Alternative for 1GB Gainward 9600GT Golden Sample

[makoblue]

Hello there,

Does anyone know of a good alternative to the 1GB Gainward 9600GT Golden Sample graphics card?

This seems like quite a good card for the price, but I have just received an e-mail from Scan after ordering that it will not be back in stock for a week. I've already had to wait a while to order the parts to build my PC and would like to get it all done ASAP, I'm so bloody excited. Are there any worthy alternatives or should I just hold on?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

[SiM]

Welcome to Hexus
8800GT 512mb is pretty cheap now. Its not worth getting mid range cards with 1GB as they are not powerful enough to make use of the full 1GB

[kalniel]

Any of the ATi 4850 cards are much faster than the 9600GT you were going for and probably aren't a lot more. If you absolutely have to have 1gb VRAM then you can get a 1gb version as well.

[SiM]

Any of the ATi 4850 cards are much faster than the 9600GT you were going for and probably aren't a lot more. If you absolutely have to have 1gb VRAM then you can get a 1gb version as well.

9600GT is around £75 now afaik... the 1GB might be a bit more though...
the 4850 is £125... completely different price brackets...

The 3870 is the best ATI to go for in the rough same price bracket (£85 now iirc)

[makoblue]

Thanks for the very quick replies!

So, if I were to get a graphics card, my budget for which being about £120-130, what do you think I should get?

I went for that 1GB Gainsward 9600GT due to a friend's recommendation, apparently it has good over-clocking potential (I probably won't overlock anything due to my in-experience anyway - this is my first self-built PC).

EDIT:Oh, by the way that 1GB 9600GT is £115

[SiM]

In that budget get the 4850... no brainer really...

[makoblue]

Is there any realy different between nVidia and ATI then?

[SiM]

Well the 9800GTX (available for £130 soon) is about the same as the 4850, but it depends on the game....

[makoblue]

So in comparing the 9600GT and the 4850, the 4850 comes out on top? Even if the 9600GT is 1GB and the 4850 is 512MB?

Sorry, I find all this stuff pretty confusing.

EDIT: I forgot to say, I'll mainly be using this new PC for gaming and 3D modelling, animation etc.

[SiM]

Yup 4850 comes out on top, by a huge margin. The amount of memory doesn't determine how good the card it... There are other more important things, such as the speed of the GPU (processor on the graphics card), shaders and memory bandwidth...

[makoblue]

Thats whats confusing me really...

I'm looking at the 512MB alternative to the original 9600GT on scan, in comparison to a 512MB HD 4850.

The 9600GT has:

GPU Speed:700+ MHz
Memory Bit Rate:256 Bit
Memory Speed: 2000+ MHz
Cores: 96
Shader Model 4.0

While the 4850 has:

GPU Speed:625 MHz
Memory Bit Rate:256 Bit
Memory Speed: 1986 MHz
Cores: 800
Shader Model 4.1

Thats a lot more 'cores' (what are they exactly?) for the 4850 and an extra 0.1 for the shader model, but the 9600GT seems to come out ontop for everything else.

These are the two cards...

9600GT: scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=770356

4850: scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=832700

I guess its between these two really...

[tensim]

Hi there Mako!

Do a google for HD 4850 reviews and take a look at their comparison charts... the HD 4850 is competing with the 9800GTX, which is a much better card than a 9600GT...

Honestly, the 4850 is the new undisputed king for around £125..

What resolution are your gaming at?

cheers

[makoblue]

Hi Tensim,

I was just looking at reviews and the phrase "gobbles up Crysis like a dwarf at a snail-eating contest" was amongst the many positive reviews.

My monitor's max resolution is 1440x900.

[tensim]

Go with the HD 4850... a mild overclock and it'll be absolutely killer at that resolution I'm sure (and even at stock it'll be great.) The only issue with it seems to be heat, though it doesn't seem to affect performance from what I've read...

I've gone with its big brother, the HD 4870, simply because I'm running a 24" monitor (and I can afford it! )

Just my opinion from reading reviews though, no personal experience with either card just yet (still building my pc, should be up and running by the weekend, fingers crossed ) I'm sure some folk with hands on experience of the 4850 will chime in singing its praises

cheers

[makoblue]

Cheers Tensim.

I don't think heat will be a problem, I'm getting a fairly big case with 4 fans.

I think the 4850 is the one for me...

Thanks for the help everyone.

[CrazyMonkey]

For an extra £5 you can get an AMD HD450 which is the best route to go at this moment in time.

It outperforms the 8800GT and is on par price wise.