Graphics Card Advice

[Mad Wizard]

I'm looking to upgrade my PC's graphics card. From what I can tell, it really needs it. I currently have an ATI Radeon X300, which came with the computer. I'd like a card that will play video games well, with a maximum price of $150 or so. With this in mind, I've been looking at the GeForce 8800. Does anyone know if this is a good card, and can you recommend if there's anything better within my price range? Thanks!

If this is the wrong forum for this, it would be great if the mods would move it.

[tyckspoon]

It's a solid card; if your case and power supply can handle it, it'll serve you well. I would look for the GTS version with 512 MB main memory, if you can find one marked for your price- it's a refreshed design that uses nVidia's more recent graphics core, and usually runs $10-20 more than the standard GT model. The 9800 is a very similar card; if you happen to find a better deal on one of those, it should perform comparably. If you want to save a little money, you can try Radeon's 3870; it's weaker, but not too much so, and the suggested retail price is 30-50 dollars less. If you can afford to step up to the 180-200 range, look into the 4850 (warning: runs very hot.) or the GeForce 9800 GTX+.

[Arang]

The above is sound advice, but the best performance/price ration is with the 8800 GT, not the GTS.

[Kizara]

A word of something I've ran into lately:

Make sure your power supply can handle your card.

Check your power supply, it should have a rating of what its maximum output is. Your card should have a similar draw rating on its box.

Now, make sure you have your card only taking 80% of your maximum draw so you have enough power for other things (like your computer, your sound card, your internet adapter etc) without overdrawing. If you don't, you won't be getting the performance you should from your card as well as having burn-out issues (I had the same geforce 6600 card burn out twice, 8 months apart each time, because of this problem).

[The Evil Thing]

8800 GT is a solid piece of equipment and will serve you well for a long time.

Incidentally, shouldn't thread be in General Discussion?

[Vonriel]

I don't know if there's really a good spot for tech advice. General discussion would seem likely, but this doesn't necessarily fit under the heading of friendly banter, and definitely not under media or board discussion. Gaming seems like a good spot, because the card will most likely be used for gaming.

Anyway, the 8800 GT you folks say? I might be upgrading in the near-to-not-quite-far future, and this is good information to have.

[Destro_Yersul]

I went for the 8500, cause the 8800 was outside my budget. It's a good solid card, even if it doesn't have quite as many bells and whistles.

[Mad Wizard]

Thanks for the advice, all.

[Demented]

I went for the 8500, cause the 8800 was outside my budget. It's a good solid card, even if it doesn't have quite as many bells and whistles.

Well, to be accurate, the 8800 GT is a modest 4-6 times as powerful as an 8500 GT.
Of course, you won't ever actually use that much power if you're playing turn-based games on a 14" screen.

[Forthork]

You have a PCI-Express 16 slot, correct? If you do not know this, you need to find out. As the others have said, make sure your power supply is good enough. Anyway, the best card you can get for that much money is the Radeon 4850, followed by the GeForce 9800GTX, 8800GTS, 8800GT, Radeon 3870, GeForce 9600GT, 9600GSO/8800GS, Radeon 3870, and 4670. Lot of information, I know. Basically, for $150, get the 4850, the GeForces at that price take too much power and are slightly weaker. For ~$100, go with the 8800GT, and for anything less either the 9600GT or 9600GSO. Another thing you need to figure out is whether your power supply has a 6-pin PCI-Express power connector, which all the cards except for the Radeon 4670 require. Many will come with adapters, but some will not, so you will have to buy that separately. If you plan on sticking with resolutions at or lower than 1280x1024 or 1440x900, the 4850 is probably overkill.
Probably your best bet. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121253)

[Tom_Violence]

If I may just briefly hijack this thread - can anyone tell me if this thing what is currently up on eBay (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/QUAD-Q6700-PC-10-6Ghz-4GB-500GB-9500GT-1GB-SLI-GFX_W0QQitemZ120308749668QQihZ002QQcategoryZ179QQt cZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262) is a good deal or not? It looks pretty good to me, but then my knowledge of such things is bordering on the non-existant these days.

Ta!

[tyckspoon]

If I may just briefly hijack this thread - can anyone tell me if this thing what is currently up on eBay (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/QUAD-Q6700-PC-10-6Ghz-4GB-500GB-9500GT-1GB-SLI-GFX_W0QQitemZ120308749668QQihZ002QQcategoryZ179QQt cZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262) is a good deal or not? It looks pretty good to me, but then my knowledge of such things is bordering on the non-existant these days.

Ta!

Looks pretty good, aside from the misleading way they present the CPU. Mobo could stand to be of a more recent generation, but it's still ok. I wouldn't blink at paying the closing price for that box retail, and I think it's probably about as much or maybe a little less than buying all the parts individually would be, so it's a savings on time and knowledge for assembly if nothing else.

[The Evil Thing]

It would seem the seller in question doesn't understand how multi-threaded CPUs work. I wouldn't feel comfortable buying anything more complicated than a pocket calculator from them.

[Tom_Violence]

It would seem the seller in question doesn't understand how multi-threaded CPUs work. I wouldn't feel comfortable buying anything more complicated than a pocket calculator from them.

How so? I'm a bit of a balloon when it comes to anything technical really.

[Forthork]

The seller does that to make it look more attractive, probably not because he is stupid. 2 9500's in SLI is useless, a faster single card would be much better. The RAM and likely the motherboard are cheap. I'm not good with the conversion rates, but if it's under $500 USD then it might be worth it.

[tyckspoon]

newegg pricing:
Q6700: $270 US
2 9500GT: ~ $140, depending on manufacturer
4 GB budget RAM as
2 2x1 kits: $60-70
1 2x2 kit: $55-70
ASRock 650i SLI motherboard: $100

$575 in parts value, and I haven't tried to hunt down the case they put it in yet or added the cost of the hard drive. Total cost of auction at time of closing, including shipping: 375.2 pounds. Google converts that to just short of 700 US$. It's a reasonable price for the box- only a little bit over retail value for the parts with almost no markup for assembly and branding.. at least, in US prices from a US source. Might be a better or worse deal in UK shopping. It's probably still a better deal than you would get from shopping for other 'gaming'-level computers, although I'd ask the sellers if they could swap in a better card instead of the SLI'd 9500s. Should be something good available at the same price point.

[The Evil Thing]

How so? I'm a bit of a balloon when it comes to anything technical really.
10.6GHz? That's pretty much a physical impossibility and will be for at least a decade. What the chap obviously means is four cores operating at 2.65GHz (well, it should be 2.66GHz but let's ignore that). However, multi-threading doesn't work cumulatively. The guy is either dishonest or clueless.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Isn't the GeForce 9 series all PCI-e 2.0? How will that effect him?

[tyckspoon]

PCIe 2.0 is forwards and backwards compatible with PCIe 1.0; you can install a 1.0 card to a 2.0 slot or vice versa and it will work. Right now the 2.0 standard is just a piece of (far) future-proofing by the industry, as the 1.0 version still has bandwidth to spare for all modern cards and for the foreseeable future. In brief, there is no practical difference between PCIe 1.0 and 2.0 slots at this time.