The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

i mean £52 vs £77, i know wat i would choose

 

Given the number of complaints about the 8800GS I've spotted, I'd stick with the Asus card.

 

wait so ur recomending a card that gets alot of complaints? why would you do that?

 

I think he means the Asus version of the 8800GS is good.

 

Yes, sorry for not clarifying, the 8800GS seems to have a few issues from a lot of manufacturers, presumably the OEM. The Asus card however has very few complaints, and indeed I know two people that use that exact card.

 

ok sam, but he OcUK is not OEM its from Palit IICR which are a massive compainy and one of nvidia best partners (interms of relationship with nvidia)

 

Great as that is for nvidia, it doesn't say anything about the quality of their products, they've made some good stuff in the past, but problems do appear here and there.

 

I putting together a home pc at present & i'm thinging which graphics card will best suit my needs. can someone please give me some advise on the below cards i'm thinking of getting

1024MB G force 8600GT
512MB G force 9600GT
768MB G force 9600GSO

The 8600 being the cheapest, how good is this card? or will I better off with one of the others?

 

I'm not sure how good the 9600GSO is, but the 9600GT is vastly better than the 8600GT, and now quite cheap. The 8800GS is a similar performer though, also worth looking into.

 

does it matter that the 8600 has more memory?

 

No, a GPU as slow as the 8600GT would grind to a halt long before it ran out of memory. To need more than 512MB of graphics memory requires the performance offered by cards like the 9800GTX.


I have a question now, has anyone been able to determine whether you can adjust the fan speeds fully with the HD4850, like you could with the 3800s? Given that it's summer and my case fans have been sped up, I wouldn't mind extra fan noise that much - silent coolers could come later when they'd be affordable, and released in the case of the T-Rad2.
If you can give the cards an extra boost in Rivatuner, ATITool etc, then a pair of those beats are on my 'to buy soon' list...

 

oh the 9600GSO is a bios flashed 8800GS and a sticker on the box LOL, nvidia did it to shift numbers.

 

Sounds familiar... from both parties.

 

As far as I can tell, the 768MB 9600GSO is the exact same card as the 768MB 8800GS. Depending on prices, it may, or may not be a good deal.

If they had actually released the 768MB 8800GS in America(I haven't found one) it would have been faster than the 9600GT. So I'd assume the 9600GSO is slightly faster than the 9600GT.

 

What about the 9800GT? What's that?

 

The 9800GT is supposed to be an OC'd 8800GT just like the 9800GTX is an OC'd 8800GTS.

This is why I'm not worried about upgrading right now. There's really nothing worth upgrading to, save the 4870. But that's a month or two down the road for me.

 

Not with a DS3L anyway. Don't get me wrong, great little board, but crossfire really is making big waves of late for gamers.

 

I am in no way attracted to dual card. Even if the gains are improving, it's just not worth the money or trouble. See the games where it doesn't work or gives worse performance? That's what I don't like. It's not guaranteed to work and is really unneeded as the single 4870 is enough for even Crysis in 1920 x 1200.

The DS3L will probably be with me until it no longer is viable for a modern gaming rig. I'm done switching CPUs/motherboards for now. Most new Core 2 Duos and Quads are only really minor improvements. I'm still getting ~95% of the performance an E8400 would get at the same speeds.

And unless games(that really need it) start seeing benefits from it, I see no point in going quad either. I'm mostly a gamer and that's what I upgrade for. Right now, my system represents everything I could want in a gaming PC. It is my dream machine.

 

I always used to be anti-dual graphics for that very reason, but in almost all recent titles now the cards are scaling very nicely - the only ones they aren't are sufficiently old that one card could max them anyway. Weigh up the balance of the games that will and won't work with crossfire...
At the moment I also share your view on the CPU. An overclocked E8500 might gain me 40% ish extra performance, but that doesn't warrant the extra cost, and neither currently would the benefits offered by a quad.

As for your comment about Crysis, that depends what detail you're used to. It takes four 4870s to max Crysis at that res in DX10 mode with AA and still get a playable frame rate, and as far as I'm concerned you haven't maxed a game unless you've got all the effects at max and turned on considerable levels of AA.

The main thing I have against dual graphics is the power consumption at the moment, but given the amount of power cards like the GTX280 use, that's also irrelevant.


As it stands right now though, with the exception of Crysis, a single 4870 can max pretty much every game out there at 1920x1200. It's only really when you start using the resolution I do that you have to consider dual graphics just to max current titles. Despite all this though, if someone wants a PC to last them a few years, I think crossfire is viable as the extra muscle will help them out later down the line when games get even more demanding.

 

I'm glad you see my point. An upgrade would rule, but it would be pointless for me as you don't really get much faster than a 3.4GHz+ Core 2.

I can still take my E6750 to 3.8GHz+ and if I ever need that power, I already have high-end air cooling(Tuniq 120) to do it with. An E8000 series CPU would only be a side-grade.

And quad is seeing fewer(noticable) real world gains than dual core did, so I think it will remain a niche market for a while. I have no need for it as dual core is more than enough for me.

I know it would be a huge benefit going to Crossfire, but I just don't have the money or ambition to upgrade my board, video card, and maybe my case just to get a second card that will be outdated as fast as the first one. I have nothing against those who choose Crossfire or SLI, it's just not for me.