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Video Card recommendations?

AtheriShadowAtheriShadow
edited August 2007 in Technology
I am currently looking into video cards to replace my PC's default onboard thing. As I cannot make heads or tails of the numbering system these companies use on their products, I was hoping some of you could recommend a card within my criteria.

I don't want the latest $500 powerhouse. I'm looking for something in the $200 or less range, PCI-E interface, and preferably nVidia hardware. For reference, if the thing can comfortably run something on the Half-Life 2 level with medium to high settings, I will be a happy man.

Comments

  • ShakingSpiritShakingSpirit
    You'd probably want to look at the ATi X1950Pro. It's dirt cheap at the moment (~$165), and plays Bioshock maxed at 1680x1050 fine ^_^
    If you want to do Linuxing though, or you want a DX10 card, check out the 8600GT/GTS at ~$180.
  • AtheriShadowAtheriShadow
    That nVidia one would have been perfect if I could find one with a VGA output (sadly my cheap LCD doesn't accept DVI).
  • ShakingSpiritShakingSpirit
    It'll come with a little dongle that converts to VGA, no worries ^_^
  • AtheriShadowAtheriShadow
    Ah, that's a relief. And I suppose I could always find one myself either way. Thank you very much, I think this is going to be the one.
  • Mr. EricMr. Eric
    Nvidia 7000 series. Relatively cheap, and not that bad for gaming.
  • AprecheApreche
    Yeah, NVidia 7000 series is the way to go right now as long as you aren't interested in running the Bioshocks at stupid high resolution and full fpses.
  • kenjurakenjura
    edited August 2007
    I'm not sure how cheap a GeForece 7900 GT is right now, but it's well over a year old, so it should be affordable. I have no trouble with any 3d game. Haven't tried Bioshock yet, but I doubt it will give me any trouble. I wouldn't worry about DirectX 10 support; even if you have Vista, the difference is minimal. Check recent digg posts for a good a comparison of Bioshock in DX9 and DX10.

    If you're running linux, bonus; I get better performance in linux with Cedega than I do in Windows, with less graphical problems to boot. Forget ATI; ATI hates linux like George Bush hates black people.

    I'm not sure how well it's held up, but the general rules for Nvidia numbering schemes is as follows:
    *Digit 1: generation. You usually want the latest for high-end and the second-latest for good-enough-for-almost-every-game.
    *Digit 2: how spiffy the hardware is. This means more CPU and memory.
    *Digits 3 and 4: if there are any numbers in here besides 00, it's evidence the original card sucked. Avoid.
    *Letters: the more letters follow the number, the more overclocked it is. The baseline number of letters has been going up, too. It's at about 2 now. "GT" means nothing. "GTXOQQ##)A+++" means "ohmyfuckinggodthishaswaytoomuchramandclockspeedanditneedsten120mmfansanditsownpowersupply
    anditwillbeoutperformedbythecrappiestnextgencardthatcosts400dollarsless".

    Price is also a good guideline.
    *$0-50: crap, but the kind of "crap" that runs everything but modern games (<5 years old) just fine.
    *$51-200: if well-chosen, a card in this range will probably be great at whatever you put it to; running state-of-the-art games at the high end, and more moderate 3d use at the low end.
    *$200+: too much card for now. Sadly, I usually buy in this range, and my card is generally superfluous for about a year until it drops into the lower price range, at which point it becomes a solid card. No reason to pay for performance that can't be harnessed by games of the day.
    Post edited by kenjura on
  • ShakingSpiritShakingSpirit
    edited August 2007
    Yeah, NVidia 7000 series is the way to go right now as long as you aren't interested in running the Bioshocks at stupid high resolution and full fpses.
    How so? The 7900GS and the 8600GT retail for pretty much the same price, and benchmarks show that the 8 series performs slightly better, with the added bonuses of DirectX 10 support, a unified shader architecture, anisotropic filtering with trilinear texture filtering, HDR lighting with FSAA/MSAA at once, and much more loveliness. Even at the super-tight budget level, the 8500 wipes the floor with the 7600.
    Seriously, there's no need to invest in last-gen technology with nVidia. The X1950Pro is only an option on the ATi side because of its super small price tag, and how stupidly expensive the equivalent 2000 series card is. But when it comes to nVidia, it's all about the 8 series.


    EDIT: And with regards to DX10 not making much of a difference, remember that Bioshock is a DX9 game through and through - it was designed for the 360, which is DX9, and only had DX10 bits tacked on after to please the PC market. I'm holding back for Crysis before I decide if DX10 is really 'all that' or not ^_^
    Post edited by ShakingSpirit on
  • zombie a gogozombie a gogo
    I've been looking at the 8600 and I think that's the way I'm going to go. This way I won't have to change my power supply.
  • HMTKSteveHMTKSteve
    The two new PCs I got this weekend both have GeoForce graphics cards:

    Desktop: NVIDIA GeoForce 6100 and NVIDIA nForce 405 integrated graphics
    Laptop: NVIDIA GeoForce Go 6150 graphics with up to 287MB total available graphics memory shared

    Did I make out well with these two? Both use 256MB of system RAM (not too happy about that).
  • AprecheApreche
    These cards only use 256MB of system RAM to store textures when running 3D apps. If you aren't using them for 3D that will need to store 256MB of textures, you can change how much system RAM they use. Go in the BIOS and change the AGP Aperture setting to tell the computer how much of the system memory to give to the graphics card.
  • bodtchboybodtchboy
    These cards only use 256MB of system RAM to store textures when running 3D apps. If you aren't using them for 3D that will need to store 256MB of textures, you can change how much system RAM they use. Go in the BIOS and change the AGP Aperture setting to tell the computer how much of the system memory to give to the graphics card.

    So that's what that BIOS setting was for. I thought you were supposed to match it to the amount of ram that was on your video card.
  • AprecheApreche

    So that's what that BIOS setting was for. I thought you were supposed to match it to the amount of ram that was on your video card.
    Maybe tonight I will do an episode all about AGP. We'll see what Rym thinks.
  • HMTKSteveHMTKSteve
    I'm just going to upgrade my laptop to 2GB RAM and not worry about it :)
  • DaveDave
    Yeah, NVidia 7000 series is the way to go right now as long as you aren't interested in running the Bioshocks at stupid high resolution and full fpses.
    I have the 7800GT and I can still run Bioshock at max settings on 1440x900. It's not 1920 by whatever, or anything, but it's still got some oomph in it.
  • AprecheApreche
    I just installed the 7600GT. It runs Half-Life 2 crazy fast compared to the 5900, and the 5900 was definitely satisfactory. This is with a horribly inadequate CPU.
  • zombie a gogozombie a gogo
    I'm currently thinking about getting an 8600 GT. My question is about the recommended watts: If the minimum recommended watts are 350w and my PSU is 375w will everything be ok in the long run or should I have quite a bit more than the minimum?
  • bodtchboybodtchboy
    I just got an 8600 128 bit, 512 mb ram. It was a nice upgrade from a 6800 AGP. I was getting 60 FPS on COD:UO multi player at 800:600 resolution. I increased the resolution to 1064:???? with the new card and am now getting 90 FPS. No problems or lag noticed with half life 2, TF2 or call of duty 4 demo. I tried call of duty 2 single player a little as well. worked a lot better. I was unable to play multi player on it before due to the excessive lag, so I'll have to try that out now.

    I 3d bench-marked it just yesterday. It didn't do that great. In some of the instances, I was getting 11 - 23 FPS. I'll get the details on the exact rating number tonight. I wonder if there are better drivers for it...
  • zombie a gogozombie a gogo
    What's the wattage of your power supply?
  • bodtchboybodtchboy
    edited October 2007
    I just upgraded that as well, to a 550 watt.

    I think the minimum wattage is not how many watts the video card will consume itself. I think it is based off the minimum wattage needed for the system as a whole while operating on a minimum system with the video card.
    Post edited by bodtchboy on
  • zombie a gogozombie a gogo
    Yes, I understand that. I'm just wondering if my 375w power supply will suffice long term if I installed a card that requires an overall 350w minimum wattage power supply. I'm only asking because minimum requirements tend to be questionable.
  • bodtchboybodtchboy
    375W is pretty weak nowadays. It might be ok, but I'm sure it will depend on the applications you run. If it starts to be a graphically intense program/game, your computer might crash and restart. What are the other components in your computer, out of curiosity?
  • zombie a gogozombie a gogo
    It's a Dell 9200:

    Core 2 Duo processor (2.13GHZ)
    4 GB DDR2 SDRAM
    Integrated Audio
    DVD-ROM
    DVD+/-RW
    GeForce 7300 LE Video Card (you can see why I want to update)
    320GB Hard Drive
  • bodtchboybodtchboy
    I wouldn't think the 8600 will be a significant difference from the 7300 in terms of power consumption. If you haven't had any power issues with your current configuration, I would assume it would be ok.
  • zombie a gogozombie a gogo
    Bodtchboy for the win. I shall place the order now.
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