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New card suggestions

Ant84

Ant84

Ant84

Associate
Joined
20 Feb 2007
Posts
1,094
Looking for a sub £200 card for my system to buy tomorrow. Not sure which one to get, so I'm looking for a bit of advice on which would suit my system.

E6600 2.4ghz
2ghz 800mhz RAM
Asus P5B Deluxe board

Currently have a rubbish 6200 Turbocache installed, but I want to start playing games. Might even look to add another and run SLI/Crossfire in the future, so all things considered, which would be the one to get?

I'm fully expecting everyone to suggest the 8800GT, but I need to make sure! Cheers.
 
What resolution/settings do you play at/hope to play at? What games?

Might even look to add another and run SLI/Crossfire in the future
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P5B Deluxe only supports 16/4X Crossfire if I am not mistaken.

What is your PSU?
 
Tetras said:
What resolution/settings do you play at/hope to play at? What games?

P5B Deluxe only supports 16/4X Crossfire if I am not mistaken.

What is your PSU?
Click to expand...

Well I'd want my desktop resolution at 1680x1050, as that's the maximum this monitor would allow. Would be looking for a card good enough to play the latest games and any that are due for release in the near future.

As for supporting 16/4x Crossfire, I'm afraid that's gone way over my head as I'm not sure what that means!

PSU is a modular Corsair unit, I think it's 620W.
 
As for supporting 16/4x Crossfire, I'm afraid that's gone way over my head as I'm not sure what that means!
Click to expand...
ATI graphics cards working together = Crossfire mode, nvidia graphics cards working together = SLI mode. The two are not interchangable (well, in theory they are but drivers are locked down to prevent it), your motherboard supports only one, not both.

16X/4X is primary PCI-E slot works @ 16X mode, secondary works at 4X mode. The P5B Deluxe uses the Intel P965 chipset and it only supports Crossfire in 16X/4X. Note that a physical 16X length slot is not always 16X electrically (as in your case, with the secondary slot). 16X/4X is a performance hit compared to 8X/8X and 8X/8X a hit compared to 16X/16X. The size of the hit is not usually that large but I can't comment on what difference it makes with ATI 3850 and 3870 cards.

In my opinion it wouldn't be worth using Crossfire or SLI for a monitor with 1680 x 1050 resolution. A single 8800 GT or 3870 XT should give you the performance you desire.
 
Right, well if I was keeping a single card setup, which would be the best option of the two?

I guess I could always sell it second hand on eBay in about 12 months time and get a newer model.
 
Maybe squeeze another £10 and get a new 8800GTS 512mb? On this week only at the mo.
 
My local shop is stocking the 'Asus Extreme 8800GTS 512MB DDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI HDTV Out Retail' for £199.

Is it worth the extra £10 over the OCUK GT?
 
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Thanks.

It's just that I read somewhere that the GT performed better than the GTS. Maybe that was the 640MB version.
 
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