• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Decisions..........Decisions

hardtarget

hardtarget

hardtarget

Associate
Joined
1 Feb 2004
Posts
426
Location
UK
I'm looking to buy a new graphics card and with all the new releases and great price reductions by OC's I'm totally stuck as to which card to go for :confused: I play COD4 mainly on a 22" screen at 1280x1024 with my 8800GTS 640Mb which I will pass onto a family member.

What would you guys recommend going for was looking to spend no more than £260, but could stretch upto £360 if you think the 9800GTX X2 is worth the money. Whatever card I go for will have to do me for at least 18mths. Looking to buy ASAP............while the offers are on :D
 
the GTS 640 is pretty solid at that res, but if you've got to get something now i'd say go for a 3870X2, keep any spare cash, and then sell the x2 and get the best of the next round of cards coming out in a couple of months, which should be at least 30% faster than anything out now.
 
As loadsamoney said, the 8800GTX is awesome, especially at that price. However I don't think that the difference at 1280x1024 will be that much more; with the GTX you would be able to play at your native res 1680x1050 without problems (assuming you have a widescreen)
 
Last edited:
Pleh. Pretty much any high-end card will do well at that res (1280x1024)... certainly for 18 months, so long as no major game comes in...

my choices would be the 3870X2 or the 8800GTX, in that order, though be wary that i am preferential to ATi
 
So its between the 3870X2 and 8800GTX then. Forget the 8800GTS 512MB and 9800GTX? Whats these new cards that are coming out any info on price/specs?
 
IIRC there are a few more cards with reworked 8800 cores (a la 9800GTX) due in July, not sure when the "proper" next generation card is due.

If I had to choose between the 3870x2 and the 8800GTX I'd go for the GTX as being a single GPU it doesn't need any support built into games etc
it's just full speed all the time (I have got a GTX arriving tomorrow BTW so I may be a bit biased) plus it's cheaper and will easily handle the res you
are running at :)
 
Last edited:
Whats these new cards that are coming out any info on price/specs?
Click to expand...
We've got the next evolution of the Radeon 38** cards, retooled so the 4870 has 480 shaders, rather than 320, and using gddr5 for more memory bandwidth. Since it's just an evolution of the existing architecture we can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that it'll be at least 30-40% faster, and there will be a 4870x2.
They are supposed to be out around june/july time.

the new nVidia, codenamed GT200, is a bit of an enigma, They havn't moved to a new process, so it'll likely be quite expensive and hot, and it's rumoured to be a new architecture, which could mean drivers won't be up to scratch at launch. Rumour has it though that it'll be about 50% faster than the 98** series, and it will be out in Autumn this year, but you should probably take those with a pinch of salt.

what you may want to do, if you are going to contine gaming at 1280x1024 for the next few months is get something that's good value and won't lose too much when the new cards come out, something like a 3870xt 512, or 8800gt 512 - they are just as capable as your current card, and you should get most of your money back on them when you want to trade up to something shinier.

At £117.49 inc VAT, the OCUK 8800gt is fantastic bang for your buck http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-071-OK
 
Last edited:
Whats going on with all the price cutting............ not that I'm complaining just it seems weird that you have all theses cards old and new so close in price makes it hard to choose which card to go for :confused:
 
Forget the X2, it sucks in most games and the xfire scaling is poor, minimum fps with X2 are low as well even after the hotfix, go with 8800GTX, single GPU solutions are always the best way to go and you wont have the problems associated with a multi GPU setup. GTX is still an awesome card and a bargain at OCUK's price.
 
Another vote for the GTX here. If you look in the thread "9800GTX vs 8800GTX" you will see that the old GTX is still faster.

This will mean you can run your games in your monitor's native res as well.

Nothing else worth buying atm IMO until new cards come out.

New GTS G92 is a good card (I have one) but I got it when GTX cards were still £250 and I grabbed that card 2nd hand for £117 so was never worth the £133 extra for the GTX (I could have two GTS in SLI for less:))

GX2 is the fastest but not worth the money. Better to have two GTS cards in SLI if you have a SLI motherboard.

I went from a G80 GTS to a G92 GTS and the difference is massive. Plays everything smoothly at my 20" native res with loads of AF/AA (crysis excluded of course ;))

So for now buy the GTX (or a GTS if ocuk put them on at a silly price), save your money and look at the back end to see what ATI and Nvidia bring out.
 
I'd either get a 8800GT and overclock the nads of it, or a 8800GTX and do the same

On a 22" at a higher res that your currently used to, and with high AA/AF applied, the GT should be fine for some time, but suppose for about £170 the GTX will ease through almost everything if not everything bar Crysis with in game settings maxed out and 8AA/16AF
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom