Dammit, I wish I knew something about modern graphics cards

[Howard]

My PC is really becoming quite knackered now (I've had to underclock the damn thing to get it to POST) so rather than fart about with it I think I'll build a new one..
I've got most things covered, besides the graphics...


How good are the 7900 series cards? GT/GTS etc? Say, compared to my Radeon 9800pro

What about the 8800GTS? It's more expensive than the above, but is it much better? (about £110 as opposed to about £79) I want something that's gonna play some games but I don't want something ridiculous. Older games and new ones at 1280x1024 would be nice, would an 8800GTS suffice in this respect?


Cheers

[Andaho]

What about the 8800GTS? It's more expensive than the above, but is it much better? (about £110 as opposed to about £79)

I'll buy an 8800GTS for £110!

[Howard]

Whoops, I mean 8600GTS

[Tetras]

8800 GTS is a lot faster than a 8600 GTS, worth paying the extra imo. The 8600 series may not have the power to really make use of the DX10 capability if/when the games surface, the midrange DX10 cards (8600 and HD 2600) are barely up to the standards of last gen high end (X1950 / 7900) making the 8800 a significant jump.

In speed the 9800 Pro is not really something you can compare, either 8600 or 8800 series would be a HUGE leap in performance in all modern games. Many that are barely playable now or require lowest settings will end up being maxxed out @ 1280 x 1024.

[Templar87]

Yes, I'd avoid the mid-range cards like 8600gts as they are likely to perform around the same as an older 7800/7900 (or ATI 1900/1950).

Their DX10 efforts will be next to useless given that by the time DX10 games are common the card would be too old to play them properly! :-)

[Howard]

I had no idea 8****s were DX10 I thought it was just a higher series

7900GS it is then

[Andaho]

Yes, I'd avoid the mid-range cards like 8600gts as they are likely to perform around the same as an older 7800/7900 (or ATI 1900/1950)

WOAH! Don't tell him that an ATI 1950 is the same as a 8600 GTS, thats a lie!

Check this out Tom's Hardware 2007 VGA Charts

I was hoping to buy a X1950 XT as you can see on the chart is great for the cost of it (around £110), but over the last week, everywhere is running out of stock of them, and withdrawing them (replacing them with DX10 cards, but you don't need DX10 yet, and not for a long time cause games will still have support for DX9, just prittier graphics with DX10 support)

So the X1950 Pro is a good choice, I'm considering this one for only £92 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=619503 cause it comes with a quiet 3rd party cooler installed.

But don't just take my word for it, spend 10 mins studying Tom's VGA chart.

[Andaho]

oh and the versions with 512MB are not worth the extra money... the chipset is optimised for 256MB and the 512MB versions make very little difference. Note that it's the 256MB version is Tom's VGA chart.

[Blitzen]

WOAH! Don't tell him that an ATI 1950 is the same as a 8600 GTS, thats a lie!

Check this out Tom's Hardware 2007 VGA Charts

I was hoping to buy a X1950 XT as you can see on the chart is great for the cost of it (around £110), but over the last week, everywhere is running out of stock of them, and withdrawing them (replacing them with DX10 cards, but you don't need DX10 yet, and not for a long time cause games will still have support for DX9, just prittier graphics with DX10 support)

So the X1950 Pro is a good choice, I'm considering this one for only £92 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=619503 cause it comes with a quiet 3rd party cooler installed.

But don't just take my word for it, spend 10 mins studying Tom's VGA chart.

If you believe anything in Toms Hardware you also prolly believe that fairys live at the bottom of your garden and the man in the moon is real (sorry to disappoint anyone ) .

No eye candy all........doesnt make for good benches now does it as if you wanted low settings, why would you buy an expensive card? You wouldnt!
Take a look at those tests. They do this to make ATI cards look like they are 'up to' nVidia standards when clearly they aren't.
Because Toms Hardware is so popular among the ill informed when they search engine, they get paid to write nice things to distort the facts.

[Biscuit]

If you believe anything in Toms Hardware you also prolly believe that fairys live at the bottom of your garden and the man in the moon is real (sorry to disappoint anyone ) .

No eye candy all........doesnt make for good benches now does it as if you wanted low settings, why would you buy an expensive card? You wouldnt!
Take a look at those tests. They do this to make ATI cards look like they are 'up to' nVidia standards when clearly they aren't.
Because Toms Hardware is so popular among the ill informed when they search engine, they get paid to write nice things.

Just out of curiousity, not trying to be malicious or anything, how do you know this?

All the results on there seem reasonably accurate to how most other people results when testing cards

[Andaho]

Oh ignore Blitzen, and don't start another argument like this; we've all seen enough of them.

I haven't been around these forums for long, but I've been around long enough to notice he's a diehard NVIDIA fan boy who loves to trash ATI.

No offence Blitzen, I'm just telling it like it is

[CooperXS]

9800 - AGP
8800GTS, 8600GTS etc - pci-e

Guess you would need to make full upgrade or just buy 1950Pro AGP

[Pob255]

Well as has been said the 7900 is a major step up from the 9800Pro
To give you an idea I've just run the HardwareOC Prey benchmark on my specs
<----My system
1280x1024, maximum on all settings, the resault is 52.6 FPS
So yes I'd say a 7900GS is a good card esp for 1280x1024.
I also ran the timedemo on Halo1 = Average frame rate=75.47fps, it may look a little dated but it's still fun and boys does it speed along on these specs
A 7900GS or 7950GT is a great buy

2nd sugestion, now I'm going to rock the boat a bit here and also sugest a factory overclocked 8600gt & an SLi motherboard, like 256MB MSI 8600GT Overclocked @&#163;72.60 or 256MB Leadtek 8600GT Extreme @&#163;85.76 (note the MSI is cheaper because it's GDDR2 where as the leadtech is GDDR3)
My reason is, that it's around the same price as a 7900GS, granted not as good performing but it's good enough at 1280x1024. But the real key here is SLi, the 8600GT does extremely well in SLi
http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/g...si-8600gt-sli/ seems to be down at time of posting
Basically with the latest drivers the 8600gt SLi is just behind the 8800gts 320mb and I'm working on the idea of a low cost spend now with the option of a 2nd low cost spend later to spread the cost out, also has the ability to do DirectX10 which the 7 series don't. (How well a single or SLi 8600gt will be in DX10 is still up in the air, but by the time a few dx10 games are out you'll know if it's worth SLi'ing it or getting something better)

3rd sudgestion, if you can scrape the cash together a low cost 8800GTS 320mb Novatech GeForce 8800GTS 320MB @ &#163;172.72 that's one of the best prices I've seen for a 8800gts and come with a "lifetime" warranty from novatech.

4th option is a x1950Pro or x1950XT, generally faster than 7900GS or 7950GT, however they do underperform in OpenGL (the x1950Pro is comeing out just under the 7900GS in OpenGL based games and most older games are OpenGL based) I also still see a lot of threads about x1950 cards having problems esp with stock coolers (there were 7900GT problems but they seem mainly to of effected eairly cards, I haven't seen many problemmatic 7900 threads recently)

[Biscuit]

2nd sugestion, now I'm going to rock the boat a bit here and also sugest a factory overclocked 8600gt & an SLi motherboard, like 256MB MSI 8600GT Overclocked @£72.60 or 256MB Leadtek 8600GT Extreme @£85.76 (note the MSI is cheaper because it's GDDR2 where as the leadtech is GDDR3)
My reason is, that it's around the same price as a 7900GS, granted not as good performing but it's good enough at 1280x1024. But the real key here is SLi, the 8600GT does extremely well in SLi
http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/g...si-8600gt-sli/ seems to be down at time of posting
Basically with the latest drivers the 8600gt SLi is just behind the 8800gts 320mb and I'm working on the idea of a low cost spend now with the option of a 2nd low cost spend later, to spread the cost out.

Oh no! he didnt suggest a budget SLI system

[Pob255]

Yep I did well in a way, it's not much cheaper than a 8800gts however you're spreading the cost out and it was only one option out of 4

[joshwa]

This list might help compare old and new :
http://www.overclock.net/graphics-ca...d-ranking.html