some advice on what card and brand 2 get

yea but thats gunna be a hell of alot of money, i don't think i can find one cheap enough

EDIT: i did find this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814131319 a X1600XT chip for under 200 but would it be wise to go with the brand? will the quality be any less, i mean it is the same card as the radeon just with a different name. problem i just realized though is that the memory is 128-bit, would it be better 2 get the X850XT with 256-bit? the X850XT also has 16 pixel pipelines, 4 more than the X1600XT
 
Powercolor I've heard isn't that bad, and the quality can't really be less since the main chip and board is still built by ATI.

I did find on the back of one of my magazines, the cheapest 7800GT, going for about £180 and thats not bad really. You'll have to work that out in dollars :p

And yeah, the X850 would be alot better, but do note that with any ATI card under the 1900 range I believe, you don't get Shader Model 3 built in support. Yet, it'll be fine for games and Shader Model 3 built games will work on it, but you won't get the full range of effects used, but should be a fine upgrade.

6800GS:

Like I said though above, the Geforce 6800GS is also a good card, cheap and supports Shader Model 3.
Its one card now, below the 7800 in specs so not bad at all.

They can also be overclocked alot as well.

The line of 6800's was cancelled you see, and they released the 6800GS, to replace it which has slightly less pipelines than the 6800GT, but the speed of the card is infact faster than the GT, and with an overclock, can be just as good, and even better.

Though with this card and cards in this range, don't expect high resoloutions on the newest of games to run above 30fps on the best settings possible, though on lower resoloutions like 1152x864, and 1280x1024, expect in the 30's-40's-60's with high settings, which isn't bad for a card that costs about £150
 
yea i will probably be running on 1024X768, 1280X1024 at the highest, i just want smooth, good looking graphics, they don'r have 2 be the top of the market, just treally smooth :p
 
Well, if you don't want to be spending hundreds, the 6800GS is probably your best bet.

Or, if you can find a cheap 7800GT going, then get that.

At those resoloutions on the latest games at high settings, you will be getting smooth graphics.
Just check on the web for reviews on the 6800GS, and look at the framerates you can get using Antialising and other filters.

30 is considered a good framerate.

Though I play Doom 3 at 20-35fps running at 1280x1024, on my Radeon 9800pro and find that okay, and thats an OLD card by todays standards.
 
Kage said:
Well, if you don't want to be spending hundreds, the 6800GS is probably your best bet.

Or, if you can find a cheap 7800GT going, then get that.

At those resoloutions on the latest games at high settings, you will be getting smooth graphics.
Just check on the web for reviews on the 6800GS, and look at the framerates you can get using Antialising and other filters.

30 is considered a good framerate.

Though I play Doom 3 at 20-35fps running at 1280x1024, on my Radeon 9800pro and find that okay, and thats an OLD card by todays standards.
but the radeon X850XT has high clock and memory speeds i think, so wouldn't it be smoother or does the 6800GS have more features or something? :confused:
 
MooseMan said:
but the radeon X850XT has high clock and memory speeds i think, so wouldn't it be smoother or does the 6800GS have more features or something? :confused:
the X850 can be more powerfull than the GS in clock rates the only down side is that doesent support the SM 3.0 if u want one i found a good one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161146
or a x1600XT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161160
you can overclock the hell of this cards and they come with their program to overclock
 
Those don't seem bad at all.

SHADER MODEL 3:

I guess its up to you, depending on if you want more visuals in the latest games, as Shader Model 3 is being used a lot more now.

DOWNSIDE TO CARDS THAT SUPPORT IT:

The only downside with this though, is alot of cards that support it can't handle it very fast.

Just like the Geforce 5000 series couldn't handle Direct X 9 effects as well as hoped.

So theres a downside and up side of any card in that case, but at least if you get a card that supports Shader Model 3, your ready for more games that do.
If you can turn the extra visual effects on or not though is another matter, as they tend to rip up the frames per second.

OVERALL:

Though, if you do get the X850 or one of the same type, Shader Model 3 at the moment will probably not make that much difference in games of now in terms of visuals compared to Shader Model 2, which they'll be forced to use.

And offers a fast and cheap upgrade until more games start using it, and in that case, you can then buy a faster card to compensate :)

Plus the X850 I've heard is a very good overclocker if you wish to speed games up even more.

TRY TO:

Try to find on the web a vs based site for the X850 and the Geforce 6800GS to see which is the more capable card if there is one.
 
sounds good, i will probably go with the x850 because i am going 2 buy a new card when direct x 10 is out, this'll probably be in eairly 07? i'm not sure when the reliese is but it'l b cool. although i am still thinking of getting the nvidia sence it can be overclocked alot u said...
 
It can overclock alot, but I don't know in terms of overclocking, how much past or lower than the X850 could, and even after the overclock, which one will be more powerful.
They do have the same amount of pipelines I believe.
That said though, your again ready for Shader Model 3 if you get the Geforce range, since they've supported it for ages.

Think about it this way, if your going to upgrade for Direct X 10 when a card arrives that supports it, wouldn't you rather get a card that can play the latest games now with all the advanced visual effects? Since your not going to get another one until Direct X 10?

Its really up to you though. like I said, look on the web for reviews of the cards by different manufacturers, etc and decide which one you think will last you longer :)

DIRECT X 10:

Direct X 10 will offer alot of improvements though to make games looking fantastic when that finally arrives :D
Like for the first time, real smoothed surfaces and not using polys to do it, but special splines that will actually be able to make a circle shape.
 
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