In a right quandry!

[T3hGr8£st]

Ok so my graphics card broke.

The fan went bust and the chip has fried, sent it for dabs RMA and they have given me a refund 1 day later.

I now have £190 to replace my graphics card from them, 12 months down the line from when I bought mine, which is outstanding service I must say.

Now, I was quite happy with my graphics card, even though it was only an Asus X800XT 256mb, it ran everything I wanted it to, mainly CS:S, NFS:MW and a bit of WoW with no problems really.

I don't know wether I should pay an extra £200 or so and go for one of the £400 DX10 cards or to stick with a £200ish card, the 7950's are quite appealing to me as they seem a significant step up from my old card at no expense to myself.

I must also say that my system specs leave a little to be desired in current times, with a Pentium D 820 proc and 1GB PC-6400 $Corsair XMS ram, would I be right in thinking an 8 series card would be wasted due to bottlenecks in other parts of the PC?

So basically, what I'm asking is it worth paying the extra for the DX10 cards with a year old system, or would I be better with a lower card and buying some more RAM for example?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[dave87]

x1900xtx would be a good buy, if not the x1950xt?

Those will tide you over to the second revision of DX10 cards, which should have an even bigger performance increase

[Smudger]

Or if you're used to an x800, get an x1950Pro and spend the extra £60 on sweets.

Or memory, up to you...

[dave87]

Memory - if you are going to buy some, best of waiting for a month or so, and buy a month before the release of Vista, as that *should* be when memory prices will be at their lowest

[T3hGr8£st]

I can afford one of the 8 series cards, but I really don't want to pod out that cash if I'm going to be holding it back with other parts of my PC, seems pointless.

Are 512mb cards a big step up from 256mb? and am I better off sticking with ATi or is NVidia the way to go now? I really have little idea what to buy as there is a massive choice.

This seems a smart card Asus X1950XTX but the waiting time could be an issue, I don't want to be without my main rig for long if I can avoid it.

[scrandman]

512mb only akes a noticeable difference with certain appssss. Quake 4 is one of them....

[kalniel]

If you can't run Quake 4 on absolute maxiumum on a good 256mb card then somethings wrong. No need for 512mb unless you're talking about resolutions around the 2500*2000 mark

The x1950xt is a good buy at the moment, and should last you until you can actually get any use out of a DX10 card. Definately not worth spending extra on a 8800 as you will really be bottlenecked by the rest of your system. Though I also agree that the x1950pro is a better match for your components and getting the extra gb of memory with the change would be a good move. Alternatively consider a 7900GS.

There's no wrong choice to be made between ATI and NVidia - both offer cracking products for the money. Pick a price point and both will have competative cards. I'd advice you to go for NVidia if you're looking to play doom 3 engined games mostly, or other texture heavy ones, and ATI if you're looking to play more shader intensive games, like Oblivion.

[Rack]

The 8800GTS has been seen for <&#163;300 now, why would you spend that much on an X1950XTX?
X1950GT is a good buy IMO, or the 8800GTS, either way I would recommend 2GB of RAM. The processor should be good for a little while, maybe next year you'll need something a bit pokier. At least your RAM & gfx will be compatable and uptodate

[T3hGr8£st]

Thanks all for your advice. I've bought the Sapphire 256mb X1950XT as it is a significant step up from where I was at no cost to myself.

I will look at getting some more RAM after christmas with the money I have saved, but I can see that graphics card lasting me until next year seeing as I didn't really tax my old X800XT, when some other uber card will be out and I need to replace my whole PC.

/Benj

[pmanington]

If you do get a fancy new graphics card make sure your psu is up to the load

[T3hGr8£st]

If you do get a fancy new graphics card make sure your psu is up to the load

I've got a 530w Tagan, should be able to cope with 1 8800GTX, but thats irrelevant for now

[revol68]

good choice.

I got myself a 7950 GT, though I was origionally after the 1950xt but it was out of stock everywhere and once i included postage to NI it was about 220 anyway, so I bought the 7950 GT locally for 190.