hi, i am planning to buy a pci express x 16 for my system. but i dont know what to look for in a video card that is good. i am planning to use it to play games so i would like a descent one that can play high resolution games without any lag. I happen to have pentim duel core 2, 2.2 GHZ and the only thing missing now is a video card.. so anyone can give me a good advice in telling how a video card is good. i would be greatly appreciated! thanks.
Here are your only choices depending on your budget. 8800GTS 512mb > 8000GT > HD3870 > HD3850 Any one of these will do.
wow so expensive. no when i said i need helping determing which video card is good, bascically i am implying is that what do i look for in a video card? core clock speed? memory clock?RAMDAC? the higher the better right?
If the HD3850 is too expensive its hard to recommend anything else. You should check out either the 1950PRO or the X1950XT if you can find them, but here are the most important parts to look for in a video card: The core clock is the speed at which the graphics processor on the card operates. The clock speed of a chip, combined with the number/configuration of the pipelines in the chip, give a pretty accurate picture of what the performance of the chip will be. Usually the higher the core clock the better the card will perform. The memory clock, along with the size of the memory bus, tells us the amount of memory bandwidth a graphics card has. The more memory bandwidth a card has, the better it can handle higher resolutions and high levels of AA and AF. This is what 512mb, 256mb, 128mb means. Striking a good balance between the two is a good idea, but basically if you are going to run games at resolutions 1400 x 1050 or lower you can get away with 256mb of video memory. Anything higher will require 512mb of video memory to run smooth. Again core clock is also important, the higher the value the better. If you get a card with 512mb of video memory, but the core clock is crap then its better to get a card with less video memory and a faster core clock. Also when buying a video card its a good idea to see if it supports shader model 3.0 or above in order to play newer games. Don't worry about RAMDAC, its not that important.
thanks for the helpful tips and information. i came across this video card when i was surfing on newegg.com, let me know if it's good http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150229 i am kinda tight on budget, so i am not willing to spend anything more than 130 dollars. get back to me thanks.
^Not really. That card is more of a mainstream to low end card, and therefore newer games would lag with it.
oh really, alot of pepole bought it and most of them leave a really good feedback in terms of the card's performance..
The 8600 wont play Crysis on high details as good as the 3850/70 will. Heres a graph: Keep in mind that's medium quality, not high or very high. Couldnt find one with a 3870, but it would be in between the GTS and the GT.
It's impossible to select a good video card on the specifications alone, there's more to it than that. You need to know specifically whether x is better than y. Crysis isn't a valid benchmark as nvidia drivers have been altered to give artificially high frame rates for the game, but if you were to remove that with a patch (many people do as it increases the image quality of the game) you could expect the 8800GTX, 8800GT and HD3870 to all get around 50fps.
