To buy or not -- Video Card

[Reils777]

Its reaching my birthday and I've been doing some investigation on a new Video Card to run Halo 2 Vista, World of Warcraft and hopefully Sims 2: Seasons at full. I have at the moment an ATi Radeon X1300 Pro 256MB (PCI-E x16) with a 350w Powersupply. I'm running a Intel Pentium D 820 2.80 GHz Dual-Core processor with 1GB of ram (PC3200, believe it or not; Hyundai Technologies), the PSU is an Antec and I'm very fond of it (quiet). Now, the video card I'm interested in buying is the XFX GeForce 7900 GS 256 MB Extreme (I can deal without the Extreme), I've always been an ATi fan ever since I got my 9250 a few years ago, then the VisionTek X1300 PCI and got a new computer, so got an X1300 PCI-E version, anyways. I seen that it was cheap ($169.99, $5 shipping from neweggs) and was amazed at the specs. Should I buy this or not? [H]ard|OCP said that its a great Video card (compared to the x1800 / x1950) and its worth it. Right now I'm just hazy if I should buy the card or not, suggestions?

Oh, and can the XFX GeForce 7900 GS run off of a 350W PSU? Or Do I need to get a 500W like my friend said?

 

[aggr1103]

If you're an ATI fan and want to stick with ATI cards, this x1900gt is on par/right above the 7900gs, and is a little bit cheaper.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102022

As far as the psu, it would probably be best to upgrade to something with a little more juice and a strong 12v rail. Something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189005

Both of those together will be around what you were planning on spending for the 7900gs. Just my opinion though. I have the x1900gt rev. 2 from connect3d and I bought it as an upgrade from a 6800xt. It was a great step up for current and older games. Right now with my "little processor that could" 3600 brisbane, I'm getting benchmarks on the lost planet demo at or near (within 2 frames) of folks with 8800gts cards and e6600 cpu's. I'm holding out on buying a dx10 card until I see some great dx10 benchmarks and the dx10 games are widely available.

 

[Reils777]

I see, this is the video card I'm getting (sorry I didn't provide the link) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150202

Anyways, that x1900GT looks good and is a bit cheaper, but the core / memory IS close to the XFX, but I'm trying to get the best performance with as little money I can spend. (PS, I do intend to overclock these, and I nearly destroyed my ATi card by trying to overclock it, ended up to be artifact mania within a few seconds). That PSU looks good, and I have a SATA II HDD, not sure if it requires its own new connector, I know that my Antec PSU supplys with the needed cord... and to include I only have one game that says "Designed for ATI" or somthing like that (Roller Coaster Tycoon 3), everything else (DooM 3, GTA:SA, WoW, ect) says "nVidia, the way its meant to be played", so yeah.. I am leaning to the nVidia section at the moment

And your CPU, aggr.. don't worry, my old computer (Intel Celeron D 2.53 GHz) was just like that, the CPU that could.

 

[Marvelous]

I think you are limited by your power supply. I don't know if it would work or not especially with a power hog like pentium D.

 

[aggr1103]

That PSU looks good, and I have a SATA II HDD, not sure if it requires its own new connector, I know that my Antec PSU supplys with the needed cord...

Its not really going to be so much about the cords as it will be about the 12v rail to supply power to your vid card and other devices. The xclio I posted for you will give you more than enough power for whatever vid card you choose and will also give you some room for an upgrade in the future. Even if your current psu has a decent 12v rail, I think it would probably be pulling all it could to run everything in your system, so a decent psu upgrade along with your video card would be my recommendation.

Not to sound like a fanboy for any vid card company, but I wouldn't think too much about vid card branding for any games you play. You shouldn't see much difference in framerates and playability with any of those games, whether you choose an nvidia card in the 7900 range or an ati card in the 1900-1950 range. Any difference would be negligible.

 

[aggr1103]

And your CPU, aggr.. don't worry, my old computer (Intel Celeron D 2.53 GHz) was just like that, the CPU that could.

And I only call it the "little processor that could" because it overclocks like a beast and costs around $60 and is a dual core processor, so there was never worry in my mind when I bought it.