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Best Mid Range Card

N

nwo4life022

n00b
Joined
Mar 1, 2007
Messages
45
looking for a video card and wondering what is the best bang for buck in the mid range area at this time. thx
 
An nVidia Geforce 8600gts

Product.aspx
 
There is no 'mid-range' DX10 card thats worth buying; The ATI 19xx cards that are cheaply available seem to be the best bargain right now.

My thoughts anyway. If you are going to spend 200+ on a 8600, eat kraft dinner for 2 weeks and buy the 8800GTS for 300 instead.
 
yeah um guys 8800GTS 320MB is by far the best midrange card its such a good deal for the money and it performs so much better than anything below it.
 
Methos said:
There is no 'mid-range' DX10 card thats worth buying; The ATI 19xx cards that are cheaply available seem to be the best bargain right now.

My thoughts anyway. If you are going to spend 200+ on a 8600, eat kraft dinner for 2 weeks and buy the 8800GTS for 300 instead.
Click to expand...

Kraft dinner is some balling s**t !!! I just eat 99Cent chicken sandwiches from carls jr :p
 
Not really the 8800GTS 640MB and the 8800GTX and the 8800ULTRA are highend... The 320Mb is about 260, and that is in no way HIGHEND. I would strongly suggest to anyone that is looking to build a midrange PC to buy this videocard its the best bang for your buck.:D
 
Another vote for scrimping anywhere else to justify stepping up to the 8800GTS 320. Available under $300 it is Best midrange money you can spend in your system. The performance jump from the $200 dollar cards to this is large. If it means waiting longer to get it, wait. If it means getting a slower CPU, get a slower CPU, etc...
 
thx for the replies yeah that 1950xt seems about my price range im sorry i didnt quote a range i was looking to try and stay under $200...this is actually the card i was looking at as well as the 1950pro....question on that card though if anyone has experience with it, how noisy is the stock fan on it? i dont mind too much noise but there is so much i can take.
 
My vote is for the 1950xt. When a 7900gs only costs $100, how can a $260 8800gts 320 (after rebate) be considered a mid-range card?!

If Nvidia doesn't release a mid-range 9800 this fall/winter, we may end up seeing a price reduced 8800gts 320 competing against a 2900pro (256 bit, 512 mb etc...). At that point I could imagine the 8800gts 320 finally being mid-range, albeit almost a year old.
 
If the $260 8800 GTS is not mid range, i assume its highend?
what you call the $400 GTS640? higher end? $500 GTX high high end? $650 ultra the Ultra high end? I think anything less than $300 would be mid range. Video cards are getting more and more expensive. Just have to accept that $200 to $300 is the NEW mid range.
By the way, i agree that the 8800 GTS320 is probably the best mid range card. the 1900s and 7900s are mid range card too, just in the lower end of mid range. Just like the GTS 640 is in the low side of Highend cards.
 
It's all relative. I depends on how much or how little a person is willing to spend and how much performance is needed/wanted.

I would say 8800 GTS is high end for probably +90% of the population. It's far more than pretty much anybody will need for the time being.

The $500 video cards may be considered high end for those that have gobs of money to spend, but for most people, they might as well not even exist, because they cost so much more than people are willing to spend.
 
Actually I would consider the 8800gts 640 to be high end... the 8800gtx high high end... and the 8800 ultra to be "ultra-est" high high end. Not because of the price or the performance, but because of the product placement in the 8800 line up.

Just look at the 7900 series, they wanted to carve out every price segment.

7900gs (upper mid-range, an 8-series equivalent, in my dreams)

7900gt (kinda sorta the high end, used to be at least)
7950gt (okay... this is the "real" high end)

7900gto (the high high end for people who can't afford the "real" high high end)
7900gtx (okay, now... this is the "real" high high end)
7950gx2 (the flagship double-core cheater high high end, but not really the ultimate high high end, because....)


7900gtx SLi (okay for real this time... this is the "Ultimate-Ultimate" high high end). <--- dx9 future proof! :)


I'm pretty sure if ATi stepped up their game with the 2900, we would have seen the same craziness of the 7 series, via more 8800 variations, not just the 320 mb or the ultra.
 
with the lowest price of 320mb GTS is biostar at $300 here, i must say, it's high end.
 
if you're choosing "mid range" card between 2600xt and 8600gts, then go with 8600gts.
 
Holy hell, get the x1950xt, if you call a 320 midrange then what do you call a x1950xt...low end? Because it's not, same goes for the 2900
 
holy hell, no one ever mentioned 2900xt in this thread anyway.
 
I didn't say anyone did, but if you call the 320 midrange you have to call the 2900 low end, or at least low end of the midrange :confused: All 8800 series are high end.
 
RoBo said:
Because it isn't the best mid-range card.
Click to expand...

The OP should just get what he wants. The 8800GTS 320MB will offer you worlds more, you're looking at 50-60$ more than what you want to pay ($200). DX10 at medium-low settings doesn't really have a difference with DX9 at high. Either one, the 8800GTS 320MB would provide the best performance. Heck, flip a coin if you want to between the 8600GTS and x1950xt. Personally, I'd go for the 8600GTS and OC it, it's a close call between the two either way though. End the bickering OP, DECIDE!!! :( :eek:
 
just received the saphire x1950xt so thanks guys for the replies...im just waiting for my processor and ill be set to upgrade my machine...im going from an amd 64 3000, 1gig ram, and a 6600gt to a core 2 duo 6750, 2gigs ram, and a x1950xt....needless to say im excited to see the speed difference
 
Pretty major upgrades across the board, now you should be able to play anything you want with all or most in games settings maxed except for the 3 DirectX10 games.
 
sounds good yeah im definitely not used to this type of quality stuff this video card is huge and heavy lol...i havent upgraded in quite a while so i wanted to make it count...just happy im finally leaving agp...i have a question though will i have any problems with a xclio goodpower 500W power supply with the following setup
core 2 duo 6750, gigabyte p35 ds3r, 2gigs of dual channel ram, x1950xt, 3 ide hard drives, 2 dvd burners, and all this in p180 case with stock fans...also i will have a tv tuner, a chaintech av-710 sound card, a pci ide controller card. im not an overclocker so that is not an issue
 
Yeh, that PSU should handle that computer well, you could even squeeze some OC'ing into it. ;)
 
You will probably want to stick a fan in the middle of that case, you'll have to take out the middle drive cage to get to the fan slot, but it will help a lot with airflow.

And the 8800gts 320mb CAN be considered mid-range because its price ~$250-$280. It provides great graphics for mid-range resolutions (16XXx1XXX). Many people are getting cheap 20 or 22" monitors, while high end gaming is done on 19XX and up.
 
yeah i have the middle drive cage out as i use the bottom cage for my 3 hard drives. guess ill monitor the temps when i get it setup and if its high i will add another fan. i have the 180b version with the 182 updates
 
nwo4life022 said:
yeah i have the middle drive cage out as i use the bottom cage for my 3 hard drives. guess ill monitor the temps when i get it setup and if its high i will add another fan. i have the 180b version with the 182 updates
Click to expand...

You will probably want a fan there, because there is nothing pulling air in from the front, just pushing out from the back.

My temps went down quite a bit when I added a quiet front fan (Yate Loon).
 
Methos said:
"...if you are going to spend 200+ on a 8600, eat kraft dinner for 2 weeks and buy the 8800GTS for $300 instead.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I did just that and now I have one of these except it was more like hamburger helper (yum) and ramen noodles since I got a trade in... :p
 
tpfaff said:
I didn't say anyone did, but if you call the 320 midrange you have to call the 2900 low end, or at least low end of the midrange :confused: All 8800 series are high end.
Click to expand...

interesting, now we have our 2900xt priced lower than gts 320mb ?
 
You play games (8800GTS and up) or you don't (8500GT for 62$). Anything in between is just plain retarded.
 
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