Minimum recommended graphics card?

[Ian]

CPU's/Motherboards aren't too hard to choose when you have a ballpark price to work around, however many of todays games have a minimum graphics card requirement for a good gameplay experience.

For the majority of games, I don't notice a difference between my X850 or 9800 - unless it is a really hungry game.

What would you say is the baseline graphics card you should use to achieve acceptable gameplay performance (not 1600x1200, 8xAA, just something that would be acceptable).

FX5200's are getting quite dated now, so I'd be tempted to say a 6600 (around £60).

 

[Me__2001]

i reckon a 6200 turbocache might be ok, i'd probably go with a 6600 series or 9800 Pro as the minimum

 

[ChristopherP]

Turbocache = shared graphics!!

I'd probably say the minmum would be a 6600GT or a low end X800.

My last couple of budget machines for customers i used AGP 9600 Advantage 256mb - they ran things quite nicely.

 

[Reefsmoka]

I wouldnt step anywhere under a 6600GT, else its just not going to be fun .

 

[Me__2001]

didnt know that chris, im still on a 9600SE and its only had trouble with the FEAR demo

 

[ChristopherP]

at least i think thats what TC is - it has 16mb of its own memory and steals the rest from the main RAM!

 

[muckshifter]

at least i think thats what TC is - it has 16mb of its own memory and steals the rest from the main RAM!

You is correct "Turbocache" is a new buzz word for shared memory.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I wouldnt step anywhere under a 6600GT, else its just not going to be fun .

Ditto.

PCI-e or AGP? You won't get a 9800 PCI-e card as far as I know and AGP cards are getting thin on the ground now, though 6600GT's were available last time I looked.

 

[Covenant]

Speaking as one who has been there, done that and spent the money to do it the 9800 pro is as good as it gets for budget AGP cards. I had the pro until recently and I managed to borrow a 6600GT which in my opinon was not that much different, and in fact was poorer (again, in my opinion). in some games.
To get a big enough difference to justify changing the 9800pro , I bought a 6800GT which I think is a little above your budget!

Covenant

 

[PotGuy]

well my vanilla 9600 is less than astonishing on bf2, fear, cod2 to put it likely.

i think that minimum card would be an x800gto (PowerColor 16 pipelined version) to get any decent effects and fps with a 1280x1024 resolution.

 

[Alf]

Nothing less that 2x7800 GTX 512 ... if only it were that easy!
i would have to say 6600GT, whats ATIs similar card?

 

[marleyuk]

Old sort

ha, im still running my 5 year old Ti4600 and the only game ive had a problem with is BF2 and thats only because Nvidia and EA suck. The card should be able to perform pretty well in BF2 but for some random reason they decided to make it a pixel shading 1.3 only event. Meaning the only way i can play it now is if i disable the game skins (not a pretty site). Nvidia should have made given the card a 1.3 ps anyway, I should have bought a 9500 pro instead, that would have still be truckin.

 

[michael 118]

i have a 6600GT and that runs with fine with most games, but it will struggle with fear. 6600GT and 6800GT is a good choice because you can get fairly cheap if you shop around, it will run todays games fairly well and future games it could cope with i think

 

[TriplexDread]

Might aswell get the 6800GS they only about £130

Altho if I had the choice I would still buy another 6800GT, problem is no where stocks them anymore

 

[michael 118]

Altho if I had the choice I would still buy another 6800GT, problem is no where stocks them anymore

yup same problem here, thats why i went for 6600GT.

 

[Anon_F]

graphics card

I run what games i play with an ATI 128MB 800X PCI-Express card

Works fine, but as not a gamer it really does not matter much.

 

[TriplexDread]

Shame really cos altho it is possible to have a differnet brand of card in an SLI setup it is advised you have the same brand with same BIOS and memory installed for full compatability. Gutted really!