What graphics card have you got?

[Blitzen]

Gotta say I totally agree with Kalniel. There are some woefully crap £30 DX10 cards out there that would be pulverised by top-end DX9 cards from 2 years ago.

I've seen so many people think their 8600 was better than a top-end nvidia 7 series purely because it had a higher starting number. The 8600 was in fact a total joke.

I agree aswell.
Sorry Cat-The-Fifth, but your statement was far too 'blanket' to be correct.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You expect nVidia to sell a card that's advertised as 'having no use whatsoever - just stick with the onboard intel chip for your games of solitaire love'

Perhaps they should just hype the media features and other non-gaming aspects of the card. If they hype the higher up cards such as the 9600GSO as gaming cards perhaps more people would save up and buy them.

If someone can afford a £30 to £40 card then if they save up for longer they can afford a £60 to £70 card instead.

They would make more money per card that way. It is far better doing this than pissing off customers when their new card cannot play any newer games decently. This is what pushes people to buy consoles.

They could also have a sort of rating system on the packages of the cards as long as it is kept consistent.

I also like the way that the HD46** series are heading as they have great performance and low power consumption for the price. Hence people have to be less worried about having a powerful PSU too.

[Pob255]

At least in the 8series the lowend card did have a use, the 8500gt was the best for video decoding of the whole series.

but at the same time they used to advertise 7200gs as a gaming card

EDIT: nvidia have really done a number with the 9600gt drivers, it's had a massive performance boost.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I agree aswell.
Sorry Cat-The-Fifth, but your statement was far too 'blanket' to be correct.

Except that your definition of a budget gaming card is different from mine. So you are also incorrect in my view!! Just because a £30 card exist does not make it a gaming card. I never said "card" but "gaming card". There is a big difference between the meaning. I said it for that reason in all my posts.

A budget gaming card costs more than a budget "non-gaming" card.

For example a budget dSLR would cost around £200 to £250 but a budget digital compact would cost under £80. They are both cameras and take pictures but they are for different ends of the spectrum.

The same goes for Hifi. A budget micro system would cost under £40 but a budget separates system would cost around £150 to £300. Again different markets.

Basically the same applies to many things.

I never made a blanket statement in the first place.

Also are you telling me that any card from the £60 HD4670 or HD3850 GDDR3 cannot play modern games reasonably well?? They are faster than every DX9 card out there in modern games. Crysis is a good example as it cutting edge. Farcry was the same years ago. The 9500GT is not considered a gaming card by anyone and neither is a HD4550. An 8600GT was considered a gaming card in 2007. With the 9600GT arriving and the price reductions of the HD3850 and HD3870 it has not been considered a "gaming card" for months.

The best example of a budget gaming card is a 9600GT for around 75 quid.


Like I said an el-cheapo DX10 gaming card (not just card) will be better than a high-end DX9 card from over two years ago.

For me a cheap/budget gaming card is anything under 80 quid. Mid-range for me is between £80 to £130. Anything between £130 to £200 is high end.
Anything over £200 is for rich people!!

I usually buy cards under 80 quid(apart from the HD3870 which was over £100) so I have always considered myself a budget/mid-range gamer.

[kalniel]

For someone who thinks they've ended talking about this you do go on a bit

We know you said gaming card, and as stated, those cards are sold as gaming cards, whether you agree with that or not

You just need a disclaimer that says that when you say 'gaming card' you don't actually mean what nVidia, AMD and retailers call a 'gaming card', you actually mean something entirely different and your own category of 'gaming card' that's based on performance/price, not anything the manufacturers say.

edit: for example, this what SCAN, a well informed technologically minded etailer has to say about the geforce 8400 which you can buy today:

NVIDIA® unified architecture
Fully unified shader core dynamically allocates processing power to geometry, vertex, physics, or pixel shading operations, delivering up to 2x the gaming performance of prior generation GPUs.

One might read that and think that for some reason it was a good card for gaming, compared to a prior generation chip like the X1950XTX. Certainly it seems they intend for you to be doing gaming on it if they are mentioning gaming performance at all.

Or better yet, the 9400

Realize more vibrant photos, smoother videos and more realistic gaming with the NVIDIA® GeForce® 9400 GT GPU. This GPU has a 2x performance increase over the comparable 8 series graphics card, allowing you to play the latest PC games without costing you a bundle.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

For someone who thinks they've ended talking about this you do go on a bit

We know you said gaming card, and as stated, those cards are sold as gaming cards, whether you agree with that or not

You just need a disclaimer that says that when you say 'gaming card' you don't actually mean what nVidia, AMD and retailers call a 'gaming card', you actually mean something entirely different and your own category of 'gaming card' that's based on performance/price, not anything the manufacturers say.

I agree. I ranted!! I shall now stop!!

I tend to just judge things on actual performance than actual marketing. Marketeers would sell you a polished turd for £1000 if they could get away with it!!

This is why I always think people should do their research first. If they get stung because of laziness it is their fault really!!

[Blitzen]

I never made a blanket statement in the first place.

Your posts in this thread have been riddled with them fella.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Your posts in this thread have been riddled with them fella.

No! Like I said my definition of a budget gaming card is different from yours. If you even bothered to look at the cards in the poll then you all would have known what cards I was referring to.

[Fraz]

Can we talk about women or something now we've sorted that out?

[shadowmaster]

3870X2, remarkably powerful card when the drivers are working well and the game supports crossfire which so far is most of my games.

X1950XTX in my second rig, runs games like COD 4, etc quite easily at 1280*1024 mid settings.

Can we talk about women or something now we've sorted that out?

Women are similar to gfx cards, their performance often goes down with age.

*I'll get my coat

[kalniel]

Can we talk about women or something now we've sorted that out?

Can I just check that you are using term 'women' in the same sense as we understand it, and not your own definition that's different?

I agree. I ranted!! I shall now stop!!

-rant-

evidently

[Fraz]

Can I just check that you are using term 'women' in the same sense as we understand it, and not your own definition that's different?

Ok, well I'm talking about your average flesh'n'blood woman. Not some kind of advanced Gaming Woman, or suchlike.

[kalniel]

Ok, well I'm talking about your average flesh'n'blood woman. Not some kind of advanced Gaming Woman, or suchlike.

Average for what use though?

[kalniel]

<filth>

Women are similar to gfx cards, their performance often goes down with age.

*I'll get my coat

You say that like going down is a bad thing...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Can I just check that you are using term 'women' in the same sense as we understand it, and not your own definition that's different?

evidently

Stop being sarcastic!!

It is not like any of you are taking the manufacturers advice either. If that was the case you would have the 9400GT you quoted!!

Wait a minute I am being sarcastic too!!

[staffsMike]

X1950XTX in my second rig, runs games like COD 4, etc quite easily at 1280*1024 mid settings.

Well now.. maybe CAT had something afterall. My laptop with it's piddly 8400gs can run COD4 at 1280 x 800 with low-med