Advice with regards to graphics cards

[raverbaby]

I know nothing about graphics cards, they dont interest me since my pc's are used for studios and music production related stuff.

Basically, ive been seduced by Unreal Tournament 3 and Pro Evo 7 and would like to play them on high specs. My system is quad core overlocked with 2gb 800mhz ram.

My budget is £140 for a graphics card since it's only for this 2 games. I've been recommended the X1950 series and the 8600 series.

One set of people are saying one thing and the others are saying another. On a Quad Core system with 2gb Ram on Vista which card will be best to play UT3.

[raverbaby]

And i've managed to out of my own research to pin down the HIS 2600 XT and the X1950 Pro Ultimate...

[porcorosso]

I'd suggest a radeon X1950 of some type, you can get them for sub £100 these days quite easily, or if you can stretch to a bit more than your budget a geforce 8800 gts 320 is probably your best choice overall, I've seen some around for £170ish I'm sure. I wouldn't go for the 8600 at all, they aren't very good for anything really.

As for gaming, you might find you like playing some other ones in the future so a good graphics card will help then too, sounds like the rest of your system will be fine though.

[dfour]

For gaming I would ignore the 2600 and the 8600 series as they are both strangled by a ridiculously stupid 128meg bus for the ram. A X1950 pro or xt/xtx will slaughter both of them in games a they run a 512 meg memory bus. The only minor thing is the x1950 series are not DX10 but if you can live with that then get the X1950 series of your choice.

[YOYOtech - Mark]

hi there, my advice for the graphics card would be -

within your budget -
sapphire x1950 pro 512mb graphics card

spend a lit more and get the 8800gts
xfx 8800gts 320mb graphics card

the 8800gts is the better card of the 2 for games, as it is DX10 ready...

hope this helps
mark

[raverbaby]

thanks, will go for the X1950pro and wait till the Dx10 cards im,pprve