I Need A New Graphics Card

[James Quigley]

Okay heres the deal my graphics card is OLD and is dying. When playing games it used to play fine it flickers and powers off the moniter.

I have tried other monitors and refresh rates and it still does it.

SO, I need a new graphics card, needs to be AGP 8x around £100 and support dual monitors.

I have no idea whats good and whats not, although aparently nvidia cards are good for gaming?

Please help me decide

[Swize]

Nvidia is always good but what type of games are you playing?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=GX-042-OK

Edited February 6, 2007 by Swize

[Pauly]

7600 gt... cant go wrong with that ... its pretty amazing what kind of power the little card pushes out. im currently running

core clock: 632mhz

memory clock: 1.54 ghz

which is quite alot to be fair ....

Pauly

[fathopper]

Speaking of graphics cards can you get external ones?

[Swize]

Speaking of graphics cards can you get external ones?

no, its kinda a really essential peice or hardware so without one a pc is useless. So why make external ones, if you get me.

Edited February 6, 2007 by Swize

[James Quigley]

Nvidia is always good but what type of games are you playing?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=GX-042-OK

Is that not a PCI Express card?

I have a AGP slot, don't think the PCI-E cards are compatable, could be wrong.

[fathopper]

Hmm oh dear, just my apple mac needs an upgrade one to run final cut editing software, hmmm and its all one interal unit built into the monitor

[Reece B]

Is that not a PCI Express card?

I have a AGP slot, don't think the PCI-E cards are compatable, could be wrong.

yes that is pci-e and it wouldn't work in ur system

[RicH_87]

i have a GeForce 6800 GS which is AGPx8

it was £170 when i bought it but i imagine you might be able to get one for £100 now.

seriously good, runs css on full everything, i'm talking all the fancy stuff to the absolute max, and on 1440x900 res, pretty much never drops below 80fps, (uaully 120+).

i'll have a quick scout and see if i can find one.

[Krisboats]

i have a GeForce 6800 GS which is AGPx8

it was £170 when i bought it but i imagine you might be able to get one for £100 now.

seriously good, runs css on full everything, i'm talking all the fancy stuff to the absolute max, and on 1440x900 res, pretty much never drops below 80fps, (uaully 120+).

i'll have a quick scout and see if i can find one.

Leadtek 7600gt... far better than the 6 series cards. Plus its like £95 or something from overclockers.co.uk.If you can scrimp a bit more then an ati x1950 is where its at... but they're like £130+

plus the leadtek model is the best overclocker of all the 7600gt models. Had a fiddle with mine and i'm now on 635 core and 810 mem (1620mhz effective)

[Token]

Please don't invest in a graphics card now unless you want it to be rendered useless for the next generation of games, Vista supports the new DirectX10 and obviously HDCP/HDMI, using older gen cards is not possible.

The only graphics cards out currently that support both for vista are the G80 chips by Nvidia although ATI are releasing their R600 in march, followed by a G86 from nvidia.

The price of the G80 chip with cards such as 8800GTS (150quid) will drop pretty soon because of new releases, and there you'll have future proof card for the remainding time Vista is about.

Also a few people shouting about cards being clocked at blah blah mhz, it really is not all about speed, you got to think of the number of pixel pipelines and vertex shaders all make a big difference to the speed of the card. Not to mention whether it supports DX10 or Smartshader, size of memory and the size of memory interface.

All you have to do is hold out 1 or 2 months to see the next gen cards fall into your price range. Unless you only want a cheap card to watch videos on XP then all of what I said is useless.

[Krisboats]

Please don't invest in a graphics card now unless you want it to be rendered useless for the next generation of games, Vista supports the new DirectX10 and obviously HDCP/HDMI, using older gen cards is not possible.

The only graphics cards out currently that support both for vista are the G80 chips by Nvidia although ATI are releasing their R600 in march, followed by a G86 from nvidia.

The price of the G80 chip with cards such as 8800GTS (150quid) will drop pretty soon because of new releases, and there you'll have future proof card for the remainding time Vista is about.

Also a few people shouting about cards being clocked at blah blah mhz, it really is not all about speed, you got to think of the number of pixel pipelines and vertex shaders all make a big difference to the speed of the card. Not to mention whether it supports DX10 or Smartshader, size of memory and the size of memory interface.

All you have to do is hold out 1 or 2 months to see the next gen cards fall into your price range. Unless you only want a cheap card to watch videos on XP then all of what I said is useless.

At which point theres still no iminent proposed release for his AGP system.... making all your post entirely irrelevant. Besides... go find me a £150 8800. And theres currently no games with DX10 yet, and until crysis comes out, and company of heroes etc get DX10 updates the new card isn't much use.

Theres no point upgrading the system properly for another 6 months at least. And his card is faulty now.

A 7600Gt will more than adequately keep his sytem alright for another year or so, if he was such an extreme gamer he wouldn't have an AGP still, so current best technology is=n't really helpful.

And i'm pretty sure the system wont be rendered useless for games... in fact far from it. DX10 games are still playable with dx9 cards, they just don't have all the fancy effects.

[James Quigley]

I'm not going to be running many demanding games right now, just need a replacement card NOW.

I will, hopefully, get a whole new system in a year or so, I can wait till then for something ultra-mega smooth.

[poopipe]

Leadtek 7600gt... far better than the 6 series cards.

not quite true,

the 6800 has a 256 bit memory interface, 7600 has 128. the extra bandwidth means you can run higher resolutions with antialiasing and pixel shader effects without getting shite performance. Until we're all running vista and directX10 you won't notice a lack of features between the 6 and 7 series because nobody's actually using them in games, the speed of the chips/memory is a non-issue cos the hole through which information is sent is twice as big on the 6800 so more work gets done per a cycle.

that said ...

if you've got a shit tft screen and/or only want to run your games at 1024x768 with 2x antialiasing then you won't notice much difference except the 7600 will probably make less noise.

[James Quigley]

okay I'm thinking of ordering this one, what do y'all think?

7600 GT

I might look around to see if I can find it a bit cheaper

[Krisboats]

not quite true,

the 6800 has a 256 bit memory interface, 7600 has 128. the extra bandwidth means you can run higher resolutions with antialiasing and pixel shader effects without getting shite performance. Until we're all running vista and directX10 you won't notice a lack of features between the 6 and 7 series because nobody's actually using them in games, the speed of the chips/memory is a non-issue cos the hole through which information is sent is twice as big on the 6800 so more work gets done per a cycle.

that said ...

if you've got a shit tft screen and/or only want to run your games at 1024x768 with 2x antialiasing then you won't notice much difference except the 7600 will probably make less noise.

However the 7600 still beats the 6800gs, which is the only available 6800 at the minute. linky. Plus thats with standard clocks as well, overclocking mine to its best stable speed saw an increase of about 20-30 fps in F.E.A.R. at 1280x960 with everything turned on.it averages at around 50 fps, which according to these tests puts it well up there with the 7900's.

Based on the available NEW cards from online shops like overclockers/ebuyer etc... the 7600gt beats any 6 series card, as i can't find anywhere that still sells a 6800ultra or even a 6800gt.

okay I'm thinking of ordering this one, what do y'all think?

7600 GT

I might look around to see if I can find it a bit cheaper

Leadtek one, definately. Link All you need to do is download rivatuner, click the detect optimal frequencies button and click save. Your card will be 10-20% faster than the gainward one, but for a cheaper price.