New Graphics Cards????

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Cockles, Sep 20, 2006.

  1. Cockles

    Cockles Megabyte Poster

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    Hola

    I am looking to upgrade my graphics card and was wondering on some helpful adivce from you guys.

    I currently run a GeForce FX5200 128Mb, which is still going ok but I'm going to mid/low settings on the newer games now (I'm a bit of a graphics junkie)

    Anyone got any good recommendations?

    I don't want to go too bonkers, maybe spend about £100 or so.

    Also, what do people think of Sapphire cards, as I've noticed (on Novatech, for example) that they seem to be very high spec yet only a fraction of the costs of GeForce cards, sounds a bit too good to be true.

    Cheers
     
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  2. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    I recommend waiting for our Noel Edmonds....
     
  3. UCHEEKYMONKEY
    Honorary Member

    UCHEEKYMONKEY R.I.P - gone but never forgotten. Gold Member

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    If it's a AGP slot you looking for then you could try the Geforce 6600 GT or Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT silent pipe.

    click here

    I guess it all depends what type of games you want to play. i have the above graphics card and a Leadfast FX5600 256MB with VIVO which I use has a video capture card! Still handles top games like Half life episode 1.:biggrin
     
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  4. Cockles

    Cockles Megabyte Poster

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    Ta very much, sound advice

    I've just recently been on FarCry and was amazed by that, currently running Civ 4 and the cutscenes are very jumpy. I have more than enough of the system requirements but thought my GC may be a little bit geriatric. Updating drivers didn't solve the problem
     
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  5. JSH333

    JSH333 Byte Poster

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    When you say the Sapphire radeon cards are cheaper than GeForce's, do you mean the GPU, RAM Clock speeds etc are better, but its's similar price to the GeForce? Because radeon cards run at higher clock speeds than GeForce cards but give similar performance. Much like Intel P4's have high clock speeds and AMD Athlon XP's have lower, but similar priced cpus have comparable performance.

    I suggest you read reviews and comparisons between cards in your price range to see which has the edge.

    Hope that helps

    James
     
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  6. noelg24

    noelg24 Terabyte Poster

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    Is that me u r referring to Cheek? :D

    Cockles my dear boy...I take it ur using an AGP slot? If so look no further than the ATI Radeon 9600XT or 9800XT but since u say u dont want to spend more than £100 you might get away with an ATI X800 or X850 in the XT range. Dont go for the lower ranges cos the XTs are the daddys. I had an ATI 9600XT and it did the job I want it to...but now I have upgraded to X1300 PCI-E I am enjoying even more graphics play...just waiting to get another X1300 to crossfire it...:biggrin

    Incidentally I am using an ATI Radeon Sapphire card and its great...check me sig for the card itself and do a google search or go to www.ati.com for more info on all their cards especially if u r wanting an AGP one.
     
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  7. Baba O'Riley

    Baba O'Riley Gigabyte Poster

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    I would steer clear of the Geforce 6 series. I'm pretty sure you can get AGP versions of the 7 series cards for around £100 (well you can definitely get PCI-E cards for that price anyway).
     
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  8. noelg24

    noelg24 Terabyte Poster

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    I agree with Baba on staying away from the GeForce 6 series...I had a Geforce 6600LE and it was the worst card I ever bought...always crashed on every game I played...had to do a reboot in order for it to work properly...and thats why I only ever get ATI cards now...:biggrin
     
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  9. madman045

    madman045 Kilobyte Poster

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    If you dont mind 2nd hand stuff, shop around, you can find X800XT and even the X800XT PE models for around £100 (AGP)
     
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  10. Malnomates

    Malnomates Megabyte Poster

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    I invested in an Nvidia 6800GT AGP for little over a hundred spuds and it's the mutts nuts for the price.
     
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  11. JSH333

    JSH333 Byte Poster

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    I got my 6800GT over 2 years ago and it cost me £300 at the time!
    It's overclocked to beyond 6800 Ultra speeds so i can get a little more life out of it yet.
     
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  12. Cockles

    Cockles Megabyte Poster

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    Sound advice indeed chaps.

    I am indeed running AGP so I took your advice and did some shopping around, and all I heard about is how PCI-E is whipping AGP in all corners, so if I wanted to make a real difference, I'd need to buy a GeForce 7900 which (unless I'm wrong) is going to be the last good AGP card out. But I may well end up upgrading my system in the next year or so, which chances are will be PCI-E so I'd need to buy another card then.

    Think I'll stick with what I've got and do the system in one go. FarCry still looked bloody good anyway, regardless of my fairly old card.
     
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  13. JSH333

    JSH333 Byte Poster

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    Sounds like a good plan.

    If not already, then certainly very soon i don't think anyone should think about upgrading to anything other than PCI-E.

    AGP appears to be on its way out now. If you think you can get a high end AGP card on the cheap it might be worth it but otherwise it may be best to wait to upgrade the whole system to PCI-E.

    I'll stick with my OC'ed 6800GT AGP till i can afford to build a new water cooled system :biggrin

    James
     
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  14. Phoenix
    Honorary Member

    Phoenix 53656e696f7220 4d6f64

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    Have to disagree with boys, I had a 6800 GTX AGP card until I recently replaced my system (two 7950 GX2s on the way)

    it out performed my 9600XT and my 9800XT and has been as stable as a rock since I bought it
    i recommend buying from decent manufacturers though, mine is an Asus but there are other quality brands out there such as BFG etc

    in the budget arena the 9600XT and 9800XT are good cards, both of which can be purchased for that sort of money these days from what I recall, but you can also pick up the X1600 Pro for about the same price

    if you move to a PCI-E solution there are a fair few more options open to you, but it means a system overhaul really
     
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  15. UCHEEKYMONKEY
    Honorary Member

    UCHEEKYMONKEY R.I.P - gone but never forgotten. Gold Member

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    True Baba but I agree with Phoenix, you get what you pay for and if you going for the 7 series you have to go for a good make like Asus or MSI although I have heard XFX are good cards and cheap.

    But most of the Asus MSI 7 series cards are over £100.

    I guess it depends on what Cocles budget is?8)
     
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  16. UCHEEKYMONKEY
    Honorary Member

    UCHEEKYMONKEY R.I.P - gone but never forgotten. Gold Member

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    Any graphics card with LE usually means it's the light edition, a strip down of the original model. Cheap and nasty avoid at all costs!8)
     
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  17. JSH333

    JSH333 Byte Poster

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    A mate of mine has the 6800LE which had half the number of pixelpipelines as the standard 6800. I unlocked the extra piplines using rivatuner but the performance still wasn't as good as a standard 6800. So yeah stay clear of LE's!

    Cheers

    James
     
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  18. Baba O'Riley

    Baba O'Riley Gigabyte Poster

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    Just to clarify, I didn't mean don't get a 6 series because they're no good, I meant you're better of spending the same kind of money on a newer 7 series.
     
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  19. JSH333

    JSH333 Byte Poster

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    If you can get a 6800GT or Ultra for cheap then it may be worth it, my over clocked 6800GT runs all my games at maximum texture settings at 1024x768 (Half-Life 2, Farcry, F.E.A.R etc...) , or about 74,000 points on aquamark3 if you want to use that as a comparison.

    James
     
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