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Advice needed - what card???

valve90210

valve90210

valve90210

Soldato
Joined
17 Jan 2006
Posts
4,283
Hi all I'm new to the forum, was trying to find advice on graphics cards, stumbled across this forum and thought you guys might be able to help me.

Basically I am going to upgrade my graphics card from the Geforce FX5200 that came with the computer and has up until now been a fine card, even playing Halflife 2 without a problem (ok not at massive resolutions but perfectly acceptably!!!)

The rest of the system is as follows:

Processor is a 2.8ghz Pentium 4
1 Stick of DDR-Ram - 512MB
Network card built into motherboard.
Soundblaster Live 5.1 sound card
Pinnacle systems Studio DC10+ video capture card

1 DVD drive
1 DVD-RW drive
2 Hard Drives - IDE

The power supply is a 300W power supply from someone called Powerman or soemthing like that, (it came with the computer).

My mother board does not have a PCI express slot so I'm limited to an AGP card and I'd prefer an Nvidia one ideally. I'm not looking necessarily for a top of the range mega expensive card, but I do want something which is a significant step up from what I have and that will be able to run Halflife 2 and Farcry well.

I want a card which has both DVI and VGA outputs as I want a dual monitor setup.

I was contemplating one of the 6800 GS cards (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/6800_Series.html) would one of these be suitable??? Or are there better options available (baring in mind that I won’t be over clocking cos I really don’t know enough about the technical side of computers to feel comfortable about doing so)

From the reading I’ve been doing I believe I will need to upgrade my power supply in order to be able to use this card (or indeed pretty much any card of similar performance), now this is an area I really know nothing about. Having looked at a few places and not really know what I’m look for (other than the fact that it needs to be greater than 300W…)

Can anyone recommend any PSUs?. I don’t really want to be spending huge amounts on this but I want something that will let everything run fine.

Phew, sorry for the long first post but I wanted to include as much as I could to make it easier for anyone to give me advice.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me.

Valve
 
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Well to be honest mate I would get a new PSU right away! GEt a decent branded one at least 400w too!

Graphics cards wise the 6800GS looks to be a very good price performer but how desperate are you? It is rumoured NVidia will hit in with a 7800GS for AGP and that would be worth it ;)

Oh yeha get rid of that competitor link quickly man, its against the rules :P
 
jrodga2k5 said:
Well to be honest mate I would get a new PSU right away! GEt a decent branded one at least 400w too!

Graphics cards wise the 6800GS looks to be a very good price performer but how desperate are you? It is rumoured NVidia will hit in with a 7800GS for AGP and that would be worth it ;)

Oh yeha get rid of that competitor link quickly man, its against the rules :P
Click to expand...

The 6800GS on AGP is not a good buy. Way overpriced for what it is.
The asus V9999 performs similarly, a bout 15% worse but only costs £105 (70 quid less). Oh and yeah, New PSU time.
 
v9999 seconded, got mine myself, superb for the money (£105 from a competitor)

you may get lucky and get another 4 pipeline on it aswell
 
Thanks for the replies guys, a couple of quick questions.

1) what brands of PSU are regarded as good, I've looked on here and there are so many to choose from I really don't know where to start. I'm no bothered about how it looks etc, just want something that will do the job and last a while.

2) Are there any other cards you’d recommend that would be suitable, if the 6800 GS performed better than the V9999 that you’ve mentioned then I’d rather go for the better performing one rather than the cheaper one because I want the card to do me for quite a while as I have no desire to upgrade the rest of my system any time soon as it does everything I want fine (well Farcry could perform better), so I’d rather spend a bit more and get more performance.


Valve
 
valve90210 said:
Thanks for the replies guys, a couple of quick questions.

1) what brands of PSU are regarded as good, I've looked on here and there are so many to choose from I really don't know where to start. I'm no bothered about how it looks etc, just want something that will do the job and last a while.

2) Are there any other cards you’d recommend that would be suitable, if the 6800 GS performed better than the V9999 that you’ve mentioned then I’d rather go for the better performing one rather than the cheaper one because I want the card to do me for quite a while as I have no desire to upgrade the rest of my system any time soon as it does everything I want fine (well Farcry could perform better), so I’d rather spend a bit more and get more performance.


Valve
Click to expand...

Somehting like one of the FSP blue storms on here (or the £30 400w one) would be good, Or an Akasa/tagan/enermax etc.

Might be worthwhile getting a secondhand 6800GT, you can probably get one for less than a new GS and they perform better
 
Top psu's are seasonic,hiper and enermax, tbh all the psu's are good on overclockers appart from Q-TEQ (stay away).

About your graphics card i would go for the 7800gs which i think is out in 2nd of feb and if you cant wait try and get a 2nd hand 6800ultra of some famouse auction site that i cant mention
 
Well after doing some reading up on the 7800G, and including the fact that I was planning on saving for my upgrades for a month or so, I think I'm gonna wait and see what happens on the 7800GS front before I do anything... knowingmy luck it'll come out but won't have the option of dual monitors...or something equally annoying that makes it not suitable.... but fingers crossed.

Valve
 
Just been reading on another forum, about the 7800GS and noticed a link to yet another forum and a thread that includes (about halfway down) a list ranking loads of graphics cards:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=220145

I noticed that the 6800GS comes in about halfway thru the High End rated graphics cards with the note that pretty much any card in the range is overkill for any game that is out there. Now considering I don't really play many games, only really Halflife 2 and I recently purchased Farcry, would I be right in thinking that a 6800 would be perfectly adequate for running such games well, especially considering I am upgrading from a Geforce FX5200...

If so, and the 7800GS is gonna be price about £230 - £250, would I be better off just going for the 6800GS and save my self potentially £70 maybe more if the 7800GS is any dearer when i comes out or would the extra future potential of the 7800GS be worth the extra, considering I'm not gonna be upgrading the rest of my system any time soon (ie not within the next 2 years)???

Valve
 
Yup Gibbos said in another thread the 7800 GS is gona be about £250, pity you aint got s939, as you can get the 7800 GT, and a PCI-E mobo for less than that. :(

He said they have some LeadTek 6800 GT's left, but they aint on the site anywhere, id go for one of those and clock it to an Ultra which it should do easily, thats depending on the price of course, but you'll have to contact them as thye aint up on the shop as said. :)

If your not hoping to upgrade for a while then just go for the 7800 GS.
 
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