Which Graphic Card should I Buy for my new rig?

[revolutionrock]

Right I am building a new computer, which has :

• A Quad Core Processor(Q9450)
• 4gb Ram
• 750Gb HDD

But I don't know what graphic card i should buy. I have a budget of £100.

I don't play intensive games, and AoE3 is the most intensive game i will play. But i do a lot of picture editing , graphic design etc if that helps?

Really don't know what to buy.

Also, I am having Vista Ultimate 64 bit.

 

[Nymins]

8800GT is probably your best bet for the budget:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...T 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

 

[revolutionrock]

8800GT is probably your best bet for the budget:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...T 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Thanks. Reading the reviews, it sounds mint. if it can play Crysis i think it can play Commandoes 3 and Age Of Empires

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Definately worth stretching an extra fiver for the 8800 GT, great cards, easily the best around that price.

 

[Rroff]

8800GT - with a little overclocking its right up the heels of the 8800GTX.

 

[revolutionrock]

Reading reviews, apparently they are very loud?

 

[TheGamingGeneral]

Reading reviews, apparently they are very loud?

Yup they are

 

[BassPwr]

The gainward 8800GT models have upgraded dual slot cooling solutions fitted which are quieter than the stock cooling so you might want to look at those

the golden sample 512mb looks great but there's also a 1024MB version I guess better if you game at higher resolutions such as 24".

 

[Rroff]

Depends on the cooling on the card...

If its the original cooler then they are silent at idle but quickly hit 100% fan speed when under load and are extremely noisey (and due to the badly configured default fan profile it rarely drops back below 100%).

The revised coolers are much quieter and some cards come with uprated coolers which are very quiet.

I modified the BIOS on mine so that the fan was only running 25% when idle and cuts in earlier and more agressively in 3D mode which seems to stop is hitting 100% fan speed most of the time (rarely goes over 60% which is moderatly noisey but not extreme), and made it easier for it to drop back below 100% resulting in a lot less noise and a lot cooler temps.