graphics cards

[ScoobyDoo{KEA}]

im getting confused with all the cards on the market at the mo,im thinking i might need a card update,mine is an ati radeon 9550 256meg ram,whats a good cheap card to upgrade this to?

 

[Kryten]

It depends highly on your budget, obviously.

THE big card to get at the moment is the Geforce 8800GT - at resolutions up to 1280x1024 (i.e. those of us on 19" square screens) it's actually faster than it's GTS and GTX brothers at half the price - these range from £160 to £180 normally and give a lot of bang for the buck, without doubt the modern version of the classic GF4 Ti4200.

If you're on a far tighter budget, as much as it pains me to recommend ATI/AMD Anything as they're blatantly going downhill quicker than a skiier on freshly greased skis, you should be able to grab the otherwise excellent X1950 for shy of £90.

Now, the 8800GT's are HUGELY popular. On the bad side, this means they've sold out pretty much everywhere, and the only chance you've got is paying over the odds at a local store with one, or getting an import. However on the GOOD side, if you can't afford that amount of money anyway, theres a lot of people selling their old kit on Ebay. I've just seen a Geforce 7900GS go for a mere £25 last night. I've got a 7900GS in this and it's stonking as it is, it's certainly quicker than everything up to the 8600 series at this resolution and only cost me £85 from new.
So may well be worth keeping an eye on ebay for cheap 7900/7950's.

There's a good bit of choice at the moment and I sincerely think the second hand market might be the best way to go for a cheap but still quick card, most of this will depend if you're really fussed about the DirectX 10 features that make little to no difference to games yet.

 

[Mazling]

I'd repeat what kryt said, but he already said it ;-)

 

[xane]

Out of interest, do they still do AGP versions of video cards, and which is the best for AGP ?

I'm only wondering because I'm ready for a grand upgrade in a few months before I can take on PCI-E etc, but the fan noise on my AGP video card is driving me nuts and it needs replacing asap.

 

[Kryten]

Oddly enough yeah, they're still made and sold, but you certainly pay a premium for it. That X1950 is available in AGP iirc along with the more basic 2400/2600's, and there are 7600's in AGP flavour at up to 80 odd quid.

 

[xane]

I'm struggling to find anything higher than 256MB with AGP for the X1950, is it worth trying to go for 512MB, and is there any different between "GT" and "Pro" versions ?

I can see new 7950GTs out there with 512MB and AGP, so perhaps a better deal if I can get a fair price, no ?

 

[throdgrain]

I'd repeat what Kryt said too, only Id add something random about power supplys




(Well its only a matter of time )

 

[Trem]

I'd repeat what throd said only I would have my thumb under my foreskin while saying it.

 

[Ch3tan]

I'd repeat what Kryt said too, only Id add something random about power supplys




(Well its only a matter of time )

damn it, I was reading down the thread just waiting to leap on the psu issue. couldn't you just let me have this one first?

 

[Kryten]

You fucking children
One day I'll ask Jonty to add a ban-on-word thingy for "power supply".

I'm not sure about the difference in memory xane, mostly because I'm unsure if the lack of bandwidth on AGP will bottleneck anything - but even if it did, it's going to be a matter of price - is it really worth spending however much more it costs for the sake of an "interim" card. My 256mb one is hardly bad or slow on PCIe.
The 7950's are very good cards - I'm not sure what they go for pricewise but as you say, if you can get a good price they'd certainly be quicker than the X1950.

 

[Gamah]

The new 8800 GT is performing VERY well on benchmarks and is only like £170 quid.. I know I am getting one.

 

[Kryten]

Just make sure you tell everyone where from
Rarer than rocking horse shit and for good reason - everyones trying to get one. (Or two, of course)

Currently saving up enough in my Paypal account to get one myself

 

[xane]

7950GTs with 512MB and AGP are about £140 on eBay. The next one down, the 7600GT, with 512MB/AGP is only £60-65, am I really going to see much difference running on an AMD XP3200+ CPU ? I'm only running a 6600GT, which is noisy.

I'm inclined towards nVidia as the mobo is also nVidia, should be easier on the drivers.

 

[Kryten]

On a 3200, no the difference won't be hugely noticable. Again for an interim, I'd go for a 7600.

 

[Panda On Smack]

What if your resolution is 1920 x 1600?

 

[Ch3tan]

Surely you mean 1920 *1200?

 

[Kryten]

They might suffer a bit more, but you have to think about balancing the cost, the performance and the bottlenecking from the rest of the system.
But saying that I cant see a 7950 512mb struggling TOO much. They're certainly quicker than the 8600's in any flavour just minus some of the DX10 features noone really cares about

It's hard isn't it :|

 

[ScoobyDoo{KEA}]

i dont think my mobo is pcie anyway how do you find out if it is its a am39l
so its quite an old mobo i think.i know im running my agp card at 8x i think.

 

[Kryten]

It really wont make a difference what chipset it is really, certainly not as far as your graphics performance is concerned.

 

[ScoobyDoo{KEA}]

are agp cards slower than pci cards m8 ?

 

[Kryten]

Errrr, difficult to say.
The PCI Express cards have more bandwidth available to them, but I don't think it is noticable at that level.

I've had a bit of a google around and apparently the AGP and PCI versions of the 7600 perform identically, so I'd have to say no, there's going to be no difference between the cards themselves. Any difference in performance would be down to the rest of the system.

 

[Panda On Smack]

Surely you mean 1920 *1200?

I certainly did got confused with old monitor which was 1600 x 1200

 

[Aesgir]

The 8800 series PCI-E are def the way to go at the moment, although if buying a new one i'd wait until q1 next year. The 8900 series are supposed to be being released, combined with the release of the 768mb 8800's becoming more available. It'll help you pick up a nice price for a 512mb 8800 series that much easier.

The AGP cards are becoming that much rarer to find, and yeah are accordingly pricey. Tried looking for a new one myself recently, but i'm leaning more towards getting a new mobo and 512mb 8800 myself...possibly with an eye to SLI in the future. I can confirm there isn't much difference in the 7600 agp/pci-e versions, i ran the agp version myself and had no issues with bottlenecks etc.

I'd also echo the sentiment that there isn't much going for ATi at the moment, they've fallen behind a bit in the GPU race, and are def coming off second best.

*managing just fine on his 1680x1050*

 

[Draylor]

Unless you are in a huge rush wait a few days.

ATIs new cards (HD3850/HD3870) are due on Thursday, real reviews wont appear till then either (meh, NDA poo) but the few numbers that are floating around show theyll be a bit slower (but a bit cheaper) than the 8800GT.

Since Nvidia have nothing cheaper (or anything else at all for that matter) worth considering it cant hurt to look. Nvidia didnt release the 8800GT and screw up their entire range overnight just for laughs, they must have been scared of something ...