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Suggestions please - ATI or Nvidia?

jamieoliver22

jamieoliver22

jamieoliver22

Associate
Joined
24 Jun 2007
Posts
70
Hey all.

I am planning on upgrading my computer in the coming weeks, and I already have the rest of the parts sorted. I will be getting a new PCI-e motherboard, so hence I can't use my current AGP card. At the moment I have an ATI Radeon x850XT 256mb.

I was originally planning on getting the ATI Radeon x1950XT 512mb (LINK) but I was told I might as well get an Nvidia card. I have only used ATI cards in the past, so I wasn't quite sure on which one to choose from.

I have seen the GeForce 8800 GTS (LINK) card which seems to also support SM4.0 and DX10, so which would be somewhat more better in the long run. This card however only has 320mb compared to the 512mb of that of the ATI card - does that make much of a difference?

So which card would you suggest that I end up going with? Do you have any other suggestions? I am only on quite a limited budget, somewhere between £150-180 preferably.

EDIT: Also, I would need a new power supply really so which would you suggest? The cheaper the better really, but I still want something that would power everything fine. Preferably 550-600w and preferably around about £50 or less. What about the OcUK ones?

Cheers,
Jamie.
 
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Don't go with a cheap PSU whatever you do. Stick with something like the Corasir, Seasonic Tagan or Enermax.

I would stongly recommend the Corsair 620 PSU. Is on offer in this week only at the moment.
 
Thanks, I think I might stick with the Nvidia card - it does look better for the long run.

And yeah, I know I don't want a cheap PSU, but I am on quite a tight budget - I am upto about £400 as it is, didn't particularly want to pay much more but I will have too. I did look at this one: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-018-OK&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=456 but I would assume that the it isn't that powerful and has a weak 12v rail? Someone reviewed it and said it was good and powerful enough.

I haven't had the power supply I have now for long, only about 15 months. I have a 420w Tagan power supply at the moment.
 
jamieoliver22 said:
Thanks, I think I might stick with the Nvidia card - it does look better for the long run.

And yeah, I know I don't want a cheap PSU, but I am on quite a tight budget - I am upto about £400 as it is, didn't particularly want to pay much more but I will have too. I did look at this one: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-018-OK&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=456 but I would assume that the it isn't that powerful and has a weak 12v rail? Someone reviewed it and said it was good for a C2D setup (which is what I am getting).

I haven't had the power supply I have now for long, only about 15 months. I have a 420w Tagan power supply at the moment.
Click to expand...

Good choice for sticking, the 320MB GTS beats ATI's 2900XT at a lot of benchmarks let alone the 1900 series ;)
 
A cheap PSU can break the rest of your hardware esp parts that have motors in them, like fans and HDD/Optical drives, not worth getting acheap PSU IMO.

2 most common issues on my PC work with cutomers apart from usual IBK errors :p , is Heat or Power related, most buy top parts but skimp or ram or PSU, ram wont fail PC just act up but the PSU can.
 
They are plenty good ones stopping at under £65 in here, list ALL PSU on 1 page then list in order by price, look down list till you hit your budget, as I said there is plenty.
 
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If you can't reach up to the 2900XT or 8800GTS 640MB, i'd try to find one on the MM for around that price. They're certainly both worth it. :)
 
I has OCZ and some are noisey, lot of rma requests on their forum, the Corsair is not within your £62 budget unless you can go more, the Antec Tripower550 is good and now made by Seasonic I think.
 
Cheers guys.

So that OCZ is a good power supply then? Do these seem ok to you?

GameXstream_600W_chart.jpg


And sorry for the thread swaying from graphics cards to power supplies..
 
Don't worry about it. If you look at A LOT of the threads recently, especially coming from people upgrading from AGP style systems, you'll find the same general thing happening. "Want's X card, is PSU good enough?" etc etc

Look at the reviews, if you can
A) Get the Corsair HX 520W
B) Get a 8800GTS 320 for around £175 or less

...you'll be laughing :)

Honestly, if I had around £150-180 to spend there is NO chance I would get an x1950xt now. It's what I have just bought, but that's because I only had about £110 max to spend.

From reviews, comments etc I have seen, it honestly might be worthwhile going with the 640 if you use bigger resolutions. If not then the 320 will be just beautiful for you :D

Matthew
 
Scougar said:
From reviews, comments etc I have seen, it honestly might be worthwhile going with the 640 if you use bigger resolutions. If not then the 320 will be just beautiful for you :D
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have looked around a lot about the differences between the two versions. Most people say that if you have a higher resolution, get the 640. I will be running at 1440x900 max (the native res for my monitor) so I would assume that the 320 would be plenty enough and I can't afford to get the 640 version anyway. And I don't plan on getting a new monitor any time in the future, I have only had this monitor for about 4-5 months.
 
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