Which card for XPS ?

J

JordanCL

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 26, 2006
Messages
1,943
I'm looking to buy a refurb XPS Desktop but there are so many varying cards and I haven't been keeping up to date with what comes out.

I was hoping I could get a quick list in performance order as well as a recommendation for the following cards:

512MB nVidia GeForce 9800 GT (also, is this the same as what's being called 'dual 9800 gt cards'?)

Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT Video card with 1024 mb memory and Dual DVI

1024MB Nvidia GeForce GTX 280

ATI 3870



Thanks
 
Honestly I'd get a 9800gt, I bought an 8800gt when they came out for 300 dollars and it was a fantastic performer even at 1920x1200. Down the road that card went down to 100 dollars and bought a second one to SLI(which is what is meant by dual video cards), and I doubt I'm going to need to upgrade anytime soon even at this res.

9800gt and 8800gt are pretty much the exact same card, so that comparison is apples to apples.

GTX 280 is a great card and a solid performer, but the cost to performance ratio isn't really up to par with a 9800gt unless you have that kind of money to spend.

3870 is really not a good choice since it's considerably slower than even a single 8800gt/9800gt and the price around the internet is not worth what you get.
 
What do you currently have in there?
What resolution do you game at?
How much are you looking to spend?

The 9800gt is a solid performer, yes but I'd stay away from putting too much cash into it
If you’re looking to spend around $200 I'd pick up a GTX 260 instead over every card you listed

Unless you’re looking to spend more...
 
Thanks for the replies, guys. I guess I didn't explain myself properly. I currently have a two year old E1705 laptop. I'm looking to buy an XPS desktop, most likely refurbished because I dont have the large amounts of money to buy a brand new one and the refurbs come w/ the same 1 year warranty anyway.


I am going to be buying an XPS with a C2Quad, most likely a 12MB cache chip [wrong subforum but will i be just as happy with the Q9450 as the Q9550? I read that the Q9550 won't make a real noticeable difference unless I do extreme computing or have a 10krpm or SSD] Unfortunately I didn't decide I wanted to do this earlier. Just last week Dell Outlet was running a 20% off coupon off any XPS 630 refurb. Now it looks like I'll be buying from eBay using the 10% holiday coupon and the 25% microsoft cashback.



Because I will be buying a refurb, the computer will not be customizable (initially) because it was already made for someone else. That's where my question comes in as I can buy a Q9550 XPS with any of the cards I listed (not the 3870), and I can buy a Q9450 with any of the cards listed.

Price isn't a huge issue because I will be limiting/filtering the dell outlet (or ebay) to $1k-1.5k so if I got the most expensive GPU the computer would probably come with a smaller HDD or not a gamer sound card or less ram or something. Most of that stuff is insignificant to me. I am mainly concerned with CPU and GPU -- which is where my question comes into play.


Atmadestruct said:
(which is what is meant by dual video cards).
Click to expand...

I understand SLI and crossfire. I also recently saw that Vid cards are now made with multiple GPUs on a single card in some cases. I thought that the 9800 GT was a 256MB card, so when I saw a build with '512mb 9800 GT' I was wondering if that was 2x cards or a card w/ 2GPUs or if i was just wrong and the 9800 GT is a 512mb card.
 
the 9800gt is a 512mb card

also, just because something has more memory than default doesnt mean it's dual gpu or anything; there are cards like 1gb 9600 GT
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top