What kind of video card consumer are you?

What kind of video card consumer are you?

  • I need bleeding edge, the day it comes out.

    Votes: 6 3.5%

  • I purchase bleeding edge hardware but only upgrade occasionly.

    Votes: 37 21.5%

  • I purchase hardware that is NEAR top of the line and upgrade frequently.

    Votes: 15 8.7%

  • I purchase hardware that is NEAR top of the line and upgrade occasionly.

    Votes: 59 34.3%

  • I purchase mid range gear. Even if its not the best "bang for my buck".

    Votes: 4 2.3%

  • I only purchase the best "bang for my buck", even if its not top of the line.

    Votes: 47 27.3%

  • I purchase budget cards but I upgrade frequently.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I purchase budget cards and get the most that I can out of them. I rarely upgrade.

    Votes: 4 2.3%

  • I do fine with onboard graphics. I never upgrade.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    172
AltTabbins

AltTabbins

Fully [H]
Joined
Jul 29, 2005
Messages
20,387
What do you fall under. Personally, I am a mix of "bang for your buck" and "near top of the line and upgrade occasionally". A lot of times one card fills both roles. I don't upgrade that often because I enjoy most games at medium-highish settings. I try to get a lot of value out of the cards I buy.
 
I build to slightly over spec..... war games....BOBCAD and other machine shop programs....3D imaging sofware...etc....

I am always the last to upgrade my own stuff.....still playing all EA games fine so....

I only use certain brand names though.....that have proven over dozens and dozens of builds that they tend not to ship DOA stuff...
 
I only build a new machine about every 3-4 years. I buy the very best I can afford when doing so.
 
i actually buy as needed. i picked up a 5770 when i only had a 1600x1200 monitor, and it worked great. still works well now that i have a 1920x1200 monitor, but its showing its age. with bf3 and skyrim coming out, im planning on getting a 7950 at release.
 
I try to go with the bang for my buck. Although my last card ended up not exactly being that since I had to return my cheap reference 6950 and get an Asus 6970 DCII to run Eyefinity on 3 DP monitors without nasty tearring. Really it was the only choice if I wanted Portrait eyefinity though so does that still count as bang for my buck? Pay much less and the system was unplayable due to tearring, more expensive would of been a 6990 (unreleased at the time) or the still unrealeased MST hubs.
 
I've always been the type to get the mid range graphics cards, never the super high end @ launch. examples 7600GT, 260GTX.

For sum reason though whether it's the games currently out or the ones coming, or maybe the fact that I enjoy 3D Vision in PC games this year and have finally moved up to a 1080p resolution. I am actually considering instead of just a 560Ti, the GTX570 and 580. Heck I would even consider a 590 if they could engineer one that didn't reach such high thermals.

I really want a card that is going to bring me 50-60+ fps @ 1080p minimums on basically every game out now, and always have the possibility of adding another later for newer and more demanding games. I really think I need to go 570 or 580 this time around, but I'm still gathering information. It's very difficult to decide when there's always something on the horizon too.
 
I suppose I upgrade frequently, that being when new hardware is around. I went from a 6200LE to a X1650 to a 3870 to a 4850 to a 5770 to a GTX460 to a different GTX 460. Don't ask how much it all cost :eek:
 
I upgrade vidcards when my current one is is on its hands and knees, crawling along with its tongue on the ground. Which is about where my 4850 512 mb is now!

But look at it this way, when I do upgrade it will be like getting a new comp!
 
After looking back at my last ten years, I follow a remarkably steady pattern:

1. I buy typically whatever is two steps below the top card at the time.

2. I use it for about 2 years.

Radeon 8500 -> 6600GT -> 7900GT -> 4850 -> GTX 460

This gives me a decent value and good performance. So, I voted "best bang for my buck."
 
I'm more of a bang-for-the-buck/mid-range guy. The current rig that I'm using was built last August and has a 5770 in it, which is just fine because all I play right now is WoW and BC2. I'll probably upgrade when BF3 comes out and I get a 1920x1080 screen.
 
Bang for buck kind of guy but will buy high-end if I have the money to do so.
 
I purchase solely based on box and heat sink art.

I'm really quite flexible with my purchases, and as such it is really sales/deal based. If I find a good deal on a particular card I will buy it as long as it is above a certain performance threshold and performance/cost ratio.
 
I'm all about bang for buck above a minimum required performance level. That's why I went for dual unlocked 6950's (~$480) for my upcoming Eyefinity setup. I don't plan on upgrading again until my 6950's can't max out the latest games at 3760x1080 anymore.
 
I do bleeding edge... but often wait a month or two for pricing to come off the ceiling... though I have been known to grab a next gen on the day of launch...

but currently still sporting my 5970 wc
they just came out with blocks for 6990..and I am debating that...
 
bought every fucking high end card for the past gen, this gen, and most of the midrange ones, too. Stupid stupid :mad: If you want to count the HD5850, HD6950, and GTX570, the "second tier," too.
 
I generally buy mid-range bang for the buck cards.

fx5200 (horrible horrible mistake)
6600gt
really cheap x1800gto2(near x1800xt speed, but got it used for like 1/2 price) outlier. Thought about an 8800gt later on.
5770
5770 crossfire

But even though the cards I've gotten are generally "omg, this card offers such great performance for its price" I feel like I could do better with my money buy buying high-end stuff and re-selling it often. I'm just too lazy to re-sell though.


I generally game at lower resolutions (19" LCD). Hopefully I'll upgrade to a bigger, better monitor this year though.
 
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I usually buy the top end of previous generation when they are clearing them out. Can usually get really good bang for the buck that way.
 
Normally go for the best bang for your buck. just got the card in my sig. but i have been kind of out of sorts for the last 3 years. "tried the laptop thing"
 
I buy mid range cards, and then hold onto them forever.

5200FX: Everyone has to start somewhere... when I built my first PC with a friend I was so poor I couldn't afford a decent video card, but this was so far above integrated graphics back then it wasn't funny. Used for 2 years.
7600GT: Used for 3 years, then caps exploded.
9600GSO: bought as a replacement for previous card, owned it for 1.5 years so far. Paid 40 bucks after rebate, still can't buy this card for that price now.
 
I upgrade my videocard when there's a need to do so. I went from a Matrox G550 to an 8800GTS320 because the former didn't really support D3D or OGL in any measurable form, then went from that card to a GTX275 because of the lack of video decoding acceleration on the 8800GTS.

I think the next time I'll upgrade will be when our in-house game engine and game development switches to OpenGL 4.x (DX11-level hardware), somewhere within the next two years or so. Or this card has to die first, of course :p
 
AceGoober said:
Bang for buck kind of guy but will buy high-end if I have the money to do so.
Click to expand...

Same here, generally bang for buck but for the first time in ages I have enough cash to go high end, so just placed my order for an Asus GTX 580 DirectCu II :D
 
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I wish there was a " I purchase gear that I can afford because I am a broke bastard."
But i picked "I purchase hardware that is NEAR top of the line and upgrade occasionally."
I wish i had money *cries*. :eek:
 
For video cards I get the second best. The one that packs almost as much punch as the best but it's way cheaper. Gaming isn't my priority but a good strong card certainly benefits and completes a great multi-media editing rig, so that works good for me.
 
Best bang for the buck here too

GeForce 4 MX440 64MB ($75 I think)
6600GT ($200)
GTX 470 ($160)
 
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lloose said:
I forgot that 6600gt's were that expensive at one point. I remember getting a 6600 vanilla from a local shop for like $180.
Click to expand...

Yeah, bought mine in January 2005 from Newegg. Finally retired that whole computer with the Athlon XP 3000+ this past December and gave it to my dad. It still was able to play L4D2 and some TF2 maps remarkably enough.
 
I buy pre-used, previous generation cards. Can't beat a 5870, with 1 year's warranty remaining,for the equivalent of 160 USD :D
 
I usually buy most of the top end hardware, GTX 480, GTX 580 and ran SLI on them too. I upgrade like every 3 months or so, can't help it when new stuff comes out, especially if its better than the previous one.
 
Buy near top of the range stuff assuming it has good value for money whenever I have to start sacrificing IQ to run games at fun framerates.
 
Every couple of years I just buy the top end card so I won't have to upgrade for awhile.
 
I buy most of my gear used but its always top of the line or near top of the line and I don't do full system upgrades ever. I always buy one or two components at a time. For example I bought a 5850 used about 9 months ago from here and recently bought another from here as well to run crossfire, this puts me in the top tier of GPU performance with only a small cost. I didn't vote because I'm not sure what category that puts me in. :)
 
I tend to buy hardware that is fairly high-end and ride it out until there is a game I play that would actually benefit from me upgrading, or if it gets to the point where my computer actually starts to feel slow. But when I do upgrade, cost is always a consideration.

Back in 2003 I built a system with dual overclocked Pentium-4 era Xeon processors. That computer was so ahead of it's time (dual processors each with hyper-threading for four virtual cores) that I used it for almost 5 years. But the only reason I went that route was because I got the Xeons for free.

My current rig, I could have gone with a 5870 when it was new but instead went with 2x 4870x2 for less than what a single 5870 was going for at the time. Those are the sort of "bang for the buck" deals I look for when I upgrade, but I don't generally go for "budget" hardware.
 
Bleeding Edge but only when my system is ready for a true upgrade, like every 3-4yrs as if you go bleeding edge on graphics your usually covered by the new games and can have a pretty good gaming experience for that amount of time.... now that I water cool and have custom blocks hmmm...might be longer than 4 years lol...
 
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