Help Me Choose the Right GPU

B

Bleedblue12345

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 1, 2004
Messages
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Hey everyone, I need a new GPU, doesn't have to be dx 10 or anything, i just need a decent one that will tide me over till the G92's so I can have more money to plop down on a very high end card.

Im looknig at a couple different cards.

First i was thinking about the Sapphire x1950pro Ultimate ($150)

another was the MSI overclocked 8600gts ($150 AR $10 MIR)

anyone else have any better card for the price? im looking to not spend much more than $150. Thanks. Specs in sig, 7900gs died.

Specs:
Q6600 @ 3.2GHZ G0 Core cooled by a Tuniq Tower.
4GB DDR2 SLI CERTIFIED RAM runningg at 4-4-4-12 at 850mhz.
500gb HD
Asus P5k deluxe wi-fi
Vista Ultmiate 64-bit

I play a lot of Supreme Commnder, Quake, CS, and possibly some others. But SupCom is my current "game"

Thanks a Ton [H]ard

O ya and if the card runs hot i really dont care as i wont be ocing much and i have pretty decent case cooling.
 
i wont b using dx 10 so i want the fastest dx 9 card available. Dx 10 would be nice i guess but its not required. I just wan the best performance for the money, especially in supcom. Im not really looknig at the 7900gs as i know i can get faster.
 
wow the 8800gts is about 3 times faster than the 8600gts..... but it really is kind of out of my budget :(
 
The 1950 would probably be slightly faster in non-shader intensive DX9 games. The 8600 would be faster in shader intensive games and you might see slightly better graphics quality in some games due to shader4 implementation.

I have the overclocked MSI 8600GTS with the oversize cooler (NX8600GTS) and am very happy with it. Except for Oblivion I can run all games I've tried with all in-game settings maxed @1680x1050. In Oblivion all setings are maxed except for AA, and your rig is faster than mine. It will overclock way higher than the factory overclock, and is silent if you swap the plugs on the cooler. It will easily play any of the games you mentioned.

Unless you can find something used there probably aren't any faster options than these two for under $150.
 
Nobody knows if the G92 is going to be a "very high end card".

Based on the numbering it would be a mid-range card so who knows. Really it's just too early to know what to expect.
 
mi leaning towards the 8600gts here. I do have 4gb of ram and an overclocked quad core so supcom performance should be quite good. I also dnot need aa or af, and my res is 1280x1024. I just want max settings. Thanks, any other info is appreciated.
 
Jaanpunjab said:
Nobody knows if the G92 is going to be a "very high end card".

Based on the numbering it would be a mid-range card so who knows. Really it's just too early to know what to expect.
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it doesnt matter either way i need a new card as vista doesnt support the 9200 pci and it cant play games worth a shit, just does 2d software
 
im now leaning towards the x1950pro do to 256-bit memory interface and better raw horsepower. ALso it shos the x1950pro is faster in most benches
 
See if someone has a used X1900XT for sale. Mine overclocks comfortably to X1900XTX speeds and runs every game I've thrown at it at 1920x1080 res without problems.
 
This should help a lot ... check out the review right here on hardocp.com:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTMyNCwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

It's a comparison of two 8600GTS but they also have an X1950Pro in all the benchmarks. The 128vs256 bandwidth is real, but you can't necessarily compare specs on these cards otherwise. The 8000 series has streaming processors instead of pixel pipelines like the DX9 chips. The streaming processors have been shown in several reviews to use the available bandwidth more efficiently. Also the 8600 is HDCP compliant and supports PurevideoHD.

But all that being said either of these cards will easily do what you want to do at 1280x1024 *and* with high levels of AF & AA on.
 
Im very confused.

Some reviews show the x1950pro being far superior and smoe reviews show the 8600gts being superior. Ill be running at 1280x1024. I would be getting either a powercolor x1950pro 512mb for $150 AR or an MSI overclocked 8600gts $150 AR. Any help?
 
coolxboxgamer said:
Im very confused.

Some reviews show the x1950pro being far superior and smoe reviews show the 8600gts being superior. Ill be running at 1280x1024. I would be getting either a powercolor x1950pro 512mb for $150 AR or an MSI overclocked 8600gts $150 AR. Any help?
Click to expand...



I'd personally go with the radeon. That 512mb memory isn't going to help much but it can't hurt either. In dx9 the radeon is faster especially with high resolutions (more memory bandwidth).
 
There is no good answer to this question. The fact that Nvidia/AMDati did not put out a product to fill int the golden $200 price range baffles me. The could have killed, instead their last generation card and a mediocre 8600 line up are all we as a consumers have to pick over.
 
8600GT = 50% bandwidth of the x1950Pro
8600GTS = 75%

So no matter what the 8600's have specwise they will be locked by the poor 128-bit interface.

x1950 for the win!

-JB
 
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