Help with Graphics Card Option - Sli or new card?

[Aden]

Hi, i'm looking to buy a new budget system which I can either buy with onboard graphics, which i would then put my BFG 7600 GT OC into, or I could get a new graphics card later, such as as 9400 or 9600.

I'm not looking to spend too much on the system, but i'd like to have the ability to play some games, currently my 7600 GT OC can play COD4 quite nicely, but will it have enough power for playing Assassins Creed / Mirrors Edge / COD 5 on my 1920 x 1200 monitor. I'm not worried about low / medium systems, just that it will be able to play.

If the 7600 GTOC doesnt have enough power on its own, is it more viable to buy a much better card (i'm thinking 9600 or 9400) or buy another 7600 GT OC and SLI them.. I'm wondering if this would satisfy me enough..

Basically, i'm wondering if:
a) I'll be able to play the games listed with my 7600 GT OC

If i can't:
b) Will I be able to play with SLI'd 7600 GT's

If not.. or it'd be better:
c) To use another GFX card. Please specify

[shbris]

buying a card that old atm probably wouldn't be great value, and might be clocked differently than ur current card. the 9600 GT will blast thru COD at high settings up to around 1680 so medium maybe on 1920 easily

single card will be faster 9 times out of 10, SLI is basically just ... i won't even say!

as for 9400 GT, severely crippled, costs around 40 quid so for roughly 25 quid more you'll have a card that'll last a fair bit longer, especially on such a large monitor

[Aden]

So you recommend going for something like a 9600?

[shbris]

yeh, either the 9600 GSO XXX

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...DL+DVI-I/+HDTV

or the 9600 GT

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...+DVI-I/S-Video

the 9600 GT is probably slightly faster, but take a look round other posts and see what people have said about either

but if ur on a REALLY low budget, the 9500GT is the same price as the 9400GT roughly, with twice the no. of stream processors, so better 9500 than 9400!

EDIT: from a 7600 GT to 9600 GT you're probably looking at almost tripling your frames per second any any settings, probably much more

[Aden]

That seems good, thanks for the quick responses and help. I'll look into those.

[Webby]

Depends on how much you want to spend the 9600GT will be a huge improvement in graphics power over the 7600 GT you currently have and costs ~£75 you can get one for ~£65 if your happy to have the card made by Palit with a potentially noisy fan.

If £75 is too much then the 9600GSO is the next step down ~£65 for a pre overclocked model which has stock 9600GT performance in most situations although it may struggle a bit more in some games due to is lower memory (384MB).

You will also require a PCIe power connection for these cards (not sure if the 7600 GT needed one or not?) so you may need to factor in either a new power supply (depending on what yours is) or a 4 pin molex to 6 Pin PCIe power adapter.

[shbris]

what were you saying webby about noisy palit fan on 9600 GT, i've been tossing up between the GT and GSO for a bit now, leaning towards GT but now you've worried me!

[Webby]

Well this is the thing you see, I put a Palit 9800GT in a friends PC about a month ago with the same cooler design and the was no way to turn down the fan (in fact using Rivatuner to turn it down made it go faster!) In the end I strapped a quiet 92mm fan on top of the cooler and unplugged the stock fan. Problem is buying a quiet 92mm fan is going to cost you £4 and then you will need some way to attach it I used really long zip ties.

Now this is where it gets a bit confusing. So I raised my concerns with teh community in general and some people came back saying that the 4850 with the same cooler has fine didn't sound like a plane taking off. So I went back to thinking maybe I had a faulty card or perhaps it was just the 9800GT that was affected. Anyway today Euphoria http://forums.hexus.net/graphics-car...re-please.html is complaining about the same problem with 4850's which makes me think that it is probably not isolated to the 9800GT and as such I will not be recommending the cards with that Palit cooler any more or will be adding the caveat that it may be noisy.

If you want a 9600GT then I would spend the extra £10 and get this one instead http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=901660 pre-overclocked and hopefully ASUS have not stuck a jet turbine on it with no fan control!

[shbris]

hmm good shout, although if i got that one for an extra ten quid and it was just as noisy i'd kick myself. might look around for reviews on noise for that one, or just get the palit and an arctic cooler on it with fan. gotta earn a bit of money first