help choosing graphics card 8600gt or ati x1950pro?

magick · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:06

i'm building a new system and was going to go for a 8600gt but would it be worth spending the extra £20 for x1950pro? the case i'm getting is a antec nsk6500 which has a 430w power supply and cpu will be c2d e6320 with a slight overclock.

will the antec psu be ok running both a x1950, assuming it's the better card, and the c2d? i know the 8600 has dx10 but i don't inted running vista for a while as the machine will be used primarliy for audio creation and i'd sooner stick with xp. main games i want to play are counter strike source and a few others like fear and company of heroes.

one thing i am concerned about is the noise the x1950pro makes as i've heard ati cards are very loud. that's one rerason i originaly choose 8600gt in the spec.

so can someone advise me on the best solution?

Cyber-Mav · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:06

what rez you gonna be playing at?

magick · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:08

i'll be playing at 1280x1024

Cyber-Mav · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:12

get 8600gt then.

its got 43w power consumption,
loads less heat output,
runs quiet,
can be overclocked well,
has purevideo HD acceleration,
does not require pci-e external power connector,
has a very small footprint.
has dx10 support
very good value for money for performance.
and to top it off its damn cheapo.

you can;t go wrong at all if your on a budget.

MikeHunt79 · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:12

I'd be tempted to get the 8600 as it will do dx10. BUT, it will also do dx9 great at that res.

Cyber-Mav · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:17

dx10 is probably a moot point since i doubt dx10 games are gona take off anytime soon.

MystaEB · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:21

Another 6 months at least before DX10 kicks off in my opinion. Hell, on Vista DX9 isn't even stable across the board performance wise.

juno_first · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:36

I'd guess 1950 is way faster in dx9c than 8600gt although it cant do dx10 but would you want to do dx10 with 8.4b fill rate of 8600gt (less than 7800gtx)

Cyber-Mav · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:48

juno_first said:
I'd guess 1950 is way faster in dx9c than 8600gt although it cant do dx10 but would you want to do dx10 with 8.4b fill rate of 8600gt (less than 7800gtx)

?? x1950 has even less fillrate than a 8600gt, so if your doing fillrate comparrisions make sure you do them across the board.

eyetrip · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:52

It depends on if how much you want to spend. I recently tested a 8600gt on Oblivion, GRAW, FSX, F.E.A.R, Quake 4. For the £76 it will cost you on OCUK, it performs admirably, although being 128-bit it is a little crippled.

I would play Oblivion with most settings high/maxed, textures medium, shadows at default, with no AA and it was maintaining 30fps in a heavily forested area.

f.e.a.r I only tried multiplayer and the in-game bench. for multiplayer I just left it at medium and it was smooth as silk. For the bench I set it to max and the min FPs was 31 - and like I said, that was max.

GRAW struggles on this card though. To get it smooth I was running about 1024 with textures to minimum, effects and stuff mostly set to medium.

If you are happy runnig at 1024 x 768, and don't take your gaming too seriously then this ain't a bad card for the price

Anything above 1024 x 768, and you will need an x1950 pro or above. Along with the more powerful cards you can use higher detailed textures, more AA, etc, as the 8600gt just can't cope with all that.

willhub · 19 Jun 2007 at 17:47

ffallic said:
GRAW struggles on this card though. To get it smooth I was running about 1024 with textures to minimum, effects and stuff mostly set to medium.

Something wrong there my X800XTPE could run GRAW at full at 1280x1024

.

Cyber-Mav · 19 Jun 2007 at 17:50

willhub said:
Something wrong there my X800XTPE could run GRAW at full at 1280x1024 .

when you say full do you really mean full? or are you blaggin? cuz my x1900xt does't even run the game at full at that rez so i suspect your blaggin like a lot of other people do.

willhub · 19 Jun 2007 at 17:55

Cyber-Mav said:
when you say full do you really mean full? or are you blaggin? cuz my x1900xt does't even run the game at full at that rez so i suspect your blaggin like a lot of other people do.

Well I know at 1280x1024 I had it all full in game, no AA/AF obviously but I dont count that as in the game settings tbh coz I use CCC AA.

No, i'm not blagging, I wish you would stop saying stuff like that tbh. my 8800GTS runs it all maxed out at around 60 fps most of the time, and I have a 3700+ cpu and 1gb ram (mega bottleneck) so something is wrong if your x1900xt cant run GRAW at max lol.

Cyber-Mav · 19 Jun 2007 at 17:56

willhub said:
Well I know at 1280x1024 I had it all full in game, no AA/AF obviously but I dont count that as in the game settings tbh coz I use CCC AA.

No, i'm not blagging, I wish you would stop saying stuff like that tbh.

your sure you had it at full? including texture quality? if so post screenshot of your settings please.

willhub · 19 Jun 2007 at 17:57

Cyber-Mav said:
your sure you had it at full? including texture quality? if so post screenshot of your settings please.

I dont have an X800XT PE anymore, how can I possibly proove it now???

Cyber-Mav · 19 Jun 2007 at 17:59

willhub said:
I dont have an X800XT PE anymore, how can I possibly proove it now???

well, isn;t that lucky for you.

ill class you as a blagger since everyone know you don't even get the option for selecting high quality textures if you don;t have more than 256mb vram. so its impossible you had all the settings maxxed out in the game. :rolleyes:

even on my x1900xt i can put all options to max including AF to 16x, and AA doesn;t even work with graw so you have blagged even more there. as for textures high quality is disabled for me and can;t be selected since i only got 256mb vram.

Legionaire68 · 19 Jun 2007 at 18:27

Back on topic kids

, the x1950Pro kicks the **** out if th 8600GT. Just got the latest Cus tomPC mag in post and they have tested every card out there and slated the 8600GT and GTS for the money they cost to performance.
You can forget about playing anything DX10 on them as 8800GTX's struggle to get playable frame rates in DX10 games!
The 7600GT beat the 8600GT in the review.

man_from_uncle · 19 Jun 2007 at 18:35

Cyber-Mav said:
ill class you as a blagger since everyone know you don't even get the option for selecting high quality textures if you don;t have more than 256mb vram. so its impossible you had all the settings maxxed out in the game.

Bare in mind that he'd only be using the SM2.0 features which are no where near as demanding at the SM3.0 features. He might well have set everything to max, it just wouldn't me the same max that you are playing at because his old card doesn't support it.

Cyber-Mav · 19 Jun 2007 at 18:36

Legionaire68 said:
The 7600GT beat the 8600GT in the review.

thats deffo the old driver review then. as it currently stands with driver 158.22 the 8600gt beats the 7600gt in everything.

willhub · 19 Jun 2007 at 18:36

Cyber-Mav said:
well, isn;t that lucky for you.

ill class you as a blagger since everyone know you don't even get the option for selecting high quality textures if you don;t have more than 256mb vram. so its impossible you had all the settings maxxed out in the game.

even on my x1900xt i can put all options to max including AF to 16x, and AA doesn;t even work with graw so you have blagged even more there. as for textures high quality is disabled for me and can;t be selected since i only got 256mb vram.

All I said was max, and if I turn everything up to as high as it will let me go, then thats max.

I aint a blagger, your just silly for causing these little arguments tbh.