Best card for £150 approx?

[Ernie]

As titile really, what's the best bang for buck card to go with a AMD 3200.

Think I'd prefer ATI over Nvidia, purely cos I remember my old ATI card having better visual quality than my current 6800 le, but really quite open about it. I'm not interested in overclocking.

Thnaks in advance.

 

[Voodle]

It's probably a good thing you prefer ATI then, it looks like right now Nvidia have nothing in the £150 range, only £130 and £200
ATI however have the X1800 GTO, which from this review http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=3624&s=1 looks like a nice card, and there's a chance of it unlocking to 16 pipes. £140 seems like a reasonable price for such a card


edit: unless you meant AGP, in which case there's not very much worth buying

 

[smiley]

if i was you mate i would go with the brand new 7600gt it has 16 pixel pipe lines 8 rops is compatible in sli and only uses 194 w at the plug while running 3d mark 05 and it score was 6025 which is very good for a card of this price around £140 pound And if you want to it has got great scope to be overclocked because it is made on the 90mm manufacturing so it runs very cool. so if i was you i would get this any day over 1800gto.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

you sure 7600gt has 16 pipes? last time i checked it was around 12. but i could be wrong.

also the x1800xt on special offer this week si amazing price if you can stretch to £165 plus the tenner delivery.

 

[Voodle]

you sure 7600gt has 16 pipes? last time i checked it was around 12. but i could be wrong.

also the x1800xt on special offer this week si amazing price if you can stretch to £165 plus the tenner delivery.

7600GT definitely has 12 pipelines as far as I know - and a 128bit memory interface which in my opinion really lets it down. A great card if you're only spending £120 or so, but it looks like the x1800GTO can get much better performance for just a little bit more.
I dunno about the x1800xt though, it looks like it might still be worth it, but it's over £150, I don't usually consider ATI cards (mild nvidia zealot, since the 6800 series ) but the price/performance ratio definitely looks good

 

[OV3RCLOCK3R]

Stretch another £15 and go for the x1800xt. You will not be dissapointed

 

[locutus12]

if i was you mate i would go with the brand new 7600gt it has 16 pixel pipe lines 8 rops is compatible in sli and only uses 194 w at the plug while running 3d mark 05 and it score was 6025 which is very good for a card of this price around £140 pound And if you want to it has got great scope to be overclocked because it is made on the 90mm manufacturing so it runs very cool. so if i was you i would get this any day over 1800gto.

the 7600GT is a 12 pipe card, also you said 90mm ??? if it was built on a 90mm process the chip would be bigger than the card 90nanometer is what your after. not that it makes any difference as the X1800GTO is built on the same process size.


7600GT
* PCI-Express
* 90nm process, 177M transistors
* 128-bit GDDR3 memory interface
* 256 MB memory, other configurations possible
* Clocks for both vertex engine and core: 560 MHz
* Clocks for memory: 700 MHz (1.4 GHz DDR)
* 5 Vertex Shaders, 12 Pixel Shaders, 8 ROPs
i couldnt find wattage information for it but if it truly uses 194Watts as the quote above suggests then its being stomped by the GTO...

3Dmark05 stock scores at 1024x768 no aa/af 5500 to 6000


X1800GTO
* 321 million transistors on 90nm fabrication process
* Up to sixteen pixel shader processors
* Eight vertex shader processors
* 256-bit 8-channel GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface
* Native PCI Express x16 bus interface
* Peak Power consumption: 67W
* 512-bit internal ring bus for memory reads
* Clocks for both vertex engine and core: 500 MHz
* Clocks for memory: 500 MHz (1 GHz DDR)

3Dmark05 stock scores at 1024x768 no aa/af 6200 to 6800




now considering the X1800 GTO is only £5 more than the 7600GT and the fact that with ATI you can do AA + HDR with respectable frame rates, plus the high image quality ATi always seem to pull off, then couple that with the fact that its got a 256bit memory interface, clocks very well (people are getting 8500 3d05 marks with them unmodded and on the stock cooler) there is no contest. (unless you just plain prefere Nvidia)

 

[toxic]

x1800XT for the price is just what you want! A lot beter than the cheaper NV models....pay the extra!

 

[lay-z-boy]

locutus12, are you high?

all recent nvidia cards are cool and dont need huge *** coolers.

spec comparison means nothing, we all know that a pentium d @3.4ghz gets eaten alive by an x2 at 2.6ghz, but by your post it would mean that the x1800 is better due to the spec.

finnaly, 1024x768 no aa/af.

you must be having a joke?

massive resolutions and loads of af or aa, thats what shows a goods card.

No offence intended, its just i find your post bias.

 

[fenderbass86]

He's obviously running an AGP system if he's on a 6800le, there's an AGP X800 GTO 256MB for about £125.

 

[KizZ]

Stretch another £15 and go for the x1800xt. You will not be dissapointed

seconded

 

[locutus12]

locutus12, are you high?

all recent nvidia cards are cool and dont need huge *** coolers.

I was going to ask you the same thing?? Who the hell mentioned cooler sizes? I didn’t say a thing I mentioned wattage as the guy I quoted in my previous post I believe had quoted the wattage as being way over what the 7600GT actually uses (although i couldnt find an exact figure) and was making the GTO sound like a power hungry heat leaching monster which is isn’t.

spec comparison means nothing, we all know that a pentium d @3.4ghz gets eaten alive by an x2 at 2.6ghz, but by your post it would mean that the x1800 is better due to the spec.

its a good job specs mean nothing as the GTO has a slower GPU and memory speed than the 7600GT, its there in blue and white on my previous post.

finnaly, 1024x768 no aa/af.

you must be having a joke?

massive resolutions and loads of af or aa, thats what shows a goods card.

No offence intended, its just I find your post bias.

Defensive muchly ?

I am presuming your talking about the tests done in 3Dmark 05 ? how is it biased when the results I quoted are done on both cards under the same conditions, i can post higher screen res tests for you including AA/AF but the GTO pulls even further ahead for the most part and I was just trying to give the OP an example of raw performance power on both cards.

in any case, my post was more to correct and inform the guy I quoted about the actual specs of both cards as he made a few mistakes in the information he gave.

Next time you want to rant, please do it else where and make sure it’s warranted.

 

[lay-z-boy]

Seems you took offence

I seriously have better things to do than argue over graphics cards with you, the testing methods so im not bothering to retaliate to your post in that manner.

 

[locutus12]

Seems you took offence

I seriously have better things to do than argue over graphics cards with you, the testing methods so im not bothering to retaliate to your post in that manner.

Can I get a translation at least ?


and im not arguing with you, im informing you that your wrong, not about the graphics cards but about your post as a whole, my post was 95% intended for the guy I quoted who gave out the wrong information and the last 3 lines were for the OP and generally was nothing to do with what you posted after. as for my post, the info wasnt biased in any way, there true statements, and true information, but you just assumed what you wanted and went off the deep end...

if i had of said "buy the ati card, its so much better" and given no reasoning, that would be biased.

if i had of jiggled the stock 3D05 scores or posted links showing only the GTO doing well, that would be biased, i did neither.

still, each to their own.

 

[easyrider]

On AGP like I think you are then get a 6800 GS