Which card?

I'm thinking about buying a new videocard because the one I have right now pretty much sucks.
I've read some of the reviews found here, but after that I realised that by doing that I was more lost then before and making a choice was much harder.
I'm not that technical and some things in the reviews didn't mean anything to me, and I hope that this can help me.

I've narrowed it down to a few cards.
1: Sapphire ATi Radeon X1300 512Mb
2: ATi Sapphire Radeon X850 XT 256Mb
3: ATi Sapphire Radeon X850 XT 256Mb Crossfire Edition
4: ATi Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO 256Mb

Post anything that can help me, positive or negative things of a card, you own opinion, ....

Thanks

You might want to look into the nVidia route... You should be able to get a 7800GT for that money.

I can get those cards at a lower price then the nvidia

Quote:

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Originally Posted by IndoStilo

I'm not that technical and some things in the reviews didn't mean anything to me

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Ok, first be sure whether you need an AGP or PCI-E card as that will cut down the options.

Also some idea about what its gonna be used for, there's no point in spending a lot when a much cheaper card will do.

x1300 is very entry level, not going to be good for 3d gaming but will be fine for general 2d Windows stuff e.g. Work processing, drawing, image edting etc. Slowest of the 4 in 3d.

x800 GTO: This is a cut down x800 really. Will run all current games, won't run them all at high resolutions, some will need some options turned down.

x850 XT: Fast! This is a good graphics card for 3d stuff and should run all of the current games at reasonable resolutions with all of the prettiness turned on.

x850 XT Crossfire: Same as above, except you can put two of these in a system for close to 2x the fps (theoretical performance).

Personally, if I was paying for it, I'd buy the x800 GTO and upgrade to a faster card when you need to. The x850s are rather expensive but they're more powerful too. I just bought a graphics card, I wanted an x800 GTO but couldn't find an AGP one with 256Mb, so I trawled ebay and found a 6800 GT for a little bit more money.

x800 GTOs with 128 MB RAM are around £120 for PCIe.
Microdirect does "Foxconn ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E 256MB DDR3 PCI-E" £176.19 where as the cheapest 7800 GTs are over £200 but the 7800 is a newer faster card that outclasses it by a margin.

As buff says above - ensure that it's a PCI-E card you want and not the older AGP standard.

What system are you going to be running this card in? What will you be using the PC for - gaming, surfing etc. This will help us understand what you want and therefore be able to give better advice.

Of your original choices (assuming that it's a PCI-E card you need)


1. If you just want to surf the net and have a minimal budget.

2. very good value at £146 from overclockers. Best value card below a 7800gt (@£190) by far imho. I overclocked one to 575/600 GPU core/memory. (Did 6700 in 3dmark05 with a AMD opteron 146 @2.6Ghz - just to give you a rough feel)

3. Same as above but why spend the extra cash on a crossfire master card now. Run one video card now buy another master card later when they are cheaper if you want to run crossfire dual cards. Bear in mind that you will need a motherboard that will support 2 ati cards.

4. good card for @ £115. Unlocking the pipelines from 12 to 16 is not doable anymore unless you are super lucky. I've seen the powercolor cards run at 540/540 (scoring 6000 in 3dmark05 as a guide).

there is also the nvidia 6800gs in this price range but I'm not upto date with the best price for this card. x850xt is better than 6800gs.

First of, thanks for all the feedback received so far.

@Buff: it's a PCI-E card.

@Raven: it's gonna be used for some of the new 3d games, but mostly for work that I do in 3d studio max.

@Iranu: it's going on an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe mainboard with dual core processor.

The main thing that has to function best is 3dSMax, with the current card it takes a very long time for all the processing.

I'd go for either option 2 or 4 depending on your budget.

The x800 GTO is v good value for money and is a good buy, however if you really do want that extra speed and can afford to pay a little more the x850 is the better card!