Which Is The Best Gaming Graphics Card? Which one?

[webdesignunlimited 0]

i am a serious gamer, and i want to upgrade my computer in time for christmas. So i wanted to know your opinion on which of the following graphics cards would be best for the job i want to do:Sapphire Radeon X1300 256MB (PCI)Sparkle GF 6600 512MB (PCI)Gigabyte GF 6600 Turbo SLI 128MB (PCI)Any other graphics cards within the price range of £0-£100Also, does the memory of the card only effect the preformance, or is there other things that matter?Thanks

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

If I were u I'll take the GF 7800XT compared to the Radeon X1300.xboxrulz

[James_K 0]

After the top of the line X1000 series comes out it's going to mop the floor with nVidia thats what i would go for and once the perfect the crossfire there is no stopping it and yes memory does perfect it's overall preformence expecially for these cards since the have 8 pipelines where the 7800 has a mindblowing 24 but out of yoru list I would personally go for the X1300

[Phrame 0]

When you say PCI, do you mean PCI-Express, or standard PCI? Really, though, if they're standard PCI - which I doubt in a 512MB - look for PCI-E.Beyond that, I don't know too much. I'd just purchased a 128MB GF MX 4000 PCI [Yes, regular PCI. I'm a hypocrite, I know.] today, and beyond what I've seen on the internet, I don't know too much. Could somebody with a bit more experience - perhaps even with the same card - supply me with a bit of info?

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

PCI is a shared port. It shares the same bus as your network card, soundcard and what not, even your modem. AGP (Advance Graphics Port), the older dedicated port for graphics, it has it's own bus, and it's speed is MUCH better than PCI. PCI-E, the new dedicated port for graphics, built on top of the old PCI technology. The difference this time is that PCI-E is currently used only for graphic cards. It is around 5x-10x faster than AGP in the bandwidth. Therefore, having the ability to add better framerates and pixel fill-ins.xboxrulz

[webdesignunlimited 0]

so can you fit a PCI express card into an ordinary PCI slot?

[James_K 0]

so can you fit a PCI express card into an ordinary PCI slot?

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Haha no web for most cards if you look the PCI-E it wont be longer then your thumb while some might be as long as the standerd AGP slot but no there are certians "cut-outs" in the card where plastic goes in this makes sure that you dont put it in backwards or put in a wrong type of card also PCI-E is servreal timesfaster then PCI which was the whole reason it was created first created was PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) was to create expandion slots so you can add cards and extra features on to your computer thats when most graphics company formed and almost removed the term intergrated graphics then AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) was formed it's main purpose was to suppy powereful graphical devices which removed the boundries and restrictions that had proven troublsome to the designers and programmers to the Graphics industry this was because teh demand of 3D became a huge cry people were getting sick of 4 colors after they wanted higher resolutions and more colors they got 16 colors and higher resolution and after 10's of years now we have big screen TV bloody projectors as monitors for computers with 256 colors! (Thats a lot more then a rainbow, if you can list 256 colors with out looking it up you deserve a medal) of course I left out A lot of history if you want to know the whole process look it up in google or a A+ book of I might write it out later, and now we have PCIE which can handel double the transfer rate of which an AGP can and also is much more flexiable (sorry if some parts run off or done make sense it's 3 in the morning) if you need more information I'm happy to supply it

James

[Phrame 0]

.. what a long sentence.In that case, is there any sort of PCI>AGP converter that can be obtained? In any case, how much'll the speed of the card be hindered if it's shared with, say, a wireless network card and a sound card?

[James_K 0]

haha sorry phrame when I'm posting I dont usually look out for punctuation, well um PCI>AGP Converter....I have not heard of such a thing but maybe someone else has I'm not to sure what your second question is please clerify

[pyost 0]

It's obvious that he was talking about pci-e, duh!If I were you, I would take the ATI card. I prefer ATI, because NVidia is like Microsoft - owning a big part of the market, but not so good. Sure, their graphic cards are good, but the new ati cards will destroy nvidia. Also, I think that 512 MB is waaaaaaaaaaay unneccesary. A year ago, 128 MB was a standard and 256 MB weren't even 50% better than the 128MB ones. ow it's the same situation with 512 MB - you don't get any better performances.On the other hand, the 128 MB NVidia card is quite good, but in my opinion, it's better to buy ATI nowadays... But don't listen only to me, I'm sure other people don't agree

[Killer008r 0]

If you have a pci-e get the GFORCE 7800 GTX (If you have enough get the dual) because that will last a LONG time.

[James_K 0]

I agree with killer if you got the cash get it but it will cost a limb and a arm but it will last long enough so you can grow em back, To me pyost doesn't seem to be quite a hard-core gamer most gamers know that the battle between ATI and Nvidia is never ending and how he related Nvidia to microsoft I will never know yah sure a year ago 128 were go but a year ago I was a year younger a year ago I didn't have this 64 bit Dual core AMD processor a year ago I didn't have these ATI 1800 connected by crossfire (I know there is a lot of glitches you dont have to point it out) a year ago I had the 6600 what I'm trying to say is Technology is evlolving faster then anything (if you reading this then you most likley already know) sure 128 is the recommended amount of VRAM for Quake but who wants to play everything at NORMAL quality when you can have High Or OMG crazy High? And apart from the times you'll go oh SH*T that scared the crap out of me the other times you'll go THESE ARE AMAZING GRAPHICS plus to me the way I see it you'll need to upgrade every 3-5 years with the speed that todays games are evloving and by that time you'll probebly be playing everything on low quality and low rez and you'll be back here asking which graphics card would be better the 10000 by ATI or the 780000GT by Nvidia? Yah right now 512 might seem like a bit much it's not unneccesary but it's nice to have so that you can play games still at good quality in 2 years. You might think jeeze who does this dork prefer ATI or Nvidia? I dont care I just get the better reviewed one if it works and if it's the best at the time that's good enough for me.James

[cyborgxxi 0]

But first, I want to ask: I bought a GeForce FX 5700LE a year ago (October, November-ish) and I wonder if $150 was a fair price for it. Right now, I can't play Battlefield 2 very smoothly - very choppy (15~20 FPS) average and thus, it forced me to uninstall it.Now, I really want to get a new graphics card. I also want to upgrade my CPU. I bought it about 4~5 years ago (Pentium 4) and it's 2.0 GHz. I think it's getting a little outdated right now? Yeah, I thought so. Maybe a new hard drive - I need to reformat this hard drive I have here.Also, can someone tell me why my combo drive (bought two years ago) doesn't work very well? My computer sometimes hangs (can't move my cursor, do anything, not even taskbar manager thing in Windows XP) while my Samsung combo drive is trying to read the DVD.I was trying to copy a 3.2 gigabyte file to my desktop and it says 65 minutes remaining. I was like "What the heck".There are lots of questions here but I hope someone can answer them thoroughly Thanks (and please provide a bit of an explanation)

[mesmer 0]

£0-£100? if im not wrong thats euro right?for a 148 bucks. u can get a Geforce 6600GT with out a problem. the thing is 128mb on a DDR3( uber fast) for 148 bucks only? come on -.- i mean i cant even agure with that... and i try to find the best of the best stuff when comes to computer parts.

[Killer008r 0]

1. But first, I want to ask: I bought a GeForce FX 5700LE a year ago (October, November-ish) and I wonder if $150 was a fair price for it. Right now, I can't play Battlefield 2 very smoothly - very choppy (15~20 FPS) average and thus, it forced me to uninstall it.

 

2. Now, I really want to get a new graphics card. I also want to upgrade my CPU. I bought it about 4~5 years ago (Pentium 4) and it's 2.0 GHz. I think it's getting a little outdated right now? Yeah, I thought so. Maybe a new hard drive - I need to reformat this hard drive I have here.

 

3. Also, can someone tell me why my combo drive (bought two years ago) doesn't work very well? My computer sometimes hangs (can't move my cursor, do anything, not even taskbar manager thing in Windows XP) while my Samsung combo drive is trying to read the DVD.

 

4. I was trying to copy a 3.2 gigabyte file to my desktop and it says 65 minutes remaining. I was like "What the heck".

 

There are lots of questions here but I hope someone can answer them thoroughly Thanks (and please provide a bit of an explanation)

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Cyborg, Here are the answers (I numbered the things so I could tell you number by number).

 

1. A year ago for a 5700 priced at 150 wasn't a good deal. If you want to know abou the latest tech get pc-magizine that will also help you on pricing for various stuff like that.

 

2. A new graphics card. for $309 at pricewatch you can get an ok Gforce 7800 gtx. For cpu I would switch/upgrade, but with upgrading/switching, your CPU you will mostlikely need a new mobo. I would get a 939 socket mobo and then an AMD Atholon 64 3200.

 

3.Your computer "hanging" is probaly in result of ram or cpu issues. If it is the combo drives problem, it's probaly because it's a low speed.