PC Graphics Cards for Gaming
 

At the moment I have a Radeon 9600 256 DDR Graphics Card and on some games like Half Life 2 while the grpahics are pretty good they do glitch some times.

Was wondering what else is better out there and what some people would recommend :)

Andy

I'm running a Radeon 256Mb X800XT PE in my desktop, and and NVidia 256Mb 6800 Ultra in my laptop. On both machines HL2 runs silky smooth at very high resolution / detail settings.

I think both companies are about to release a new range of cards, so it might be worth holding off for a little while and pick up one of the current range a little cheaper...

Iain,

The X800 is one of the cards I'd been reading about recently. What PSU are you running in your pc?

Cheers

Andy

500W I think, (it's been a while since I built the thing)

Think I may have to upgrade my 300 watter then lol :)

Possibly, but I've got it running 2 hard disks, 2 dvd drives (a reader and a writer), and sb live audigy platinum ex 2 card, plus a matrox RT.100 video editing card as well. It all suck a fair amount of juice, so if you've not got as much stuff installed you may be ok with 300w... :)

I've got 2 DVD/RW, the above mentioned graphics card, one HDD, one sound card...

What do you think?

Probably borderline, but you may get away with it. What cpu have you got? The higher power, the more juice they use.

Might be worth upgrading anyway. They're not that expensive and running a higher wattage psu at half power is better than running a lower wattage unit at max power (and will probably be cooler)...

Running a P4 2.6 with 1Gb RAM

Hmm, I'm running a P4 2.5.

Tbh, I don't know whether it would be ok or not without trying it :)

Think I'll upgrade it :)

Cheers for your input fella :D

Andy

No problem :D

I believe both ATI's R520 and nVidia's 7800 ranges are due out within a month or so.


M

If you're considering the X800 (circa £150), for similar money, i would also consider the GF 6600GT PP Ultra 256MB

I would definately be investing in a bigger/better PSU as well.

The memory and VGA card run away with a fair chunk of your juice.

The Akasa Paxpower range starts around the £30 for a good 400W PSU. Excellent vfm ;)

Paul

Hey guys, similar Q, but if you only had a choice of the following 2 which would you go for? My guess is the Radeon is the better?

256MB ATI RadeonX600
256MB DDR nVIDIA FX5500 TVout

Nvidia 7800GTX out now dabs have one listed at 419 quid.:eek2:

If your buying a PSU, DO NOT confuse the rated W as being the only factor. I know of many, many cheap PSU's that are rated at say 500w and DO NOT sustain that on load (in fact no where near it). You get's what you pay for and any top end graphics card and decent processor will require a PROPER PSU..... these are not cheap, but if you want to run the higher rez and everything switched on, then you have to invest...... else it's artifactcity and lockupsville! :D

Been there, done that and paid the price (many times :D )

Regards,
Shaun.

Totally agree with Shaun.

We build with the Akasa PSU's on mid-range systems.

Anything with 2GB+ of RAM and PCI-e graphics and Antec Truepower PSU's are the weapon of choice.

Top end systems and I can 100% recommend the Antec 480W Neopower.
Easily copes with:

AMD FX-55
4GB Dual Channel RAM
2x 6800GT cards in SLi
Audigy ZS 7.1
4x Raptor SATA HDDs
DVD-ROM
DVD-RW
10x USB2.0
Various chassis fans & LED/neons

Another Antec fan here.


M

Shaun,

What would you recommend and where to get it from? :)

The X600, i run an x600xt (ASUS 128mb card) and it runs great on my P4 3.4ghz (1gb ram), the 5500 is a big step backwards really, but look at mem and core speeds as the x600's seem to differ quite a bit (thus the reason i got the asus one).

Tony:D

Cheers Tony :)

I'm looking to upgrade before Call of Duty 2 comes out and I'm looking at a choice of two machines:

First:

Intel Pentium CPU Prescott 3.4GHz Hyper Threading 800MHz 1MB Cache
1024MB 400DDR Memory
2 x 160GB Hard Drive
DVD-ROM
DVD-+RW Drive 32x16x40x12x8x4x double layer
Leadtek LR2960 256MB DDR nVIDIA FX5500 TVout
6 in 1 MM Card Reader
Sound on board
Stereo speakers
Internal v90 Modem
USB ports, Firewire Port (IEEE1394)
Keyboard and mouse
Windows XP Home Edition

Second:

Intel Pentium 3.6GHz Processor with HT technology and 1MB Cache
1024MB 400DDR Memory
250GB SATA Hard Drive
DVD-ROM
DVD-+RW Drive
256MB ATI RadeonX600
11 in 1 MM Card Reader
Audigy Sound System
Stereo speakers
Internal v90 Modem
USB ports, Firewire Port (IEEE1394)
Keyboard and mouse
Windows XP Home Edition

I'm leaning towards the second which is a faster proc, the X600 and Audigy sound rather than built in. Its only £50 more. Its up for £549, sound a good price?

Why P4 and not Athlon 64 if gaming is important? :confused:

How expensive is Athlon 64 ?

Another thing is I've been looking into the X800 PE and there seems to be sevral companies that make it!?!? Saphire seems almost the most expensive is it the best of this chip set?

The manufacturers all share the same fundamental card architecture.
You will find each of the brands have different cooling systems on the card though.

We have found that Asus, Gigabyte and Gainward tend to provide the best performance balanced with price.

Powercolor are a relatively new manufacturer that are determined to become the cheapest of them all. So far from the cards we've seen, they are coming up with the goods and are definately the keenest priced out there.

Comparable to the P4 it offers considerably better gaming performance for less money. You can get dual core cpus right now as well that work on most A64 motherboards.

I must be lucky on my psu then, I bought a cheapo 20 quid 500w psu off ebuyer a while ago and it runs a p4 2.4 512mb ram, 1 cdr/rw, 1 dvdr/rw, a 9800 pro and several usb devices all running at the same time and its never had any issues.

If it does fail though, it can take everything with it. Not worth the risk IMHO. For piece of mind spend £50+ on a decent psu.

You can also get duel core P4's which offer similar if not better performance now, also 64bit, plus you get hyperthreading which is nice if you have more than one application running (like i do), so my gaming doesnt suffer :D
If you want an all round machine, then the P4, if you just want a games machine, then the AMD, or if you just prefer one make over the other, pick one :D

What i will say about the X600 though, ensure you get the extreme version, that goes for any of the X series ATi cards, they are normally quicker, but to run them well you need 1gb and duel channel mother boards help also :D

Tony:D