sure the information will help you with your decision. Also i suggest adding to your requirements not only your price range but the general use you intend for the card and your program preferences would be a good idea to list aswell because a design card can be alot different to a gamers card and for someone who uses video camera editing tools will be in need of svideo inputs/outputs or tv in /out and so on.

[Retaining 0]

What interface, AGP or PCI-Express? Assuming AGP, here is a good place to start. However, do you have a particular reason for wantig 256 MB? It does limit your choices somewhat in that price range.

[Dondada 0]

What interface, AGP or PCI-Express?  Assuming AGP, here is a good place to start.  However, do you have a particular reason for wantig 256 MB?  It does limit your choices somewhat in that price range.

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AGP will most likely be my selection for heavy gaming, I am looking to get 256MB because right now I am on a 64MB and I have friends who have 128MB and are not satisfied when they attempt to play some of the high end games. So I figured not to take any chances and invest for future change.

 

Thanks for the Newegg.com link, they are the best, but most likely I will be looking to buy from a local retail store i.e BestBuy, Circuit City, Frys, etc mainly for customer service.

[Killer008r 0]

AGP? No, Pci Express, Yes because right now Pci Express is the only thing that Gforce 7800 GTX is able to run with, and right now that video card is Top of the line, Seriously for 200 bucks you can't go wrong with that video card. I don't really like Newegg that much I go on pricewatch.com and tigerdirect.com and so far I have found the cheapest stuff on the market go down cheaper because of pricewatch's deal with thoes sties. Anyways, For video card go with the latest technology on a mother board. (PCI express) and probaly have a AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (anything above 3000) I just got a Gforce 7800 gtx with vivo support and you just cant go wrong with it, I can play any game, and my Video specs are off the charts when I to the video card tests.

[wutske 0]

It'll be hard (and probably expensive) to find a 256Mb AGP card.I think you'll have to get a Radeon X800 series or nV6800 series card. But I don't know why your friends say that 128Mb isn't enough ? Most games can run on a 128Mb vid card, maybe not on 'super high extreme detailed' mode, but on 'a bit less detailed but hardly noticable' mode, if you know what I mean

[minnieadkins 0]

PCI Express is the future of gaming now? I don't even know if I have a PCI Express slot lol. I'll have to look into that, but you really interested me in that $200 card. I've always owned nVidia cards, and I've been satisfied with the results, but I've never had "top of the line". I can't actually say which one I prefer because I've never owned both. I think that'll I'll go with the ATI cards the next time I purchase. Are the PCI Express cards just as fast/faster than AGP? My computer's fairly decent, I think it's 2 years old now. I don't know much about motherboards that's why I have no idea about the PCI Express. Thanks for the info in this thread. I was looking at the ATI 9800 pro and the x800 i believe. I have a geforce 4ti 4800se. It does okay, but the next generation of games are going to chew it up alive. I could handle doom3 (low res etc) with about 20-35 fps most of the time.

[Dondada 0]

It'll be hard (and probably expensive) to find a 256Mb AGP card.

I think you'll have to get a Radeon X800 series or nV6800 series card. But I don't know why your friends say that 128Mb isn't enough ? Most games can run on a 128Mb vid card, maybe not on 'super high extreme detailed' mode, but on 'a bit less detailed but hardly noticable' mode, if you know what I mean

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Well its not only my friend but new end games that are just a year old are now asking for 256MB. The other day I installed a game called Hitman 3 and the read me file said...This game can play fine on 128MB but is reccomended for 256MB or above. I figured I dont want to end up buying another card 2-3 years from now and catch up with the industry. I believe overall I'll be saving more money upgrading to 256MB now. Thanks for the advice everyone I'll be using it to make my final choice very soon.

[Killer008r 0]

See thats why i say go with the Gforce 7800 it might cost a bit more than you are looking but with that you wont have to get a new videocard for a couple years, the Gforce 7800 was releaced a little premature thought because they weren't sopposed to let it out until the next gen consoles come out because thats the video card that is in the Nintendo Revolution (meaning you can't find games that will use its full potental yet) which kind of sucks, but hey, you have a next Gen system if you get it.

[twitch 0]

If you are willing to buy online and pay shipping costs, then planetmicro.co.uk is a good place to start. It was set-up from a member that holds the UK's largest computer fair (happens every Saturday and Sunday) in the Bowler's Expedition Centre (manchester). The site sponsors the event. And provides catering, as well as hardware. All the electronics there are very cheap. A very good tower (including components) can be bought at about ÂŁ180 (multiply by 1.75 to get USD).

http://www.planetmicro.co.uk/

The best place to buy computer components is a computer fair, and you are given a reciept with each purchase, so you can return it the following week.

[twitch 0]

Here is the direct link to the graphics (video) cards:
http://www.planetmicro.co.uk/results_cat.a20Cards&sort=az

[MajesticTreeFrog 0]

For your price range I wouldn't worry about 256MB. Your friend is is dissatisfied is probably not dissatisfied because of the amount of RAM on the card, but instead the speed of the GPU on the card. Take a look at reviews at toms hardware and similar sites. My last (breif) look at such sites made it seem as though nVidia had the best high end, but ATI had the best midrange (which is what you are looking at) with products like the 9600XT and such. I have an XT, and it is very good, gives me no problems at all.

[kam1405241509 0]

If you don't care about other things (video encoding, pro app performance) & only 3D gaming performance at normal resolutions, then it really is between Nvidia & ATI. Performance in different game engines varies depending on NV/ATI drivers (though it often improves over time too!).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/print/2005-17gpu.html is a good recent summary of 17 graphics cards in 30 games, and this is one (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/print/half-life.html) that focuses on half life 2 performance. As you can see, NV has amazing DoomIII-engine performance (where there are tons of agents moving around on screen), and ATI has the upper hand in Half Life 2 thanks to their decent pixel shader tech. In Far Cry it's fairly neck & neck.

At the high-end, on the Nvidia side, it's a choice of 6800 & 7800 series cards. With ATI they recently announced their X1800XL/XT which are the first NV/ATI non-pro non-mac cards that have two dual-link DVI TMDS/RAMDAC's at 400MHz, AFAIK, after the GF DDL mac card .. so if that's important to you, it might be worth waiting for those to come out & come down in price!

If you are going to PCIE & are replacing the board, for high end gaming there's the choice of going for SLI (two graphics cards working together to nearly double performance but only in certain games & only with two of the same GPUs ... SLI2 may fix these issues). If you do go this route, try to get both PICEs with 16 lanes (not simply a x16 phy).

Another choice is to go for a dual-chip GF SLI setup on a single card .. there are only 2-3 of those, & none are that great at the moment unless you specifically want some of their features.

Overclocking is another issue you should consider.

Finally, if you are going for a new PCIE system, then it's advisable to go 64-bit, not just for the 64-bit Far Cry update (which draws the scene further into the distance, etc), but also for as an investment on future mainstream OS's (Vista) & games.

Sorry I haven't been very specific, but the two links have pages of detailed stats. Also, if you give a more specific price (is it 100 or 200USD??), I can probably give a specific short list of cards. Personally, at this price range, I'd get one of the old BFG 6800 Ultras (they used to be 250USD a few months ago).

[Jdz 0]

nvidia GeForce 6600GT 128mb AGP card, from what I've heard it runs de_inferno (Counter-Strike Source) up to 180fps (or some high figure) and de_inferno is a pretty graphicly intense map . Though you probabaly should listen to Kam or somebody who knows what they're talking about,

[lisim 0]

nvidia GeForce 6600GT 128mb AGP card, from what I've heard it runs de_inferno (Counter-Strike Source) up to 180fps (or some high figure) and de_inferno is a pretty graphicly intense map .

 

Though you probabaly should listen to Kam or somebody who knows what they're talking about,

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i dotn think 180 fps but cs:s is nto very demandign game thats how its designed ( to max proformence) becuase its a multiplayer only game

 

im from australia and for 170$ u can barely get any thing but the use dollar is quite higher

 

i can get a Gigabyte 6600GT SLi ready fro 250$ over here (money well spent)