[Fineus]

I'm in the market for a new medium-budget graphics card. This upgrade is to aid me play Crysis (at all) and the likes of Bioshock/Call of Duty at higher details than I currently can with my GeForce 7600GT.

I'm looking at the ATI 512MB SapphireHD 3870 PCI-E 2.0 which is around the right price for me - however some say that the older 2900 is just as good but cheaper. I've also not looked into what offerings nVidia could put forth but from what I can tell they're more expensive for the same horsepower.

If anyone can shed any light on this, I'd be really greatful. The highest end price I can really go is about £150.

[Nx]

I'm in the market for a new medium-budget graphics card. This upgrade is to aid me play Crysis (at all) and the likes of Bioshock/Call of Duty at higher details than I currently can with my GeForce 7600GT.

I'm looking at the ATI 512MB SapphireHD 3870 PCI-E 2.0 which is around the right price for me - however some say that the older 2900 is just as good but cheaper. I've also not looked into what offerings nVidia could put forth but from what I can tell they're more expensive for the same horsepower.

If anyone can shed any light on this, I'd be really greatful. The highest end price I can really go is about £150.

The 3870 is nearly identical to the 2900. Clocks are a bit higher, power consumption and heat is halved, the only con is the 256 bit memory interface (2900 had 512, which is expensive). I thought the 2900 was more expensive (the whole point of the die shrink and 256 bit memory bus was cost reduction), but you may be able to find it cheaper now. I'd still get the 3870 though (lower heat == more oc).

But I got the Geforce 8800gt, because it wasn't much more expensive, and it is more powerful. The only drawback is the single slot cooling. It's loud, especially in crysis. Fortunately, I can't hear it from the gun shots

So, if you can find the 8800gt for that kind of money, definitely get it. If not, then the 3870

[DragonClaw]

Can't 130 get you a 8800 GT from Nvidia now? As of a month ago it was the best bang for buck, I haven't kept a watch on the card market since I bought myself one though. I'm very pleased with the card, it'll even run Crysis on very high settings(1280x1024)at about 15fps and run extremely smoothly on high settings at (1680x1050)

I haven't looked at the ATI side of things in a long time, mainly because I can't make sense of their numbering system.

[Nx]

Can't 130 get you a 8800 GT from Nvidia now? As of a month ago it was the best bang for buck, I haven't kept a watch on the card market since I bought myself one though. I'm very pleased with the card, it'll even run Crysis on very high settings(1280x1024)at about 15fps and run extremely smoothly on high settings at (1680x1050)

I haven't looked at the ATI side of things in a long time, mainly because I can't make sense of their numbering system.

150 might get a 8800 gt, if it weren't for the supply problems. Prices have actually been increasing, but they might start dropping now.

http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/product.aspx?code=GCA-XN88GT512 almost 150. I wouldn't count on it being in stock though... I've still got an order for an asus, before I bought this inno

Edit: And don't worry about the memory bus, 8800 gt has also got 256 bit, and the disadvantage only starts to show above 1600x1200 usually and with very big textures.

[Fineus]

Sounds like the memory bus isn't going to be a problem. I never take my games above 1280x1024. It's the details I'm more interested in - I don't mind losing a bit of detail to keep things playable but if I'm forced to play Crysis on low details and still have it run like a slide show (like it did when I tried the demo) then I clearly need a new card.

Likewise CoD4 and Bioshock run well enough but some of the details have to be taken down. The £150 ballpark figure is finally the right price for me (£200+ is too much for me right now).

[CP5670]

As others have said, try to get an 8800GT if you can. It should fit within your price range, although you might have to wait a bit to find one in stock. Around here, it's quite hard to find a 8800GT under $260, although you can get one for its normal price ($215 or so) if you're patient. Make sure you get the 512MB one. See if you can find the newer version as well, which has a slightly larger fan and is quieter. They're starting to come into the market now.

Between the 2900 and 3870, the latter is generally a bit faster. The 2900 has far more memory bandwidth on paper but that barely helps it at all in practice. Both are about 15% slower (and have less clocking headroom) than a 8800GT though.

I'll probably skip this generation entirely, since the 8 series is over a year old and can't handle some recent games like Crysis well. Both companies are releasing dual GPU cards in the next month or two (useless as far as I'm concerned), with Nvidia's D9E coming shortly after that. It's a good thing I have plenty of old games to go through in the meantime.

[Nx]

As others have said, try to get an 8800GT if you can. It should fit within your price range, although you might have to wait a bit to find one in stock. Around here, it's quite hard to find a 8800GT under $260, although you can get one for its normal price ($215 or so) if you're patient. Make sure you get the 512MB one. See if you can find the newer version as well, which has a slightly larger fan and is quieter. They're starting to come into the market now.

Between the 2900 and 3870, the latter is generally a bit faster. The 2900 has far more memory bandwidth on paper but that barely helps it at all in practice. Both are about 15% slower (and have less clocking headroom) than a 8800GT though.

I'll probably skip this generation entirely, since the 8 series is over a year old and can't handle some recent games like Crysis well. Both companies are releasing dual GPU cards in the next month or two (useless as far as I'm concerned), with Nvidia's D9E coming shortly after that. It's a good thing I have plenty of old games to go through in the meantime.

If the new Nvidia Geforce "two 8800gt cards glued together" is going to be called 9800gx2, then I wouldn't expect the 9800gtx to deliver much better performance than the 8800gtx. The 9800gx2 will replace the 8800ultra with 30% more performance, and the 9800gtx is supposed to be slower than the 9800gx2. And the 9600gt will be slower than the 8800gt. It looks like Nvidia really wants to milk the 8 series dry, with the 9 series being just a die shrink. It's a shame you need tri sli and quad cf to get highend.
Lets hope the rumors aren't true, but with AMD sucking, Nvidia has no reason to improve performance 

Back on topic: my 8800gt can run Crysis (demo) on high at 1024x768 smoothly, though the rest of the game might have heavier effects. I haven't tried higher resolutions. The 3870 might be able to do that too, but it will definitely run fine if you lower some things to medium: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQxOSw0LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
Bioshock should run smoothly with everything on max at 1680x1050 http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sapphire_hd_3870/12.htm

Edit: as you can see here, the 3870 beats the 2900xt by 1 fps in crysis at 1280x1024, but at 1600x1200 and higher, the 2900xt wins by 1 fps, due to the memory bus. That's the difference

[Fineus]

Cheers guys, to be honest I think my original choice is what I'm going to go with. I'm not fussed about having massive long-term playability out of this thing (IE: it doesn't need to last me for years to come). If I upgrade on a large scale now then I'll probably be replacing quite a lot of components, moving to quad core and so on. This is a stop gap.

Thanks for all your help everyone

[CP5670]

If the new Nvidia Geforce "two 8800gt cards glued together" is going to be called 9800gx2, then I wouldn't expect the 9800gtx to deliver much better performance than the 8800gtx. The 9800gx2 will replace the 8800ultra with 30% more performance, and the 9800gtx is supposed to be slower than the 9800gx2. And the 9600gt will be slower than the 8800gt. It looks like Nvidia really wants to milk the 8 series dry, with the 9 series being just a die shrink. It's a shame you need tri sli and quad cf to get highend.
Lets hope the rumors aren't true, but with AMD sucking, Nvidia has no reason to improve performance 

Yeah, the high end video card market has been pretty pathetic these days. Not only is this 9800GX2 underwhelming on paper, but SLI means highly inconsistent performance with an endless stream of driver bugs and game incompatibilities. I've been there before and am staying far away in the future. These cards are basically worthless unless they find a way to do all the load balancing in hardware.

The 9 series appears to be architecturally identical to the current G92. Nvidia is doing the same thing as AMD and giving these cards a new generation name for no reason.

The one encouraging thing, in some sense, is that the GX2 is supposed to come out at $450, which is a bit below what Nvidia have traditionally charged for their top card at release. It might suggest that they want to leave room for something at their usual $600 pricepoint (that, despite the price, is actually worth buying).

Cheers guys, to be honest I think my original choice is what I'm going to go with. I'm not fussed about having massive long-term playability out of this thing (IE: it doesn't need to last me for years to come). If I upgrade on a large scale now then I'll probably be replacing quite a lot of components, moving to quad core and so on. This is a stop gap.

Any of the cards mentioned here should actually last you for a while, except possibly in Crysis. They aren't far off from the current top end stuff and look set to stay that way.

[Fineus]

Hey guys, just wanted to follow up on this.

I actually changed my mind at the last minute and went for an XFX 8800GT Alpha Dog Edition. Installed Crysis and have been happily playing it with all details maxed out and minimal slowdown for the last couple of hours. In short, money well spent. If anyone is thinking of getting one of these cards I heartily recommend them based on what I've seen so far. I've also played CoD4 and Portal with the same card and they're able to handle literally any detail settings with no slowdown.

Basically, thanks for all your help. I now have no social life.

[colecampbell666]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/03/the_best_gaming_graphics/page4.html

Also, you can now get a 1 Gb 8800 GT for around 300$.

[diceman111]

I would get the 8800GT, Personelly I will wait for the next Generation of cards since mine is working well somewhat ok (I have a Geforce 7950GX2) atleast I can play almost all of the recent games with 1280x1024 resolution and acceptable detail (medium in Crysis and High in all other games so far).

Also I would by Nvidia I have had bad experiences with ATI (even though this was a few years ago)

[haloboy100]

Basically, thanks for all your help. I now have no social life.

we are your social life. And we(I?) worship you!

[Stealth]

hey thunder.  do you NEED a PCI-E?

i have a pretty high end AGP that i'm getting rid of.  was in a client's computer and he upgraded to PCI-E.  it's a decent card.  Radeon... not sure of the model right now but i'll post that tomorrow when i get to work

[colecampbell666]

Can I have it! Pleasepleaseplease?!?!?!?! I really need an AGP vid card!

[haloboy100]

Can I have it! Pleasepleaseplease?!?!?!?! I really need an AGP vid card!

Upgrade to PCI-E. It's worth it.

[colecampbell666]

I know. I would if I had the money.

What card is it?

[Fineus]

Cheers Stealth but I've already upgraded to PCI-E some time ago, and have also already upgraded my graphics card to an 8800GT (as of last Tuesday).

Thanks for the offer though!