Gaming at 1680X1050 - What graphics card.

[Prophet]

A 22" Wide Screen will be my main monitor for the next couple of years. What graphics card can I get away with for the time being. As I'm buying a new PC the graphics card is my main worry as it really bumps the price up. I was thinking about a X1950 Pro 512MB until a decent DX10 card comes out next year but I'm not sure if I should go for a 640MB 8800GTS and pay a bit more initially.

The system will be:

e2180 clocked to 3GHz or there abouts
Tuniq Tower 120 Cooler
2GB OCZ 6400 C4 RAM
Gigabyte P35 DS3P Motherboard
250GB Samsung SATA HDD
Samsung DVD SATA Burner
Lian-Li PC7 Plus II Case
Corsair 620W PSU
Belinea 22" WS TFT

If I went for the 1950 Pro I'd save some money and not take as big hit on resale when the newer cards come out and I upgrade. If I have the 8800GTS I'll have better overall performance but lose more money on resale. So will the 1950 Pro handle games at 1680X1050 for the next 6 months or is the 880GTS the option for me?

 

[Prophet]

You could go for the option "in between" and get a 2900 Pro.

It's identical to the XT version, but is £50 cheaper. Speeds are around the same as the 8800GTS - faster in some, slower in others, but never a lot of difference.

Another option is to wait for the 8800GT and 2950 Pro.

I didnt think about the 2900's. Something to think about.

I can't wait as I need to decide on a card ASAP. Going to be ordering the system in the next few days!

 

[Prophet]

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) (£49.34)
Samsung SH-S203BEBN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM (£19.96)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) (£32.89)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 LGA775 Conroe 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail (£58.74)
Gigabyte GA_P35_DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Gigabyte (£88.11)
Samsung SpinPoint S 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD161HJ) Samsung SpinPoint S 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD161HJ) (£34.06)
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black (£58.74)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (£176.54)

Total in VAT/Del £529.77

 

[Prophet]

Insane price for a bit of ram lol.

lol I remember when 4X1MB SIMMS retailed at well over £100. Thats insane

 

[Prophet]

4mb? lol what did you do with that

I used to build about 20 PC's a day back in the early 90's. All, well nearly all, had 4X1MB SIMMS! Those were the days.

 

[Prophet]

IIRC it needed 8MB RAM to run. My DX2-66 came with only 4MB.

I went for a DX 50 as it was a staright 50Mhz bus rather than a 2 X 33MHz jobbie. The 66 was still faster most of the time, which sucked.

Loved playing Quake and Comanche!