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Recommend me a video card

M

Mojo

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 28, 2003
Messages
1,569
Okay, I want to see what you guys would do if you were in my place. This rig is about 2 months old, and I salvaged my old 9500pro. I figured I'd give it a whirl but after that, I found that my system is being bottlenecked quite heavily.

I don't play games too much anymore and will probably play them less this year and next year (when I go to university). I just want my system to be relatively bottleneck free so I get what I paid for, as well as something that will make my machine last me a good 3 years by my standards (which does not include 1600 x 1200 with 4x fsaa and 8x af or w/e). I likely will not own a monitor greatly than 1280 x 1024 for several years (ie: more than 5). Because my current monitor only does 1280 x 1024, and my next monitor will be a 17" LCD, of which most are rated optimal for 1280 x 1024. I do like to turn on at least a bit of antialiasing just to rid myself of ugly jaggies.

Just wondering what you guys would do. I'm looking mostly for people like myself. Not totally [H]ardcore gamers that will just walk in my thread and say 6800GT with no information or reasons to back it up.
 
I think you would be best suited with a 6800 non ultra. They are selling for under $300 and they perform very well. Most of them are really good overclockers. It will give you the performance you need for the next 2-3 years.
 
burningrave101 said:
I think you would be best suited with a 6800 non ultra. They are selling for under $300 and they perform very well. Most of them are really good overclockers. It will give you the performance you need for the next 2-3 years.
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Ditto if you're budget minded the 6800nu should last a good 2 to 3 years at the reses you are talking about.
 
6800nu and the GT are both good chioces. I think the GT would be worth your money since for a whlle it will still be able to run 1280x on any and all games. The nu may stuggle with the higher end games soon to come (STALKER, HL2, ect.)

For your situation, both are great buys and as of now you get what you pay for.
 
The other option is a 9800pro. You said you're not a heavy gamer, and won't be. So perhaps onliy spending $200 on the video card makes more sense than $400. No reason to buy graphics power you'll never use before it's obsolete. And look at it another way, spend the $200 now, wait a couple years then upgrade the graphics card again for around $200 and you'll be better off.

I'm just taking you literally at what you said you wanted. I like to play at 1600x1200 and just got a 6800GT, but that doesn't seem to be what you are looking for.
 
i was just wondering if you wouldnt mind selling the 9500pro when you get a new video card
 
willtdh said:
i was just wondering if you wouldnt mind selling the 9500pro when you get a new video card
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I would love to, PM me with details.
 
if you have the money you could buy a 6800 gt ... this will probably even work with the next windows generation in 2 years ...

or a 6600 which should have enough power for your intention (even the next years, when you don't play as much) and it is "cheap" ...
 
The $300 6800 deal this weekend at Best Buy sounds like a good deal to me.


Note to self: Do not let self go to Best Buy this weekend and buy $300 video card and end up in doghouse with dog with wifey really pissed off. ;) :D
 
If money is okay, and you play a lot of games I say 6800GT. Which will last you for a while. If you play some games, but not a lot. The 6800nu would be fine...
 
To run at the resolution you want to with current and future games, an x800 Pro or 6800 GT is probably what you really need, with the 6800 GT leading the x800 Pro somewhat.

Why?

Well, I owned one of the better previous-generation cards (the 9800 Pro), and it really could only go up to about 1152x864 at good detail settings on games like Doom 3 and Far Cry. Going up to 1280x1024 would probably be more load than a card like that could handle at good frame rates unless you turned the detail settings down, which kind of defeats the point of running at high resolutions. Now, if you are playing older-generation games, the 9800 Pro totally kicks their ass and can run at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 all day long. But Doom 3 and Far Cry are demanding as hell, and future games will only get more so.

A "plain" 6800 MIGHT do the trick, but from the benchmarks I've seen on Doom 3 and Far Cry with it, you are pushing your luck if you want CONSISTENTLY fast frame rates at 1280x1024. Problem with a LCD, of course, is that picture quality just goes to hell if you try to run a game at anything but its native resolution.

Given that you sound like you don't want to spend a pile of cash on your video card, however, you may have to either lower your expectations or raise your budget. I don't belive that <6800 GT/x800 Pro hardware SUCKS by any stretch, it just won't give you good FPS at the very high resolutions you want. If can be happy with 1024x768, then you could do great by getting a 9800 Pro for under $200. But current games get VERY demanding of graphics cards if you want to run higher resolutions fast.
 
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