View Full Version : Graphics cards...
Wasn't sure whether to put this in here in the General Hardware forum, but anyway.
I'm looking for a new graphics card, so in order to get this new forum off to a flying start, I'd like to get some debate going as to what you think is the best 'bang for buck' card for around £120-£150?
I currently have a Radeon 9800 Pro... do you think it's even worth upgrading at the moment? I feel a need too, because I'm struggling with games like Oblivion... but is it worth holding until the next generation of cards come out?
Im assuming we're talking AGP here with you being on a 9800pro, still a decent card and can still handle all but the most demanding games reasonably well.
For £120 to £150 I guess we're talking
6600gt (should be a reasonable boost in power over a 9800pro though not massive)
x800 gto (not sure how that compares never having owned one but supposed to be quite good)
6800GS (probably the one to go for as they are, supposedly, only slightly slower than the good old 6800gt)
Hey see your in Northampton, just up the road from me :)
I don't think you'd see a huge improvement from a 9800 to a 6600. If you can, get nearer to the £200 mark and grab a 7800gt. (http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductsList.asp?Name=7800gt)
Yeah the difference isn't massive but having owned both, the 6600gt was pcie though, i can definitely say the difference in my experience was an increase of approx 30% or so, just goes to show the 9800 though an oldie is still a decent card.
No point upgrading to a 6600GT.
I recommend the 6800GS great cards and can handle everything at the moment!
Seems to be a popular question... How faster is X card over X card, is it worth the extra dosh?
How abouty, we set up two test beds, one AGP and the other PCIE as close specs as possible. Nothing fancy, just the average Joe machine... 1GB DDR400, A64 3200 etc. Any gfx card requested, we will run a set benchmark on and post the score...
What do you reckon? 3DMark06? Or stick to '05 for the likes of the 9800pro and earlier cards?
We will of course keep the conditions the same, and one benchmark will not give you all round performace. But it will be a good indicator, right?
I smell Aria 3D Mark Sweepstake is in the making here ;)
Sounds like an excellent idea in theory could (should?) make it a sticky if it goes ahead, whos going to build these said pcs though?
Sorry mac, should have introduced myself - I'm a purchaser here at Aria Technology. If you, and others, think a benchmark system would be a good idea for our graphics cards - I am sure we can whip something up.
The graphics card question is one of the most popluar ones on our customer comments page, why not put it to rest and graph it ;)
That would be a fantastic idea.
An average Joe system would be best, aye... similar to the one you mentioned above. I'm not that familiar with benchmarking utilities, although doing some tests and seeing some graphs would be brilliant. I'd perhaps be quite keen to see performance in some of the newer graphically intensive games, specifically Oblivion (one of the main reasons I want a new card).
I'm actually thinking about going down the PCI-E route and getting a new motherboard. Would I need to upgrade my CPU? I currently have an Athlon 2800XP (Barton core). Can anyone recommend a decent motherboard?
[quote:c719f5d94a=\"mac124\"]
Hey see your in Northampton, just up the road from me :)[/quote:c719f5d94a]
I actually live in Broughton (a village near Kettering) but I'm originally from Northampton, I work here, and am looking to buy a house here in the near future. :)
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Maybe a 3D Mark '03 and '06 test, along with 2 or 3 game tests (at 2 or 3 different settings). As sticking with just one version of 3D Mark is limiting it a bit. Benchmark results comparing some of your current stock would be good, allowing those that are inspired by the results to grab one.
Sounds like a great idea though!
Back on to the graphic card point....
I have only ever had GeForce cards they never let me down....
Take a look at 6800LE
[quote:9ea8205565=\"m0nk3y\"]Sorry mac, should have introduced myself - I'm a purchaser here at Aria Technology. If you, and others, think a benchmark system would be a good idea for our graphics cards - I am sure we can whip something up.
The graphics card question is one of the most popluar ones on our customer comments page, why not put it to rest and graph it ;)[/quote:9ea8205565]
Ahhhh in that case do it, you should be in the perfect position to get the 2 systems set up with as close as possible spec to each other to do the comparisons. Personally i think 05 and 06 would be the better benchmark progs to use, 03 is more of a system benchie these days and the cpu could well be the limiting factor with higher end cards.
@ Dave, think you will be needing a major upgrade mate if you want to go pcie, as i am 99.9% certain that there are no pcie sktA mobos available. I don't know Broughton but i have spent many a boozy night in Kettering.
@ PrivatePyle think the idea of the benchy thing is more of a comparison thing, not actually trying to persuade anyone to buy BRAND X 6800 over BRAND Y 6800 its more to say how a 6800gt compares to an ATIx800gto type thing.
hehe... Kettering is a bit of a dive, but yeah I go out there every now and again. :)
I think I may just wait until they release the DX10 generation of cards tbh. That way, I'll pay out for a new system. Something to think about anyway.
Hi all.
I just had to update from a 9800 Pro (Well actually a 9800 due to another story i could rant about for ages - grr at dell) as it packed up on me, and i was looking at a similar budget as yourself dave.
I ended up going for the ATI x1600Pro, which cost me a flat £100, and is coping much better with anything i have thrown at it so far. Its nice to be able to notch up the settings to max again.
You could wait for the next big thing to come out , but top end gear rarely stays top end for longer than 6 months. The next leap will be the graphics cards that will run with Windows Vista using Direct X 10.
AGP is a format that is being phased out by many graphics card compnaies but youll be amazed that up to a 7800 is available in agp :o
Id get either a 6800gs or x800gto2 for that budget. Or squeeze a bit more and the 7800gt is a good price on here according to the email i got today
Youll get many opinions the best thing to do is choose a card you want, buy it and enjoy :)
I got a 7800GT (PCI-E) version from Aria on Super Special some time ago.... absolutely awesome card.
With an Athlon64 3500+ it plays pretty much anything I have thrown at it (Far Cry, F.E.A.R, Unreal Tournament, Doom etc) so far with all the bells and whistles switched on at 1920x1200 resolution (Yes, I bought a 24\" Dell flat panel too... also very awesome)
If you want reviews of the currently available cards, Tom's Hardware is almost always up to date and it's quite objective. See http://www.tomshardware.com
[quote:9db559f9a6=\"TrickyD\"]I got a 7800GT (PCI-E) version from Aria on Super Special some time ago.... absolutely awesome card.
With an Athlon64 3500+ it plays pretty much anything I have thrown at it (Far Cry, F.E.A.R, Unreal Tournament, Doom etc) so far with all the bells and whistles switched on at 1920x1200 resolution (Yes, I bought a 24\" Dell flat panel too... also very awesome)
If you want reviews of the currently available cards, Tom's Hardware is almost always up to date and it's quite objective. See http://www.tomshardware.com[/quote:9db559f9a6]
I got one of those 7800GTs too :D
It handles Oblivion perfectly so I don't think I can justify another for SLi just yet though.
I can thoroughly recommend Tom's Hardware, and echo Simon's sentiments that the market is constantly progressing: those of us who wear the badge of geek admit that whenever we buy hardware there'll always be something better around the corner, but that's half the fun of it :)
I'm not going to SLI mine either.... some games actually slow down using SLI....
oh.... and my wife would probably beat me to death :(
Some games get visual problems too.... each card renders half the screen, and in some games the shading is lighter on one side of the join causing a horizontal line across the middle of the screen.... YIK !! (Maybe this has been fixed in recent drivers....)
[quote:831dd97cc1=\"TrickyD\"]I'm not going to SLI mine either.... some games actually slow down using SLI....
oh.... and my wife would probably beat me to death :(
Some games get visual problems too.... each card renders half the screen, and in some games the shading is lighter on one side of the join causing a horizontal line across the middle of the screen.... YIK !! (Maybe this has been fixed in recent drivers....)[/quote:831dd97cc1]
Aye, the recombining of the two generated images takes up a bit of processor time so many games without native SLi support will suffer slightly (Which just makes a dual-core processor even more tempting for me...). I guess only time will tell whether developers decide en masse to integrate SLi (and Crossfire for that matter) support into their' games.
I must admit I'd not heard of the visual problems, it sounds to me like exactly the sort of thing Nvidia would be quick to fix though, as their SLi driver updates have been pretty good so far (e.g. the original drivers required two absolutely identical cards, but a couple of months later they released drivers that would allow cards from different manufacturers to be paired)
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Hey all
I have to admit that a pcie/agp average system benchmark would be a great idea.
I have recently built myself a new pc and altough it is far faster than my old machine I have not noticed that much difference between the 2 on the games I play the most.
My old machine is.
3000 athlon xp 333 fsb.
asus a7n8x deluxe board
1 gb generic 3200 ddr
radeon 9800 pro
80gb sata hd.
crappy qtec 600w power supply
new machine is.
Athlon 64 4000+
Asus A8R32MVP crossfire board
2gb corsair twin x memory
2x250gb sata2 16mb hard drives
2xATI X1900XT graphics cards running in crossfire
Hiper type R 580w power supply.
I mainly play counter strike source,far cry,battlefield vietnam,battlefield 2.
To be honest apart from BF2 the other games run just as sweet on my old machine as they do the new one at 1024x768.
Obviously the newer machine will run the games at alot higher resolution.
The only reason I upgraded was because my eldest son wanted a PC of his own and it gave me a good excuse to buy a new one.
My advice would be check out the hardware sites (toms hardware, xbit labs,guru3d etc) find out what the best card is for your budget and the games you play.
A friend of mine has a 6800gt sli setup and can play oblivion comfortably at 1280x900 with all the settings maxed out, that on a card a couple of generations old!!!!!!
There are plenty of cards in your budjet that will play the newer games perfectly fine and unless you want to game over 1280x1024 most of them will be fine.
If you are thinking about a little future proofing then go for a card that has the most pixel shaders as this seems to be the preferance for game programmers.
I think the 6800 ultra is still available and that was a damn good card and within your budjet if you have a good look around, the 7800 gt and ATI x800gto and x1600 pro are also very good cards for the money.
I would definately recommend 2 gb of ram as a must for more modern games as they seem very ram hungry.
Catch you later...........M4DC4T
When you say they run just a sweet on the 9800 rig as the dual 1900 rig, what exactly do you mean?? I also have 9800 / 1900 (single card though) setups and of those games i have css and tbh the 1900 is leagues ahead yes the 9800 will play it at the same res but WAAAYYYYY lower detail / aa / af and hdr forget it, at about a third of the framerate.
Not entirely sure what you are saying here?? Can't you tell the difference in the games on the 2 rigs or something or am i just putting 2 and 2 together and making 5???
A very handy site that's been useful for me in working out whether an upgrade is worth it is http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html. You can compare all cards on the market at the mo using a benchmark of your choice.
I'm also an Oblivion fan, and I'm using a 6600GT to play the game. I've concluded that I wouldn't get enough bang for my buck to make upgrading worth my while at the mo (it does not make sense to me to pay the same amount for a single graphics card as for a new PC) so I'm going to wait for the next gen (DX10 compatible) to come out. Does anyone know when they're expected to be released?
Well I'm running an Asus 6800gt 256mb AGP and on HL2 Gfx test I got an average of 93 fps using the native tft resolution 1280x1078 which is pretty good! I run Farcry BF2 etc all with no probs, U can get it for around 140 - 150 quid - well recommended
I'm going to wait until a graphics card which will render Oblivion at an average of 30+ fps at 1280x960 (so about the performance of a 7900GTX) is on sale for less than £150. It's just not worth it otherwise. Trust me, you won't ever get an average of 93fps at 1280x960 on Oblivion with current technology, even with an SLI setup. Unless you spend the game at the bottom of a well, of course.
For the first time in a long time the graphics in a game are just too detailed for even the latest technology to be able to render it smoothly. That's why gamers are resorting to shelling out extra cash for SLI setups - no one has ever needed two graphics card running in sync to render one game before.
I'm hoping that a graphics card that meets the above criteria will be available sometime around the end of the year.
My setup probably averages 60 fps give or take playing oblivion at 1280x1024 (or whatever) with HDR on.
So yeah as crossfire / sli doesn't actually double graphical performance you maywell be right, id be quite suprised if it didn't get damn near 90 fps though, it would need best part of £1000 worth of graphics cards though.
Well, I managed to get a 6800GT AGP (with passive cooling) from Ebay for a tidy sum of £110. Not bad.
:)
Erm, guys... are we going back in time again? Surely something more modern must be happening!
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