I want a new Graphics Card but...

[Oberon]

Hi,

Ive looked into the future of gaming and seen that the Intel Conroe processors are going to lead for price/performance.

However ive just earn't £130 over the past week (the most amount of cash in over a year, damn college to hell!) and im looking at a new graphics card I can buy now and use, and when i have the cash to upgrade my mobo/cpu I can whack it in with that.

The X1800XT looks a good choice (though a little over my budget, I can earn an extra £30) as ive heard a lot of praise, but do you think it's future proof?, if so how long are we talking?, how do you think it would fair up in future games such as:

Huxley
Medieval 2: Total War
Crysis
and more...

Or can someone lay the smackdown and tell me im dreaming?

 

[semi-pro waster]

If you have a PCI-E motherboard then the X1800XT is the bargain of the year at £150, it ought to keep you going for quite a while. Exactly how long depends on you and what resolutions you play at and with what sort of detail levels. I don't know the required specifications for those games but the X1800XT is still one of the fastest graphics cards around(certainly around the top 5 at least*) so given your budget if you are upgrading now then it is the one I'd go for.

*7950 GX2, X1900XTX, X1900XT, 7900GTX, 7800GTX 512mb then X1800XT not far behind.

 

[ACESHIGH]

Yeah, the X1800XT 256MB is best bang per buck card going.
Should keep you playing for quite a while.

 

[JediFragger]

Got my X1800XT 256mb card today, absolutely awesome

Finishing HL2 at 6xAA and 16xAF (Super AF type) and its wicked & smoooooth

 

[Insanity]

The X1800XT is a killer card, especially for the price these guys sell em at, but it aint future proof. No video cards that are out right now are future proof. The future is Direct X 10, and no cards fully support that at the moment.

But still, it'll be a while before a decent amount of games come out that support DX10, and even then you wont be forced to upgrade straight away, so quit yappin and start buyin.

 

[JediFragger]

X1800XT is a nice option for the next 18 months, til DX10 games start to come out in force

 

[Oberon]

If you have a PCI-E motherboard then the X1800XT is the bargain of the year at £150, it ought to keep you going for quite a while. Exactly how long depends on you and what resolutions you play at and with what sort of detail levels. I don't know the required specifications for those games but the X1800XT is still one of the fastest graphics cards around(certainly around the top 5 at least*) so given your budget if you are upgrading now then it is the one I'd go for.

Ive currently got the following setup:

AMD 64 3000+ @ 2.4Ghz (unable to get it higher, very unlucky)
Asus A8N-SLI
1GB Geil Value RAM
6600GT @ 600/1200

Thats an affirmative on the PCIe capability, but i do play all my games at 1280x1024 and with at least 4x AF (once you've tried AF you aint going back, simple as that).

With the X1800XT I would assume running all my current games at that resolution and 8xAA and 16xAF wouldnt be too much of a problem.

However future games as i'd listed above, particularly M2:TW i would like to play at my preferred resolution and graphical settings with a high frame rate, and if it can't thats what's putting me off a bit.

This comes after buying my 6600GT to see it struggle on games such as BF2 because it lacks that extra 128mb to support all those fancy textures etc (only other option was another 1GB of ram, which i will need later on).

I take it that next gen cards are all going to be DX10, which you say is rougly 18 months away, im definetly going to buy X1800XT then.

 

[Darkwave]

DirectX 10 won't take off for a long time yet, 18 months is an early estimate to be honest. The X1800XT 256MB will last you a heck of a long time and is by far the best value for money at the moment.