How much faster does a new card need to be ?

[unreal]

I guess the other factor will be the new games that kick in after the launch of XBox 360 + the possibility of new screens - i.e. if you bought/borrowed/hi-jacked/got from a relative@Xmas a 24" master screen...
...maybe - just maybe - you'd be crying out for a little 'next-gen' luvin

Well thats another thing, I'm going to be getting an Xbox360 hopefully at the time of launch, so if I wasn't lucky with the competition I would still have my 9800 Pro for years to come. Mind you the Xbox360 does have an ATi card, so you might aswell endorse me

I've got a 20" screen, might not be the maximum HDTV res, but at 1680x1050 16:10 ratio, I need something that I KNOW I can play with every single setting on at max with stupid high frames. If I were to buy a card (and CPU and such) that could handle that res at max detail, but only 4x AA and 4x AF until it started being jittery, I would severely regret cashing out that much money for the kit

BTW heres a question; Can I use DVI with my 2005FPW? It's got DVI, VGA, Composite and S-Video, but not that HDMI or whatever it is.

[Nick]

There should be a law against paraphrasing of that magnitude...

And I'm sure there's a touch of deliberate mis-interpretation in there for the sake of winding me up!

My point was that you certainly DON'T need bleeding edge cards to play todays games and the latest cards out now will be superceded in six months, but they'll still quite happily play any games coming out in the next year...

Similarly, working backwards, a card that came out in September 2004 will still be perfectly up to the job of running most of todays games quite happily.

In fact, those two XFX GeForce 6800 GTs in the gaming rig actually prove my point.

Edit... and if I'm honest, of course I'll go for somethning snazzy and fast over something older and slower... if I had the money... It's a bit like being offered a Ferrari or a B Reg Mini Mayfair for a company car, of course you'd take the Ferrari... so leave those 68s right where they are, thank you!

[Speed]

Well thats another thing, I'm going to be getting an Xbox360 hopefully at the time of launch, so if I wasn't lucky with the competition I would still have my 9800 Pro for years to come. Mind you the Xbox360 does have an ATi card, so you might aswell endorse me

I've got a 20" screen, might not be the maximum HDTV res, but at 1680x1050 16:10 ratio, I need something that I KNOW I can play with every single setting on at max with stupid high frames. If I were to buy a card (and CPU and such) that could handle that res at max detail, but only 4x AA and 4x AF until it started being jittery, I would severely regret cashing out that much money for the kit

BTW heres a question; Can I use DVI with my 2005FPW? It's got DVI, VGA, Composite and S-Video, but not that HDMI or whatever it is.

Surely if it's got DVI you can use it!

[Applecrusher]

B&W 2 will love you for it...

You guys have B&W2!!!

I want a review now

[kalniel]

Interesting poll. I presume the question being asked is comparing a new product to the top range of the last generation product (predecessor was the term used). As such I agree with the general 30-50% increase plus lots of new features.

But that's purely because I won't be buying cards one generation apart. I usually buy cards at least two generations apart, and usually one generation behind the current. Thus I will only upgrade when I can get almost double the performance, and a large increase in features, for a reasonable price.

I would be far happier if there were longer waits between gfx card generations. I'm fine with refreshes where more clock speed or lower power consumption etc. are tweaked out over a generation, but a longer generation gap would both make me more inclined to purchase from retail (as opposed to second hand), and surely create much better support from developers enabling these new features to pull more weight and become a noticable improvement rather than something just used in a few games in a few places.

[merlin2001]

33%-40% improvement in raw grunt before I'm willing to splash the cash and upgrade. I personally think features aren't that important in the purchase decision as games generally aren't available that take advantage of the latest features when the cards are released.... ..however, it is NB to have new features being implemented, as the existence of new features on the cards is the catalyst to these features being incorporated into games/apps further down the road (imho)...

[Nick]

You guys have B&W2!!!

I want a review now

I'd better scotch this one right now before we get into trouble...

NO, we do not have ANY code for B+W 2... and no, I'm not being cryptic or obviously misleading to indicate that we have code... we really don't have any code.

PD said "Black and White 2 will love me for it" meaning that when we get code, the rig will help the game fly.

So, once again, I do not have any code for Black and White 2... I do have th game's logo tattooed on my arm tho, is that any good?

[Applecrusher]

I do have th game's logo tattooed on my arm tho, is that any good?

Never tought of that as a tattoo, but it would be sweet...

So do you know any info on B&W2? Release dates? Demo Dates?

[unreal]

Surely if it's got DVI you can use it!

Heh sorry, typo, I meant run HDTV on it, not DVI

[Mikey2005]

I'd say it's got to be a massive jump. I just upgraded from a Radeon 9550 to a pair of 7800 GTX's in SLi..... I'm happy.

[Speed]

Heh sorry, typo, I meant run HDTV on it, not DVI

[Lee H]

Those two XFX GeForce 6800 GTs in the gaming rig actually prove my point.

Same here - 6800GT SLI setup and I'll keep this until the next generation of cards, or when I've saved enough for 2 newer, better cards - whichever is the soonest but they generally overlap