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Best graphics card for around $300-400 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter RUB!X
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Well, I'd suggest a 9800 if it wasn't over the price range, and to be honest I'm not sure where the best place to get a card is, but look into the Radeon 9000 series - the 9600 should be within that price range and is a pretty awesome card =)
withoutaface
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I'd have a look at the GF 6800 which is available for $465 from MSY, that's if you don't mind breaking the budget a little bit
withoutaface
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Nah its 6800 vanilla
http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/non-PARTS.pdf
http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/non-PARTS.pdf
Radeon 9800s are still around 500 bucks.. also for performance vs value, they're not good nowadays. The 9000 series is absolute crap, and the 9600s are also pretty down there.MedNez said:
Justin has a good idea though, the 6800GTs are the way to go.
Or if PCI-E is your style, go for the upcoming Radeon X800XL, simply a downclocked version of the XT (to 400c/500m), but the difference you'll love is it performs practically the same as a GT (disregarding Doom 3) yet it's US$100 cheaper. Go figure.
6600GT, PCI-E as far as I can tell, but it should be going AGP soon. Should be about 300 dollars. It's performance should be a bit under 6800GT, between a X800XT and X800 Pro, needless to say this card rocks and will outperform a vanilla 6800.
But go http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041110/index.html they are doing a graphic cards guide and these guys know their stuff.
But go http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041110/index.html they are doing a graphic cards guide and these guys know their stuff.
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...JKDDragon said:
Performance they're great. Value they're overpriced. The 9800 when it came out blew the nVidia line out of the water, you really can't say it's a 'crap card'. Albeit nVidia have picked up their game, and made some better cards, it doesn't reduce the quality of the 9800x in any way ..
Anything ATI, Nvidia is pretty crap when the price is less than $1,000. 9800 seems like its the way to go, try to get actual brands such as ASUS or Gigabyte cause the no-brand cards are really shit and tend to overheat with not too much usage.
Don't go 9800 when 6800s kill them for a lower price, if you look on http://www.staticice.com.au the cheapest 6800 is $385.00 "XpertVision Geforce FX6800LE 128MB 256bit DDR, DVI, TV Out" that is a crippled 6800 (LE) and you will need to run a tool to unlock the extra pipes, someone on http://www.overclockers.com.au did this with this card and unlocked all 16 pipes! so that could be great value for money, otherwise get a proper 6800 for around $450
Someone did that recently, got 10,006 in 05 with a FX-55, 2GB, twin SLi 6800Ultras, stock. Rich bitch.Templar said:
Exactly... that's why I said performance VS value they're bad. I never said performance-wise they were bad. Big difference.MedNez said:
That was the Asus team. Hence the reason I make that reference (10000+ in 3DMark05)JKDDragon said:
There is a reason a card is branded a 6800 and that's because some of the pipelines are faulty. While all 16 pipelines will run it displays artifacts and is very hard to go back to 12 working pipelines for even the experienced tweaker/programmer.dritz2003 said:
If you really want to, just flash the BIOS with the one meant for 6800GT or Ultra to get the extra pipeline, although to get it back it's not as simple as just reflash the BIOS back to 6800.
The 5900 and 5950 are crap. They have performance less than their ATI counterparts at a higher cost. They are also the cards that run with the highest temperature and uses the most power (even more than 6800Ultra with 2 molex connectors), meaning noisier fans and less overclocking ability.RUB!X said:
id say that if you are looking for a long term graphics card, youd need to go for geforce 6xxx rather than a 5xxx, as iirc they are more compliant with directx 9 and pixel shader 3.0. So I would also recommend either going for a 6600 gt or do what im doing and wait for a cheaper 6800 gt/ultra
I see no point in getting a vanilla 6800. It is more expensive and performs worse than a 6600GT as far as the benchmarks I have seen go. Nor do I see the logic behind brand loyalty.
Right now, for $300 the 6600GT can't be beat, I find it hard to suggest much else unless you want to go for the 6800GT.
Right now, for $300 the 6600GT can't be beat, I find it hard to suggest much else unless you want to go for the 6800GT.
It wasn't the Asus team. It was some random rich guy.Templar said:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=256866
Good point. If you're not planning to get another card for a few good years, then it will be smart to get a SM3.0 card, such as one of the Geforce 6 range. Reason why I opted for the X800 though was firstly I planned to get another card within two years, secondly, PS 3.0 didn't seemed to make any sort of big fps difference in current titles utilizing it in which the game itself was built on PS 2.0.. e.g the Far Cry (and it's 1.1 patch) I'd only be worrying about SM3.0 if you didn't intend on getting another card until after games built upon a 3.0 foundation became released en masse. (or in my case, until after Unreal 3 comes out).Melkor said: