Graphics card help

[Belesar]

Hi all

forgive me for being a bit thick but what is the diff between these two cards?

XFX GeForce 8600GTS 256MB PCI-E

XFX Geforce 8600GT 512MB DDR2 PCI-E

the 256mb card has recieved a lot of good reviews on aria yet the 512mb one has no reviews so is one better than the other? and will they handle newer games ok?

[wonderlust]

The GTS is a faster card and has faster GDDR3 Ram, where as the GT has more ram that is only DDR2 but it is a slower card with slower ram.

If you want a card that will handle newer games then I would suggest in order from worst to best:-

9600gt 512Mb
HD3850 512Mb
8800GT 512Mb
HD4850 512Mb

[mac124]

Whats the rest of the system like? As it would be pointless putting a very powerful gfx card in a mid range system.

The 8600gts is a reasonably capable card and for around £45 delivered its excellent bang for buck.

[Belesar]

My system is gonna be as follows:

MSI K9A2GM-FIH AMD 780G AM2+ Motherboard
or
Gigabyte GA M56S-S3 AM2 Motherboard

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20GHz
might go for higher cpu depends on money ive got at the time

Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB)

tryin to build mid range system for gamin as i want to play spore when it comes out, because my comp wont even run spore creature creator at mo and paid £5 for something i cant play

[Belesar]

another prob ive got aswell is my hard drive and dvd re-writer and dvd rom are all ide also my psu is only 350w so will i need to upgrade that aswell?

[Lynx]

Yes to both the hard drive and psu. the Samsung F1 drives are rather amazing so are the (seagate?) 7200.10 drives.

[wonderlust]

7200.10 was last years model :D the better Seagate is the 7200.11.

[Belesar]

thats a B**** as i have just bought a Ide dvd-rw drive a couple of weeks ago before i decided on buildin a new rig

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CD%2FDVD+Drives/Internal/IDE/Samsung+SH-S202+20X+IDE+DVDRW+-+Retail+?productId=30663

[wonderlust]

You can still use it, IDE is not quite dead yet.

[Lynx]

Thats why i said yes to HD and PSU, not yes to DVD drives....

[wonderlust]

convert the DVD-RW to USB2, you will not loose any performance in doing so.

something like this:- http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-2-0-5-25-External-Aluminium-CD-DVD-Hard-Drive-Case_W0QQitemZ330258283394QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item 330258283394&_trkparms=72%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14.l1318

Aria don't seem to sell them.