Best Buy Graphics Card

Private_Maestro

Private_Maestro

Spaceman
Hey I am wondering what graphics card i should get for a good price. I want to run Half-Life 2, Wing Commander, KOTOR, MOH: Pacific Assault, Doom 3 all well, games like that......

If you have any suggestions please tell me the type, price and if on the tinternet, what website :)

Thanks in advance! :D
 
It really depends on what kind of slot you have available. Are you using a PCI, PCI Express, AGP? Are you upgrading or buying a new system? Well According to gamespot the very best is the ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition 256MB and will cost you about $400. On the bottom of this page http://hardware.gamespot.com/Video-Cards-F-9-9-x-x you can see gamespot's ranking of graphics cards. It has prices and links. Sadly my X600 isn't even in the top ten :(. I heard somewhere that there going to start making cards with 512 mb memory on graphics cards. That's just plain crazy. I'm kinda stuck on Ati's stuff. But there will be plenty of people swear by nvida too. Sorry I'm probably not that helpful.

Happy finals guys <screams in terror>

-Clay
 
ATI 9800 Pro is good value now at $200. These were top of the line of the previous generation.
 
KrisV said:
ATI 9800 Pro is good value now at $200. These were top of the line of the previous generation.
Click to expand...

Great advice. I replaced a 9600 with a 9800 Pro to play Doom 3 and it works like a champ. Even so, I swapped the 9600 into another machine that was running a 64MB GeForce 3 and it does quite well too. Buying the nicest card your buget will allow for is always the best way to go.
 
I know that Doom 3 is an OpenGL game and nvidia cards tend to do better in opengl than ati cards, whereas ati cards tend to do better in direct3d.

So I have no official opinion.
 
I've been doing some heavy-duty research on video cards myself, recently:

As far as AGP goes, the 9800Pro is solid at $200, the GeForce 6800 (normal) 128MB is $270 and gives you quite better performance, and the 6800 GT 256MB or X800 Pro 256MB are top-of-the-line at around $400.

In regards to PCI-Express, the X700Pro is a good buy at around $170-$200, although the 6600GT regularly outclasses both it and the 9800Pro and is available for the same price; beyond that price range, Geforce cards are really the only viable ones, as ATI still only offers their PCI-E cards at insanely $600+ price points, and they don't offer performance enough to justify the price; you can get a 6800 256MB for $350 and a 6800GT for $500.

Personally, for AGP I'd go for a Radeon 9800Pro, or a Geforce 6800 if I had the extra $70 to play with, because the performance increase is very nearly two-fold. For PCI-Express, the Geforce 6600GT is by far the best value; beyond that, you run into rapid decreases in price-performance ratios.

Hope some of this helps!

Oh, these prices are taken from Newegg.com, and my info is garnered from Anandtech.com, HardOCP.com, and Tomshardware.com.

Cheers!
 
I have the 9800 Pro and, personally, it's the best bang for the buck. It runs Half-Life 2 and Doom III with everything set to the max flawlessly on my 2.8 ghz & 1 GB RAM PC.

The X800 XT Platinum (why not just call it the X800 #1 :confused: ) and 6800 GT whatever are the best cards out there, but there's really no game to flex their muscles.
 
Really pretty much depends on the price range you are aiming for. Personally I'd either go for a ATI 9800 Pro for 'budget' and a Geforce 6800 GT (which is the one I have) for high performance. Faster cards exist, but are too expensive for the performance IMHO (besides other problems like you need a godly power supply and excellent case venting).
 
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