Asking for a Video Card for Xmas

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darkataxia

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Hi, I'm planning on asking my girlfriend to get me a nice new video card for xmas. Usually we spend about $200 or more on eachother for Christmas. I don't want to use all $200 on the card but I was thinking maybe between $150 to $170. I assume I could get a really nice card with this. Any recommendations ... I just seen the previews for Medieveal Total War 2 and want to get a video card that will run this game at it's best graphics. My computer is already fast enough. here's my specs..

AMD Athlon 64 3200
2.20 ghz
512 Ram but I am upgrading this to 1 gig
right now I only have a Nvidia Mx440 vid card (Yeah old I know)
 
I was asking for opinions on a good video card in my price range since I'm not familiar with them....If you can't say anything useful then don't post please...
 
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www.newegg.com If you're going with nVidia, I would suggest taking a look at the GeForce 6000 series to match your price range. You might find something that low in the 7000s, but I doubt it.
 
I have had a lot of experince in building PC's, especially ones that deal with FFXI. Personally I prefer Nvidia cards (much more cutting edge technology and generally release the ground-breaking features much longer before ATI (hello SLI)). But if you would prefer an ATI card I can give you a good recomendation on that as well.

For your price range (on Nvidia) you could go two ways. With a 6600 XT sporting a high amount of pixel pipelines and high RAM. This would give your card some raw power but a little weaker in the processing field (always a good call for past games (like FFXI), but not always the best call when running futuristic games that actually push the processing capability of a card. Or you could go with a newer 7600 card with the same onboard RAM but fewer pixel pipelines.

For your money I would say that this >> is one of the best cards you can get. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125025
12 Pixel Pipelines will do you much better than 8 (about a 30% improvement) on a card that is easily overclocked. Gigabyte is a decent company (I'd put them about middle of the road behind Asus and some other major companies) but offer a reliable product.

Your only downside with this card may be that its a 7600 GS as opposed to a 7600 GT or XT. 7600 GS is only supported on 91.xx drivers and beyond meaning some potential interferenes with really really old programs. Unless you're planning on running some old school games though that should not matter much to you. I know for a fact that FFXI supports 7600 GS (and very well) and if you ever wanted to you could move up to SLI technology if you got the motherboard fo it.

Just some questions before you consider a new graphics cards. What games do you run and do you do a lot of video editing? Does your motherboard support PCI X16 (PCI express)? How many watts is your power supply? Getting a strong power supply is actually one of the best things you can do to improve system stability and overclock safely.

Anyway, if you have any more questions or wolud like an ATI recommendation just post back.
 
On a completely different note, could you imagine using this card >> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150160 << with SLI? If you dont know what SLI is its technology that lets you link two graphics cards together to work as one for almost double preformance. Some of the preformance power from the second card gets lost in the linking so its a little more like 80~90% increase.

That card can already push over 300 FPS (with right system support in RAM and processor) on Half Life 2: Lost Coast on highest settings (one of the most pushing games to date). But with SLI... man thats graphical heaven on earth...
 
evanos said:
On a completely different note, could you imagine using this card >> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150160 << with SLI? If you dont know what SLI is its technology that lets you link two graphics cards together to work as one for almost double preformance. Some of the preformance power from the second card gets lost in the linking so its a little more like 80~90% increase.

That card can already push over 300 FPS (with right system support in RAM and processor) on Half Life 2: Lost Coast on highest settings (one of the most pushing games to date). But with SLI... man thats graphical heaven on earth...
Click to expand...

If I had about 4 thousand on me to build a PC that can support that kind of stuff, that would be awesome.
 
nVidia is faster with new technology but they also abuse more FUD than even Microsoft could ever hope to...
 
evanos said:
On a completely different note, could you imagine using this card >> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150160 << with SLI? If you dont know what SLI is its technology that lets you link two graphics cards together to work as one for almost double preformance. Some of the preformance power from the second card gets lost in the linking so its a little more like 80~90% increase.

That card can already push over 300 FPS (with right system support in RAM and processor) on Half Life 2: Lost Coast on highest settings (one of the most pushing games to date). But with SLI... man thats graphical heaven on earth...
Click to expand...

Well since that links to the XFX page not an actual card im gonna assume your talking about the XFX7950 with 1gb Ram, and yes that would be sick. Im building a new PC soon, i got about a grand stored away right now and should have, about another 500 bucks by xmas so i think im gonna get the XFX7950 with 512 ram, the card 3 down from the 1gb on the link you posted. Maybe a few later on next year sometime ill get a second for SLI, idk. Currently without the card though my PC is looking to be around 1300$ at cyberpowerpc. Should be good.

One thing to add, is that you should make sure your mobo supports PCI-e, your setup looks a bit older so you should make sure its not AGP.
 
wow all the ATI haters :) idk i have a pretty built pc -- (athlon64 3400+ , 2gig memory, 2 160gb sata raided to 320, ati radeon 9800 pro) - i use the enhanced ati drivers made by omega and the registry hacks for images in the games for better viewing and the game looks absolutely amazing.

most all video cards by now are probably gonna be better than the card i have nowbut.. just sayin ;)
 
Thanks for the info...My mother board doesn't support PCI-E, I've read that AGP is starting to be phased out... I may be better off waiting, saving my money, and building a nice new computer in a couple of years. Right now what I have is fine for what I use it for.
 
Well, there are some good AGP cards still (with the technology you're best to go with 6600XT, you should still cap frames in areas even like Whitegata AH). But, if you want to go with an AGP card you'll spend more on it. You may be best waiting on buying a motherboard + graphics card at the same time. A decent Motherboard will run you in the 100~150, but with that you'll most likely have to buy a new chip also.

I'm currently running AM2 Chip on dual channel and I really like it for what I do (usually some high-end stuff + FFXI), but it does have a lot of conflicts with older games such as Counter Strikes below source (I actually have to change my rendering from OpenGL to software to make it run properly) and anything rendering in a system below DirectX7. But, with games like Farcry, Counter Strike Source, Doom3 I run @ highest settings non stop without even pushing the card.

A really good choice if you are planning to upgrade would be getting a SLI board. With SLI you can make 2 Graphics Cards act as 1 and get a HUGE system boost. Many more games are starting to offer SLI-friendly programming (although it will run all) that actually will let you get more than 2X the boost on your games.

For FFXI I never see any lag anywhere; Dynamis, Whitegate @ AH, in the Boyadha Tree near water, all run at 30 FPS (cap). I liked my ATI x1800, but ATI just dosent render multiple surfaces half as well as Nvidia. I even dont get the frames cut when I'm around bard songs, etc.

But, yeah AGP is really a thing of the past, slower information transfer between hard drive and really makes any card above 8 pixel pipelines useless.
 
evanos said:
Well, there are some good AGP cards still (with the technology you're best to go with 6600XT, you should still cap frames in areas even like Whitegata AH). But, if you want to go with an AGP card you'll spend more on it. You may be best waiting on buying a motherboard + graphics card at the same time. A decent Motherboard will run you in the 100~150, but with that you'll most likely have to buy a new chip also.

I'm currently running AM2 Chip on dual channel and I really like it for what I do (usually some high-end stuff + FFXI), but it does have a lot of conflicts with older games such as Counter Strikes below source (I actually have to change my rendering from OpenGL to software to make it run properly) and anything rendering in a system below DirectX7. But, with games like Farcry, Counter Strike Source, Doom3 I run @ highest settings non stop without even pushing the card.

A really good choice if you are planning to upgrade would be getting a SLI board. With SLI you can make 2 Graphics Cards act as 1 and get a HUGE system boost. Many more games are starting to offer SLI-friendly programming (although it will run all) that actually will let you get more than 2X the boost on your games.

For FFXI I never see any lag anywhere; Dynamis, Whitegate @ AH, in the Boyadha Tree near water, all run at 30 FPS (cap). I liked my ATI x1800, but ATI just dosent render multiple surfaces half as well as Nvidia. I even dont get the frames cut when I'm around bard songs, etc.

But, yeah AGP is really a thing of the past, slower information transfer between hard drive and really makes any card above 8 pixel pipelines useless.
Click to expand...

6600XT all I'm finding on Ebay is 6600GT...When I put in 6600xt or 6600 xt it switches my search to 6600GT is this the same card? Evanos! I really appreciate the info your giving me it's going to help me out alot...
 
darkataxia said:
6600XT all I'm finding on Ebay is 6600GT...When I put in 6600xt or 6600 xt it switches my search to 6600GT is this the same card? Evanos! I really appreciate the info your giving me it's going to help me out alot...
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Yes, my bad Dark, 6600 XT is only a PCIexpress x16 mode and it is very recent. You will see very little preformance difference between a 6600 GT and XT, and most of that gap will be filled if you get the latest drivers on a GT. 6600 GT is a mode that has been out for almost a year, but is one of the most stable GPU's Nvidia has ever made and is widely supported. Great card, cant really go wrong with a 6600.
 
evanos said:
Yes, my bad Dark, 6600 XT is only a PCIexpress x16 mode and it is very recent. You will see very little preformance difference between a 6600 GT and XT, and most of that gap will be filled if you get the latest drivers on a GT. 6600 GT is a mode that has been out for almost a year, but is one of the most stable GPU's Nvidia has ever made and is widely supported. Great card, cant really go wrong with a 6600.
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I am told by people that it's not a good idea buying used vid cards on ebay...I will most likely go new since this is probably the safest bet...
 
evanos said:
For your money and AGP you'd be very impressed with this card, not quite as good as a PCI express model of the same card (less pixel pipelines) but still a very powerful rendering system.

>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150163

Newegg > all!!
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Checking out Newegg now...What'st he diffrence between these two

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814145112

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127164

Also 128mb vs 256mb is that a big deal?
 
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On those two cards the only difference is the company that makes them, I'd take MSI over Chaintech. Generally MSI makes a more stable card that can handle the heat, they actually make some really good tweak-able motherboards.

As far as the difference between 128 and 258, you will notice a difference of about 20-30% depending on the card, but the difference between ram size is MUCH smaller than the difference in GPU (6800 GT, 7800XT, 7950XT, etc).
 
Yes, that would run modern games better. But don't forget; sometimes newer cards have backward compatibily issues with older games (shouldn't have a problem w/ FFXI).
 
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