New Video Card Hunt - $200-300. Advice?

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Eric.

Eric.

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I'm usually on the other end of these things. :lol:


So I haven't really been paying a lot of attention to the performance of the latest stuff, especially not ATI. I'm considering spending up to $300 on a new card within the next month and I'd like to see what options are best now. I know that the 8800GT/GTS (G92) is a top option. Is the 9600GT worth looking at at all or is it actually closer to the 8600GT performance? Then there is the 3870, which I assume is the best ATI card in that price range.

I definitely plan on playing Crysis with whatever I get, and needs to last a while (but that is why we are talking this price range, right? Right.). Its going in a 680i SLI board, so on top of being Nvidia biased, the opportunity to SLI sometime leans me that way a little more. I know that its unlikely for me to go SLI, but I'd still prefer to leave the option there.


So enough blabbering, inform me GTP. :D


Oh, a few specs to keep in mind:

Full tower case, so plenty of room
600W OCZ PSU, should have plenty of headroom for any single card, especially this price range.
 
The 9600GT is similar to the mid range 8800s in performance. 9600GT or 8800GTS, you can't go wrong with either. They are both around $120 at the moment, so they are both pretty good bargains. Especially if you want to SLI them, which would easily be under your $300 target. The 9600 is more efficient (by about 50 watts per card), though, so if you are worried about that I'd pick twin 9600s. Stay away from the rest of the GeForce 9 series, though. There is nothing particularly wrong with the 9800 GTX, but it isn't spectacularly better than the 8800GTX and is actually a bit closer to an 8800 GTS.

The 3870 runs practically identical in speed to both cards at the same price, and comes with better multimedia stuff. But owning an nVidia mobo makes getting a Radeon GPU seem kind of like a waste to me in my opinion. You could wait a couple of weeks when the Radeon HD 4XXXs start hitting the streets, as they are supposed to be 9800 GX2-fighting monsters with much lower prices, which is what I would do. Just wait and see what the prices are, and if they compare favourably to the nVidia cards spring at them.
 
One thing to consider when making the ATI vs. nVidia decision is that if you have a game that has specular maps in use it's quite likely that the Radeon can't render those textures, and not even all shiny 3D objects. They ditched the feature a good while ago in their drivers when hunting for a new lighting effect rendering style. As a result I personally doubt I'll ever buy a Radeon again.
 
Well, Opendriver helped me to find a $210 EVGA 8800GTS 512MB, and nothing at the moment seems to be notably better in the price range besides some overclocked 8800GTs. Still open to other suggestions (and benchmarks if you can find some with all of these cards). Currently I plan on grabbing a 2x2GB RAM kit for $90 to go with the video card. 6GB. :)
 
A 8800GTS is definately the way to go. The only other thing in that price bracket apart from 8800GTs is 9800GTX, which performs practically indentically to the GTS anyway.

Though you can get an EVGA OC 8800GTS for $262 ($232 after debate). Which also won the "Customer Choice Award - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards". May get more performance out of that and a single 2GB stick. Than 2x2GB. Or Get both.... :sly:
 
Eric.
Well, Opendriver helped me to find a $210 EVGA 8800GTS 512MB, and nothing at the moment seems to be notably better in the price range besides some overclocked 8800GTs. Still open to other suggestions (and benchmarks if you can find some with all of these cards). Currently I plan on grabbing a 2x2GB RAM kit for $90 to go with the video card. 6GB. :)
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What operating system are you running?

The Evga 8800gt gets my vote. Just bought one, amazing card for the price.
 
tait
What operating system are you running?

The Evga 8800gt gets my vote. Just bought one, amazing card for the price.
Click to expand...

Vista Business x64. I really don't need the RAM, especially not 6GB. But for the price I'd like to. :lol:

@OC'd GTS: I may get that, but I'd really rather keep things under $300. I don't see 78Mhz doing much except taking the risk of getting a bad card and getting artifacts.
 
That is a really nice price for a GT. SLI might cause problems in the future though, due to its double slot design for the big monster fans.
 
Toronado
That is a really nice price for a GT. SLI might cause problems in the future though, due to its double slot design for the big monster fans.
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Ya it is huge, if I had room I would be getting a second one but I'm not that much of a hardcore gamer. Also I don't think my processor can keep up with high res newer games...it's only a 3.6GHz Pentium IV.
 
SLI is not worth it. Stick with a single card set up.
 
I'd wait until ATi drop their HD4000 series. The specs are damn impressive...

F1GTR
SLI is not worth it. Stick with a single card set up.
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QFT.

The thing is with SLI, you'll get better performance out of a single next-gen card as opposed to simply adding another older card somewhere down the line.
 
Its looking like I'll actually have about $350 to drop now after selling the Inspiron today. So unless something changes in the next week, I'm almost definitely getting the EVGA 8800GTS KO and 2x2GB Patriot RAM. Its tempting to pull together enough to SLI two 8800GTs, but the reviews of the GTS look like it'll be enough to run Crysis pretty well.
 
Even though you say you have plenty of room in your case you still need to take size into consideration. I have a pretty big case but I ran into clearance issues with a very small capacitor that wouldn't allow the card to fit properly. Just a heads up so you don't get one and become rather irritated when a small little thing interferes.
 
Taking a quick glance through the case window, I've got about six inches of room in front of where the 7900GT ends. There are a few capacitors but it looks like they are all short enough.
 

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