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Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: Hornet on November 27, 2006, 08:28:46 AM I'm in need of a relatively good one for a computer, but the computer won't have a very long shelf life, so I'm after a particularly good trade-off between features and cost. The only requirements are 256 VRAM, 1.1 Pixel Shader support, and DirectX 9C compliance. Any suggestions at all, and past experience with particular brand performance, anyone? Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: Rug on November 27, 2006, 03:32:35 PM Geforce 7900gs is solid. Just put one in my brother's new computer and it benchmarks annoyingly close to my 512mb 7900gtx (which they don't sell anymore).
nVidia make the best cards, by far, nowadays. ATi have gone to pot. Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: Hornet on November 28, 2006, 01:05:33 AM Apparently ATI versus nVidea benchmarks very much depend on the test conditions - for example: Quote Valve's game-engine benchmarks placed Nvidia's FX product-line a full generation behind ATI's R300 product-line. In Shader 2.0 enabled game-levels, NVIDIA's top-of-the-line FX 5900 Ultra performed about as fast as ATI's mainstream Radeon 9600, which cost a third as much as the NVIDIA card. The 7900GS is a rather good card, true, but it's a bit of overkill as the PC isn't going to be used for that long (about two years). I'd rather not invest in a really expensive card only to buy another PC (a well-chosen Dell, naturally) which will then come with an essentially redundant card, by which time the 7900GS will have depreciated, and the installed card will be quite near it in specs anyway. Thus, I literally need something that just fills the minimum requirements.Many thanks for your input though, I appreciate it. Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: SS on November 28, 2006, 01:40:27 AM Not heard much in the way of nVidia being recommended over ATi myself, though I haven't been paying much attention to it.
I've got a 256MB X1600 in my MacBook Pro, running DX9.0c, and it has no problem with Oblivion on high quality. (dxdiag just BSODed me though :angry:) A quick ebuyer search reveals them at around £60-70. I assume you're looking for AGP rather than PCI-E? Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: Rug on November 28, 2006, 07:23:45 PM The GS isn't astoundingly expensive, really, though probably more than you want to pay, I guess. As to ATi vs nVidia, that's from from my own personal experience, dunno if it goes for every card that ATi make - but the ones I've had in the last few years were *shit* compared to my nVidia ones.
Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: smi256 on November 29, 2006, 09:56:52 AM I'm really starting to not like ATI because my 9800Pro fan is shitting out on my again. Do you know how smelly and hard to clean off that stuff is?! :alien:
I was looking at tomshardware for v-cards, but the "cheap" ones they were looking at were still ~$100 :unsure: Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: Hornet on December 07, 2006, 06:09:33 AM It has both AGP and PCI-E, although PCI-E slots allow for faster data transfer, and thus presumably a better breed of graphics card to reside in it. Hardware's not my main area of expertise though. Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: Hornet on December 11, 2006, 01:20:47 AM I'm probably going to go for one of these critters (http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/111197), unless anyone has some insight that would suggest against it? Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: smi256 on December 17, 2006, 12:21:08 AM I don't see why not, just for a cheap card.
As it is, my friend just got an X1950Pro for only $200, the only thing is that it does not support DirectX10 (which no one uses yet) Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: SS on December 17, 2006, 02:50:48 AM I bet it doesn't support elephants either.
Title: Suggestions for a graphics card? Post by: Rug on December 17, 2006, 03:52:40 AM If you're going to spend £100 on a card you know you're going to have to replace in, ooh, a year, why not just fork out for one that might last?
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