Best Graphics Card - On A Budget

Westyfield2 · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:13

Building my little Bro a decent gaming rig on a tight budget,
What's the best PCI-Express card available for under £150 (the closer to £100 the better.)

My thought had been a OcUK GeForce 7900 GS 512MB - Retail (GX-045-OK) £140.99

Please don't say anything around this budget will be better than my £360 BFG 7800GTX 256mb. :rolleyes:

Cyber-Mav · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:16

7900gs is very good value for money especially the 256mb version, but i would much rather recommend a 7600gt which costs £88 all in.

Borden · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:17

Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT will be better than your 7800GTX in most games and is £135. It's a great card for the money.

If you can stretch your budget a bit then the X1900XT is on special offer this week for £165.

Westyfield2 · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:19

Cyber-Mav said:
7900gs is very good value for money especially the 256mb version, but i would much rather recommend a 7600gt which costs £88 all in.

This one?

Cyber-Mav · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:22

yes that is the one, bfg with 2 year warranty.

Westyfield2 · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:23

mark1 said:
If you can stretch your budget a bit then the X1900XT is on special offer this week for £165.

This one?

mark1 said:
will be better than your 7800GTX in most games and is £135. It's a great card for the money.

Tetras · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:24

What CPU does he have? No point getting a behemoth if his CPU / RAM isn't up to it.

£360 BFG 7800GTX 245mb

Eek

don't let those memory eating gremlins in my house!

Cyber-Mav · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:28

reason i say the 7600gt is because the system is for your little brother, so 7600gt will be more than enough to give him far better than PS2 quality graphics. the card has pure video functionality, is quiet and runs cool. power consumption is next to nothing so you won't need to shell out loads of cash on a a power supply unit.

getting the bfg card gives you a 2 year warranty which is always good. i recommend you get other parts to see if they have long warranties, such as seagate hard drive (5 year warranty) etc.

i have a 3 year old niece and she always messes up the pc thats been built for her. once you build it and put all the crap on it. make sure you image it so rebuilds can be done in a fraction of the time.

i use arconis true image, boot from cd then attach the usb hard drive which has the image on it and restore from there. takes 23mins to deploy a image that decompresses to 4.6gb. my usb drive is a lappy version under hdtune it benches at 20mb per second start to 19mb/s end. slow interface controller on the caddy.

Westyfield2 · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:28

Tetras said:
What CPU does he have? No point getting a behemoth if his CPU / RAM isn't up to it.

Will be on a A64 4000 (currently in my rig)

Tetras said:
Eek don't let those memory eating gremlins in my house!

Looks at numpad, notices easy mistake, edits OP to hide the evidence

Westyfield2 · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:30

The target is BF2, COD2 at good resolutions (as close to mine, all maxed out, as poss).

Idea is a good system for now, that can be upgraded when needed.

Westyfield2 · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:32

Cyber-Mav said:
i have a 3 year old niece and she always messes up the pc thats been built for her. once you build it and put all the crap on it. make sure you image it so rebuilds can be done in a fraction of the time.

He's never actually spooned any of our comps ever, including his current one (2400, GeForce 4).

burtie · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:33

X1800XT or if you can stretch a little X1900XT :cool:

Cyber-Mav · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:36

post rest of system specs inc psu etc then can fine a more appropriate option for you.

Westyfield2 · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:39

Cyber-Mav said:
post rest of system specs inc psu etc then can fine a more appropriate option for you.

The only sure things are 1gb ram (I'll persuade an upgrade to 2gb, BF2) and A64 4000.
PSU will be 400w.
And there won't be much (if any) overclocking.

Cyber-Mav · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:57

my 7600gt ram battlefield 2 with all details set to high at 1600x1200 4xAF and 0AA and framerates dipped to 36fps at the lowest. was a brilliant card and overclocked well.
7600gt has more power than other people here are willing to give it credit for. its cheapo to buy, is reliable and low on power consumption, im guessing its the ideal choice for you if you don;t want to spend much cash.

Cyber-Mav · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:57

forgot to add, i sold my 7600gt for £70 inc delivery. there should be some good deals like that going on the members market.

Westyfield2 · 4 Oct 2006 at 18:58

Would the X1900 XT 256mb really be better than my BFG 7800GTX 256mb?

BFG 7800GTX 256mb
460MHz Core Clock (G70 I Think)
24 Pixel Pipelines
256mb 1300MHz+ GDDR3
8 Vertex Shaders

Connect3D X1900 XT 256MB
625MHz Core Clock (R580)
48 pixel shader processors
256MB 1450MHz GDDR3
8 vertex shader processors

TY
Ed

Cyber-Mav · 4 Oct 2006 at 19:00

doubt it would be much difference,

fill rate calculations show that the 7800gtx has more fillrate than the x1900xt.

looking at 24 pipes * clock speed to work out fillrate.
memory bandwidth is bit higher on the x1900xt.

you should keep the 7800gtx till next gen cards turn up.

man_from_uncle · 4 Oct 2006 at 19:03

Westyfield2 said:
Would the X1900 XT 256mb really be better than my BFG 7800GTX 256mb?

Very much so I am afraid.

easyrider · 4 Oct 2006 at 19:03

Yeah,

No point getting rid of the 7800 GTX just yet,

Just bear with it as the new cards are due soon.

With the x1900's going for 165 new they will drop to sub 100 by the time the DX 10 stuff comes out.

Then you can pounce.

I hate GFX cards they loose their value so quickly.