Vid Card suggestions

[Ilumine]

Anyone have any suggestions for a new nvidia vid card purchase? I'm looking to spend $200-300 of christmas money so I can upgrade from my Ati x800, and with all the options on the market right now I'm a bit lost.

Amd 939 venice 2ghz
Ati x800
Dfi Lanparty nforce4, PciEx
1g ddr 400
21in. Nec Multisync

 

[Maransin]

well in that price range I would say the 8800 GT

 

[amd7674]

ditto for 8800GT 512mb.

 

[crhscoog]

only nvidia to buy in that price range is 8800gt unless u can find a gts 512mb on sale in that price range.

 

[Ehren8879]

ditto for 8800GT 512mb.

3850 512MB = $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102715

a 939 dual core processor for your mobo = $40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103222

another 1gb of DDR ram (g.skill) = $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231030

with shipping comes to $293.96 for me. Dont know if you like the ATI suggestion in the Nvidia subsection.

Personally I wouldnt upgrade the card without doing the the CPU and RAM as well. If you want to come in less than $300, this may be your best bet.

 

[Ilumine]

Thanks for the info guys. Looking at the prices now I'm going to also upgrade my ram but I'm not sure about the processor. I'm not a hardcore pc gamer (I mainly play Wow, HL2, dota) and none of those games are dual core. Is the lowered L2 cache on the dual core chip you suggested going to hurt performance in these games? Or is it negligible. Again, thanks for the info this is great.

 

[DaNotoriousDOM]

Dual core is awesome. I just went from a Barton to a E4400. wow. XP loads in a few seconds and shuts down in probably 1. Everything is lightning fast.