Stuck Which Graphics Card To Buy

[CYBERSPACE]

Thankyou all again, well i was thinking of buying 256MB ASUS EN7800GT top silence pci-e £316 or 256MB EN7800GTX/HDTV pci-e £353 are these recommended and quite running.I know the ASUS EN7800GT is because its fanless,but don't know about the other one.

 

[tomsega]

Thankyou all again, well i was thinking of buying 256MB ASUS EN7800GT top silence pci-e £316 or 256MB EN7800GTX/HDTV pci-e £353 are these recommended and quite running.I know the ASUS EN7800GT is because its fanless,but don't know about the other one.

Good choice.

Obviously the GTX will be the better card. Still, the 512mb x1800xt outperforms the 256mb 7800gtx, so unless you are planning on doing SLI at some stage, I'd get that if I were you.

 

[henkjan]

just ATI has not released good drivers for the x1800xt..
i know people that have lots of problems with that card..

 

[PotGuy]

x1800 series is still full of bugs. was a bugger of a card to get good yields for too.

i seriously think you should wait a week just to see what the x1900 series has to offer

the x1800xt had 16 pipes, 16 texture pipe things
the x1900xt will have 16 pipes with 48 texture pipe things

the x1800 was basically an experiment to see how efficient they could make their pipelines in my opinion

the x1900 should walk over the x1800, and will probably just outperform the 7800 512mb card from what i can gather.

 

[tomsega]

x1800 series is still full of bugs. was a bugger of a card to get good yields for too.

i seriously think you should wait a week just to see what the x1900 series has to offer

the x1800xt had 16 pipes, 16 texture pipe things
the x1900xt will have 16 pipes with 48 texture pipe things

the x1800 was basically an experiment to see how efficient they could make their pipelines in my opinion

the x1900 should walk over the x1800, and will probably just outperform the 7800 512mb card from what i can gather.

The x1800 mainly only has bugs when playing FEAR in crossfire mode, but ATI are obviously very aware of this and I'm sure would have fixed everything before the end of the month. I wouldn't say the x1800 was an 'experiment' as such, it was more a reaction to the fact that nVidia won in the last generation because their cards had SM3 - so this time ATI have chosen to make simultaneous HDR and antialiasing the selling point instead of just bumping up the numbers.

Considering the efficient 16 pipelines of the x1800 almost match the 24 of a GTX, if Radeon were to release a 48 pipeline version it wouldn't just 'probably outperform' the 7800gtx, it would wipe the friggin floor with it!!

But still, who knows what nVidia have up their sleeves??

 

[G~MAN]

Are u planning on using Sli in the future ?


if so i would recomend you get a Nvidia card, im no fanboy but for some reason i just prefer Nvidia to ATi. My friend has an Ati card and the textures and shades just look 'different' so to speek... maybe just me and just a matter of face that im not used to it.

but yes get a good solid futureproof card, wait a week like potguy said and prices may come down

EDIT: typo

 

[floppybootstomp]

This loyalty/bickering/competition about whether ATI or Nvidia are the best is, frankly, a load of old cobblers

Must confess I was guilty of it for a while, I once favoured ATI but that was only cos they were making better cards at that time.

Then I noticed Nvidia upping the ante a bit so looked at what they had to offer.

Last upgrade I done was from ATI 9800 Pro to Nvidia 6800GT 256Mb. I can't see a blind bit of difference in colours, crispness, whatever. What I can see is an increased sharpness, smoothness and altogether more engaging graphics mode in the games I play.

And that's what buying a vid card is about, right? If you want good 2D, go Matrox.

As for this myth that ATI are poor with driver support, yes, they were at one time, about 5 to 7 years ago I think, when they made a serious attempt at cornering the gaming market their early drivers were atrocious and it put a lot of people off. I think Voodoo 3DFX cards were still about at that time.

So, my advice would be, don't be influenced by brand, both manufacturers supply excellent drivers, just look at what the card can do, and it's price.

 

[PotGuy]

Considering the efficient 16 pipelines of the x1800 almost match the 24 of a GTX, if Radeon were to release a 48 pipeline version it wouldn't just 'probably outperform' the 7800gtx, it would wipe the friggin floor with it!!

Yes, but ati and nvidia are using different ratios. nvidia thinks you need more pixel pipes than texture pipes, whereas ati thinks you need more texture pipes than pixel pipes.

i favour ati over nvidia, but only because i believe at the moment they have the advantage, with another series of cards out that [should] outperform nvidia cards

however by next year all the cards we buy now will be worth bugger all, and won't be able to play ANY games and well have to fork out another £500000 for the next uber up to date quad-speculation megadrive supercard

 

[tomsega]

I'm currently in the situation of choosing between a x1800xt 512mb with a non-sli motherboard, or getting a 7800gtx 256mb with an SLI motherboard.

The ATI card will be the instant winner, but I'm not so sure about getting the not quite so good card and waiting for SLI...

 

[PotGuy]

thats the situation im in

i bought an a8n sli a while ago, but i cant decide whether to wait till i have money for say 2 7800gt's, or buy an 1800xt/ 1900 or w/e

 

[tomsega]

thats the situation im in

i bought an a8n sli a while ago, but i cant decide whether to wait till i have money for say 2 7800gt's, or buy an 1800xt/ 1900 or w/e

I would choose the singular 512mb x1800xt over two 7800gt's, but definately not over two 7800gtx's!

The main problem at the moment is that the 256mb version of nVidias top of the range card is the same price as ATI'S 512mb top of the range card. So in terms of bang for buck ATI are winning right now - however you obviously couldn't add another one to an nForce4 board.

The ATI cards were given slightly less great reviews than nVidia's effort - but most of those magazines/etc made the decision when the cards were equally as expensive. ATI's prices have dropped dramatically recently, unlike the products of their rival.

 

[psd99]

so what one are u going to go for?

 

[psd99]

im looking to get a pci e graphics card soon aswell
i was considering fanless ones but im not so sure which ones are good that are fanless!

 

[PotGuy]

24th of jan is the apparent realease date for the cards

When the x1800xt was new it was about £500 i think, and within 2 weeks it had dropped by over £100

 

[tomsega]

I went for the 256mb 7800gtx in the end (as you can see below!).

The number '512' was really making me salivate over the x1800xt... but this way I can get the X2 4400+ instead of an A64 3700+, and I can always get another 7800gtx next christmas. I thaught the x1800xt was better at accomodating HDR because it was designed that way - however after looking at the Lost Coast benchmarks it didn't do any better. So it's nVidia again for me this generation.

EDIT: The size of the fan on this particular 7800gtx is also what swayed it for me - its huge, so should be able to overclock it better than most other 7800gtx users.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=308050

 

[TriplexDread]

Always nVidia for me m8 never owned a ATI card in the 12 odd years ive been building computers.

Have fun dude, sounds like a scorcher

 

[tomsega]

Always nVidia for me m8 never owned a ATI card in the 12 odd years ive been building computers.

As far as I'm concerned it all kicked off when it was the 5 Series vs the 9800's - in that generation I think most people prefered the 9800's. However, the 6 and 7 series have dominated ATI's efforts, so I think the overall score for the last 5 years is 2-1 to nVidia!

However, ATI are no doubt getting fed up. I think they're gonna release a scorcher - even if it means they won't make that much profit from it - just to get their reputation back.

 

[PotGuy]

thats a good price for a 7800gtx - often even non-overclocked ones are £330+, and that one has it's big brother's heatpipe on it

wish i could get a 4400, but that is a £200 jump, and that £200 is going on a gfx card...

anyways, 3700 is excellent value for money and will probably overclock a little too

 

[tomsega]

thats a good price for a 7800gtx - often even non-overclocked ones are £330+, and that one has it's big brother's heatpipe on it

wish i could get a 4400, but that is a £200 jump, and that £200 is going on a gfx card...

anyways, 3700 is excellent value for money and will probably overclock a little too

It is a good price yeah, although it's unbranded. Which is probably a good thing anyway - all you really want is an 'nVidia' logo. A cool thing about buying a GTX is that you'll probably only have to spend 150 quid to get a top of the range GPU again next year - because they'll still probably fetch 200 on ebay even then.

Yeah, the 3700 should get to 4000 speed easily, as it's based on the san diego core. Hell, even the £98 Opteron 144 can reach 2.8ghz as a result of being San Diego. Those are often OEM, so you can spend £30 on a brilliant fan and effectively have an FX-55 for £130. Thats what I was going to do, but I wanted dual core for next years games... I won't have to fiddle with getting a new CPU for a while now, and the 4400+ is a tiny 200mhz slower than the 4800+, so that should be an easy overclock.

EDIT: Scan and a few other companies are doing 'buy now, pay nothing for 6 months and NO interest'. Thats the only reason I'm getting the 4400+ and not the 3700 - maybe you should do that!

EDIT: I just realised the FX-60 is the same architecture as the 4400+, So if I can just bump it up 400mhz, I'll have an FX-60!!. Sorry, I'm bored and overexcited. I'll stop now.

 

[PotGuy]

lol

im not spending over £250 on gfx card if at all possible. If the new ati ones are >£300 then ill think about it, but to be honest no matter what i put in the new comp, its going to beat a vanilla 9600