How Much Power Do I Really Need?

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zwbuntster

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 26, 2005
Messages
384
Ok, so I have been looking at all the cards out right now, but I started wondering how much I really have to get. In your guys' opinions, if I am only going to use a 17 MAYBE 19 inch (most probably 17) monitor with farily decent settings turned on, how much card do i need. I want t see what you guys think without talking about budget and then I will see what I can afford out of the suggestion. O yeah, and I want to be able to play all the newer FPS's and stuff like that. Thanks in advance.
 
the size of your monitor really isn't much of a consideration. My 6800gt will perform the same on my 19" CRT as it will on my buddies 17" LCD. (I know, i've used it on both). The resolution will impact performance but most monitors will let you run a lower than native rez and just scale it up, so like i said, the size of the monitor shouldn't impact much.

IMO you should really get a $$ number in your head as too how much you'd like to spend and then try to get as much bang for your buck as you can. I'd recommend spending at least $200.

Either that or set yourself a goal like, "I want to run FEAR at uber high rez with max settings" or "I want to score at least 7000 on 3dmark05" and then get the card that is going to suit your needs best. Remember that if you do get a mid-to-high range video card it might be time to upgrade your powersupply as well, as most of the newer cards all require some kind of addition power.

Do you know what system it will be going into?
 
zwbuntster said:
Ok, so I have been looking at all the cards out right now, but I started wondering how much I really have to get. In your guys' opinions, if I am only going to use a 17 MAYBE 19 inch (most probably 17) monitor with farily decent settings turned on, how much card do i need. I want t see what you guys think without talking about budget and then I will see what I can afford out of the suggestion. O yeah, and I want to be able to play all the newer FPS's and stuff like that. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
That would depend on whether your planning on buying a CRT or LCD.

For example, a 19 inch LCD won't do anything higher than 1280x1024, whereas a 19 inch CRT will do 1600x1200 at a quite comfortable refresh rate. Conversely, a 17 inch CRT probably would have an unbearably low refresh rate at 1280x1024, forcing you to use 1024x768, whereas a 17 inch LCD will be able to run at 1280x1024 (because refresh rates don't matter with LCDs).

So as you can see, you have left us with a huge gap in gameplay resolution. If you're going to be playing at 1024x768 than you're obviously not going to want the same recomendation that you would get if you were playing at 1600x1200.
 
well, no matter what you need, there are several bang for the buck cards out there that you should look into

at the following price points
$99 XFX 6600DDR2 PCI-E....going to be out soon
$125 XFX 6600GT PCI-E
$175 Connect3D Radeon X800GTO PCI-E hack to 16 pipes
$200 6800GS 256M PCI-E only 12pipes but no hack needed

you decide.....
btw, i recommended all PCI-E cards, because if your system can't handle PCI-E, then it's probably not going to handle newest games at 1280.

edit
oh another thing: if you don't need SLI, get the Connect3D X800GTO. If you want to eventually upgrade to SLI, then decide amongst options 1,2, and 4. ATI's crossfire sucks
 
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