Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Fineus on June 14, 2006, 08:00:02 am

Title: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Fineus on June 14, 2006, 08:00:02 am: Once again with the irritating questions.

Originally I was going to upgrade my Radeon 9800 Pro to the best AGP card I could find, but my father and I have worked out a little deal where he gets my computer and we both put money towards a new one for me.

Suffice to say, that means PCI Express is on the cards.

I can't afford to spend stupid amounts of money, but I would like a card that can run (Half Life 2, Doom 3, Battlefield 2 etc.) on top graphics settings (not counting FSAA and AA). Something that has good modern shader support and so on. Preferably I'd like to spend up to £150 / £200. I've no affiliation to ATI or nVidia so that doesn't matter, and please please don't let this degenerate into a war between which brand is better.

Thanks guys!
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Turambar on June 14, 2006, 08:00:42 am: 7800GT (GTX if you can afford it)

my experience is with my 6800GT, which works really well with games today (highest settings in oblivion, with HDR, with good framerates). it's basically a really good, solid rock of a card. i can only imagine the 7800GT is better.
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Fury on June 14, 2006, 08:05:00 am: NVIDIA 7600GT is your card then, no contest. See this (http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q2/geforce-7600s/index.x?pg=1) review as an example. Note that GS' are different from GT's. Turambar, 7800GT(X) and 7900GT(X) are out of Kalfireth's £150-200 price range, unless for some reason UK gets them much cheaper than finns do.
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Colonol Dekker on June 14, 2006, 08:08:16 am: I remember my first ever grafix card, trusty old/cheap Voodoo 3 2000.
:(
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Kazan on June 14, 2006, 08:26:36 am: pricewatch.com and newegg are your friends!
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Fineus on June 14, 2006, 09:07:22 am: Turambar, unfortunately Fury is right. As much as I'd like one of those higher spec cards, they're simply outside my price range.

Fury, however... that looks exactly like something I'm looking for. It's within my price range and can apparently run FEAR on full detail at acceptable frame rates, so I reckon it'll do for my needs.

Kazan, thanks for those links but unfortunately they're both US specific and I need a UK search engine. I've been using Kelkoo for the time being.
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Flipside on June 14, 2006, 09:10:58 am: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/products/a852x1y0z1p0s0n0m0

Try here :)
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Colonol Dekker on June 14, 2006, 09:14:21 am: WWW.PRICERUNNER.CO.UK (http://WWW.PRICERUNNER.CO.UK)
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Turambar on June 14, 2006, 09:18:14 am: hmm, i thought they dropped the prices on the 7800 series when they came out with the 7900 series

oh well, 7600 will still be nice.
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Wobble73 on June 14, 2006, 10:06:12 am: www.scan.co.uk
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: Colonol Dekker on June 14, 2006, 10:16:09 am: Christ almighty how much for the Panther ?!?!?!?
Title: Re: Good / Affordable PCI Express Graphics? Help!
Post by: CP5670 on June 14, 2006, 11:55:35 am: Around here the X1800XT is easily the best midrange deal right now for stock speeds and normal overclocks (the 256MB and 512MB ones can be found for $220 and $270 respectively), but the 7900GT ($260+$30 for a cooler) will be quite a bit faster if you do the vgpu pencil mod. I'm not really sure what the UK prices are like though. That Novatech site has a 7900GT in your price range.

Avoid the 7800s altogether. As expected, they are just disappearing from the market instead of dropping in price and the 7900s are better in every way.