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Video Cards!

H

HomerRulez

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 17, 2005
Messages
1,362
I'm looking to purchase a Dell within the next few hours. What i need to know is, What are good Video cards for HL2 and stuff? Is there a top 10 for video cards? I would appreciate any and all help if possible. Thank You!
 
what cards does dell offer with the system you are considering...let us know and we can tell you what to get
 
out of the 3 options you have (no XL) id say if you have a big budget get the x850xt pe if you dont then get the 6800 GTO
 
dude i just checked dell's website they only offer three different video cards with the XPS gen 4 systems 6800, 6800 GTO, and X850xt pe...thats in order of increasing power (and cost)
not sure if thy hae that. Is there a top 10 or something i could compare to?
Click to expand...
 
yeah you could prolly build an equivalent system for like 900 instead of payin like 2 grand for just a tower.....Personally I think ya could build a System to end all systems with about 1500.....but to all his own
 
T-Badger said:
yeah you could prolly build an equivalent system for like 900 instead of payin like 2 grand for just a tower.....Personally I think ya could build a System to end all systems with about 1500.....but to all his own
Click to expand...

Mine cost more than $1500 to build. Even with my discounted pricing on certain items. No doubt you can build a nice system for around $1000 and a fairly high end system for around $1500 or so.

But systems to "end all systems" in the desktop market, especially where games are concerned will cost a hell of alot more than that.

Top 10 video cards will get pretty weak twords the bottom of the list compared to what's at the top. Also keep in mind the top six cards are all fairly close to the same performance area, especially when certain models are overclocked. The difference also between the Nvidia or ATi models is pretty small most of the time. But overall it goes like this.

X850XT-PE
X850XT
X800XT-PE
6800Ultra Extreme
6800Ultra
6800GT
X800XL
X800Pro
6800
6600GT

Bear in mind again, this doesn't count certain brands, or overclocking or even what's the most bang for the buck. I also didn't mention in that list what actually brings the top performance either.

Twin 6800GT's and 6800Ultra's in SLi top out the list, both in overall performance and in price.
 
Im going dell cause of warranty and support and that I am getting 30% off any purchase for a desktop PC.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
Mine cost more than $1500 to build. Even with my discounted pricing on certain items. No doubt you can build a nice system for around $1000 and a fairly high end system for around $1500 or so.

But systems to "end all systems" in the desktop market, especially where games are concerned will cost a hell of alot more than that.

Top 10 video cards will get pretty weak twords the bottom of the list compared to what's at the top. Also keep in mind the top six cards are all fairly close to the same performance area, especially when certain models are overclocked. The difference also between the Nvidia or ATi models is pretty small most of the time. But overall it goes like this.

X850XT-PE
X850XT
X800XT-PE
6800Ultra Extreme
6800Ultra
6800GT
X800XL
X800Pro
6800
6600GT

Bear in mind again, this doesn't count certain brands, or overclocking or even what's the most bang for the buck. I also didn't mention in that list what actually brings the top performance either.

Twin 6800GT's and 6800Ultra's in SLi top out the list, both in overall performance and in price.
Click to expand...

well the 6800ultra extreme is actually the fastest card in the bunch there except its only agp :D
 
HomerRulez said:
Im going dell cause of warranty and support and that I am getting 30% off any purchase for a desktop PC.
Click to expand...

I can understand getting it for warranty and support reasons, but you could easily save 30% and get better quality equipement if you built it yourself and stuck to name brand parts.

If your a gamer and you go Dell your stuck with an Intel CPU as they don't have machines based on AMD cpu's. Which means that when it comes to gaming performance you are short changing yourself. The performance and price ratio of AMD vs. Intel CPU's for pure gaming machines is hard to ignore. Considering that the A64 3200+ is faster than much of Intel's higher clocked higher priced offerings.

As far as warranty and support, you'll find that if you don't pay out the ass for the extended and onsite warranty, the support you'll receive isn't that great. All their tech support is still being outsourced to India if I am not mistaken.

And even though I've seen them send parts to customers to install under warranty, Dell tech support will tell people to seek out a qualified technician to do the work and the cusotmer must pay out of their own pocket to get the work done.

As an example of this, I work part time as a technician at Comp USA and we have alot of people bring in Dell's under warranty for the same reason I mentioned above. In fact yesterday I had that happen with a Dell needing a power supply.

So Dell's support isn't all it's cracked up to be. I hear this from 5 or 6 customers a week.
 
100% build it yourself, dell customer support=horrible, and getting them to HONOR a warranty is equally bad.

The best card for HL2 is X850XT-PE, But I suggest the X850XT, you can easily OC to XT-PE speeds/
 
cell_491 said:
well the 6800ultra extreme is actually the fastest card in the bunch there except its only agp :D
Click to expand...

nope, this is for half life 2 particularly, not overrall....and ati is top on HL2.
and I was surprise that teh x800pro/xl beats the 6800Ultra (which I own) in some of HL2 benchies too
:p :mad:
 
yea deffinitely an x850xt its werid you pay $200 more for just 20mhz extra core frequency what a rip off, with a 6800ultra you get 50mhz over the 6800gt and an extra 50mhz for an nvidia chip is alot more power than 50mhz on an ati chip. moral of the story, if you go ati DONT waste the cash on the PE version if you go nvidia spend it :D
 
aZn_plyR said:
nope, this is for half life 2 particularly, not overrall....and ati is top on HL2.
and I was surprise that teh x800pro/xl beats the 6800Ultra (which I own) in some of HL2 benchies too
:p :mad:
Click to expand...
yea in hl2 but i doubt that will be the only game he ever plays...anyway the ultra extreme is agp only so its not really an option
 
Whatever the point is build it yourself, especially since Dell doesnt have Athlon 64 systems which pwn at gaming.
 
cell_491 said:
can you build a system...are you up to the challenge young padawan learner?
Click to expand...


Yes I am up. Just my budget is 1000 so will I be able to get an x850xt pe System with that money?
 
no i and i dont recomend an x850xt pe i would say go with the x850xt...give me a sec and ill make a parts list :D
 
HomerRulez said:
Yes I am up. Just my budget is 1000 so will I be able to get an x850xt pe System with that money?
Click to expand...
qtf??? your budget is only 1000$, but you were about to buy a dell xps?? :confused: those things start at 1320$...

haha, a X850XT-PE.... thats almost as much as your budget :p ok, slight exaggeration, but you get the point...

but i give you many kudos for at least agreeing to build your own. youre one of the few who ive seen switch from being 'im buying a dell and nobody can stop me' to 'sure, ill build my own pc.' and those were ppl from this forum, too.

i am very glad that youve decided to DIY. you will be very pleased w/ the price to performance ratio that youll achieve after building your own PC.

edit: heres a few of my personal recommendations:

1) 6800GT or X800 series (dont know much about ATIs anymore. listen to ATI freaks about info on ATI cards)
2) AMD Athlon 64 3000+
3) ThermalRight XP-120 (or XP-90 if the 120 cant fit)
3) MSI Neo4 or DFI LanParty Ultra-D or -SLI
4) 1GB corsair XMS memory, or other recommended memory (attempt to get TCCD chips. others can explain TCCD to you if you dont know about it)
5) 250GB SATA drive, preferably seagate due to their 5 year warrenty and quietness
6) make sure you get some Arctic Silver 5 on your CPU
7) if you want, get an Arctic Silencer and stick some AS5 on there.
 
 
 
the dell outlets have cheap systems though and the added minus 30%. Plus I could go 1300 but thats tops. Is that enough to get me a sweet x850xt pe system? The system is going to be for watching videos, gaming, online gaming, surfing the web, encoding videos, burning dvds, and other stuff audio and video related.
 
HomerRulez said:
the dell outlets have cheap systems though and the added minus 30%. Plus I could go 1300 but thats tops. Is that enough to get me a sweet x850xt pe system? The system is going to be for watching videos, gaming, online gaming, surfing the web, encoding videos, burning dvds, and other stuff audio and video related.
Click to expand...

For LESS The price of a dell, you can have a MUCH better system

Dont believe the propaganda about the "We have cheap systems" etc, look at the system I built for you, over $200 cheaper, and you get ALOT better stuff.

Build it yourself.
 
hey fellas, he said he wants to do video encoding. wouldnt the P4 be the best for him, in that case? i dont remember how well the A64 held its ground in the video encoding testing.
 
is any of this good?

Dimension XPS Generation 4 Desktop: Pentium 4 Processor 550 with HT Technology (3.40GHz, 800 FSB 1MB Cache )
Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
1 GB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz (2 DIMMs)
1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive
80 GB EIDE SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
256MB PCI Express x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X850 XT PE
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (D) Card w/Dolby 5.1, IEEE 1394 capability
48X CD RW Drive
16x DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
1 year warranty & 1 year on-site service
 
TSS Modder said:
hey fellas, he said he wants to do video encoding. wouldnt the P4 be the best for him, in that case? i dont remember how well the A64 held its ground in the video encoding testing.
Click to expand...

They are both about the same in video encoding.

Go with the A64, the loss in video encoding vs a P4 will be small, but the gain in gaming will be big!
 
 
^ You could save a fair bit with a cheaper Mobo, since hes getting dell (or wants to) i Doubt hes OCing
 
I think the fx-55 beat intel's top cpu in video encoding according to the maximumpc shootout..but maybe that was something else....but really...athlon 64 all da way!@
 
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