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£200 for an graphics card

Chris19

Chris19

Chris19

Associate
Joined
12 Dec 2005
Posts
574
I have £200 to spend on an graphics card for an build im doing soon. It will be needed for an 17" Screen playing most of the latest games such as FEAR, BF 2 etc. I noticed the X1800XT 256MB at £170 was going to get that but thought i would seek some advice.

Any help is great.
 
What's the rest of the spec in regards to the rig you plan to be building? As for the X1800XT, it's simply daylight robbery at £170 and you will not be disappointed with its performance whatsoever. :)
 
On a 17" screen @ 1280x1024 you won't get anything better than the 256mb x1800xt for less than £200. I got mine when it was £215 and still belive I got a cracking deal so at £170 is a no brainer really, and don't read into all that noisey as hell talk. My sapphire card runs with the stock cooler at the stock setpoints and for the first second or so when you first turn on your pc the fan will spin at 100% and like anyother fan will be noisy but in idle its near silent in my case and thats not loud and only picks up a little in gaming, but then again thats what the volume control for your speakers is for :D
 
The x1800xt is a cracking card at £170. I bought one last week. I was in the shop just about to order the x1900xt(x) when I heard the girlfriends voice in my head so I decided on the x1800.

To be honest, I made the right decision. If you have a 17" monitor it will be PERFECT. I have a 24" 1920x1200 dell widescreen and it's plays my games brilliantly. I haven't installed all my games yet because I've been busy on quake4. I have that on 1600x1200 because for some reason it won't go any higher and I haven't noticed any slowdowns at all :D

I was expecting it to be loud but it's not as bad as I thought. I have a pretty quiet system with akasa low noise fans and it's no louder than those.

I was very happy to find out that the sapphire model also has video-in so I spent all monday putting my dads holiday videos onto dvd :cool:

The money I saved getting the x1800 has been put towards a new headset, momo steering wheel (as I love racing games) and some other bits.
 
Exsomnis said:
What's the rest of the spec in regards to the rig you plan to be building? As for the X1800XT, it's simply daylight robbery at £170 and you will not be disappointed with its performance whatsoever. :)
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95% agreed. The 5% I take off as Oblivion, GRAW and Tomb Raider Legends dont run particularly smoothly at 1280x1024 with full detail.
 
zytok said:
95% agreed. The 5% I take off as Oblivion, GRAW and Tomb Raider Legends dont run particularly smoothly at 1280x1024 with full detail.
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I've not played Tomb Raider Legends yet, but Oblivion runs fine on my system with full detail. Fine, though, is subjective since Oblivion doesn't run super smooth on any computer hehe.

The Darkness said:
7900GT for £200 must be the current sweet spot for performance/cash.
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It's £225 last time I checked (inc. VAT), which is above Chris19's budget. The X1800XT 256MB is £170 inc. VAT, much better bang for your buck (especially since volt-modding isn't for everyone) and leaves him an extra £30 to buy a Zalman VF900-CU for £25 if he wants silence and insane overclocks. :)
 
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just wanted to point out that as fine a card as the X1800 is (especially for the money), some people may be slightly disappointed by the inability to play even (some) current games at max detail even on a fairly low res LCD. Like you say though, don't think there's a system on the planet that will run any of the titles I mentioned at a constant 60fps so imo there's no point "wasting money" on an x1900 or 7900GTX either.
 
Thanks looks like i will get this just hope they are still in stock (Ordering on the 9th).

As for the rest of the spec its

CPU: AMD 3800+ X2
Ram: 2GB Geil Value
PSU : Seasonic or an Hiper not decided yet.
 
That system is going to kick arse. :)
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I doubt any pc in the world can run trackmania nations, with everything full, unlimited cars etc etc at 60fps always, try going into options lads and turning all that on high as possible really does test your card to death :D, go through all the options where you set max amount of opponoents, opponent shadows and other details most might miss.
 
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