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richard104

richard104

richard104

Associate
Joined
8 Nov 2006
Posts
420
Location
Loughborough
Hello

At the moment in my computer i have


Processor

Athlon 64 (S) 3700+ 2.2 GHz
2000 MT/s (mega transfers/second)
Socket 775

Chipset

ATI Radeon Xpress 200
Manufacturer: MSI
Motherboard Name: MS-7184

Memory

Component Attributes
Memory Installed 1 GB (2 x 512)
Maximum allowed 4 GB* (4 x 1 GB) requires the replacement of the installed 512 MB DIMMs



Video Graphics

GeForce 6200SE
64 MB DDR memory
I/O Ports: VGA, Composite, S-Video

I have started to do a lot of CAD for uni and need to upgrade my GFX card. I read the sticky and was thinking of getting either the 7600 GT {36W} or the
7900 GS {45W}. I was wondering what the main differences between the cards were and whether i needed to update my PSU which is bog standed 300W.

I also play CoD 2 which runs rubbish with my current card will this be improved much?

Cheers

Rich
 
The 7900GS is quite a lot faster IIRC and should run fine in your system with that PSU, but either of those graphics cards would be absolutely light-years ahead of that 6200SE in terms of performance.

What's your budget?
 
Thats good news then thanks. My budget was around the £60 mark. I was going to upgrade my RAM but its DDR which is old technology now isnt't it?

The x1950 looks but but a tad more expensive iirc.
 
In regards to the X1950 Pro it's been a brilliant card in terms of price/performance its entire life and it'd pretty much thrash the two Nvidia cards you mentioned. You would definitely see the benefit in games.

The 8600 GTS is also on-par with the X1950 Pro but it's £76, less than an X1950 Pro though.

As said above the 8600 GT isn't bad for its price.
 
Thanks for your replies going to try and get my head around it all now!!

Whilst reading the sticky i noticed this:

"Sadly the 8600 GTS has proven to be a bit of a let down in the frames per second department. Even Gibbo can’t recommend them, and they loose out to the x1950 Pro in DX 9 games.

The sticking point appears to be the 128Bit memory interface – NVidia has now released the 8800 GT with a 256bit memory interface, which supersedes this card in every area."

So i am a bit unsure about the GTS and it is a little more expensive. The 8800GT is way out of my budget unfortunately.

I am very confused though. Just put the 7900 GS into Toms hardware and it beats both the 8600 GT and the 8600 GTS. I am confused.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=712&model2=854&chart=301
 
Last edited:
Tom's desktop VGA charts are pretty flawed to be honest. They use wildly different system configurations and driver revisions for pretty much every single graphics card on there. :(

That's not to say the 7900 GS is a bad card though.
 
That's cos there's a square bracket at the end :p

If it was my money I'd probably more be inclined to get a card with 512MB of GDDR2 instead of 256MB of GDDR3, but perhaps someone can share their opinion as well?

Rule of thumb as far as makes go, if you aren't interested in warranty or bundles, go with the cheapest card you can get and overclock it if you want. The value OcUK one seems like a bargain to me - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-075-OK&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=912 :)
 
I have heard good things about the 1950 and its cheaper than the GTS...but i will have to upgrade my PSU too. I can get this PSU for £13.

Features

* ATX 500Watt
* 2 x 8cm fan
* P4 Ready
* Intel P4 Recommended
* AMD Recommended
* CE ApprovedP4 Ready
* 150mmx86mmx140mm
* Retail Boxed
Cable Connectors:

* 20+4Pin Power Connector
* 4x Molex
* ATX12v P4 Connector
* Floppy Connector

Rails:

+5V - 38A, +12V - 17A, -5V - 0.5A, -12V - 0.8A, +3.3V - 28A, +5VSB - 2A

seems a bit cheap though?

thanks rich
 
i would recommend the X1950 PRO or HD3850 if you can afford it over the 8600GTS - both cards are stronger than it is. true, the X1950 PRO lacks DX10, but it makes up for that with superior DX9 performance in most instances, and you'll not be missing on DX10 if you don't already own a copy of Vista...

why? I don't consider any of the early cards under the 2900xxx / 8800xxx moniker strong enough to [provide good DX10 performance...
 
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