Need help choosing a graphics card

[-JLN-]

Well, it's my Birthday today, so I've ended up getting a bit of money to spend. I've decided to buy a graphics card with the money I have left, but I'm not really a tech head, so it'd be doing me a big favour if someone could point out which I'm better off with. At the moment, I'm looking at the Nvidia 6600 GT cards.

Overclockers UK GeForce 6600 cards

Bare in mind, that at the moment, I have a budget of around £180. So first off, I'd like to know which of the cards on that page will give me the best performance. Secondly, I'd like to know if the Radeon budget equivalent is any better. Finally, I'd like to know if it would be much more worth it, to save up a little more cash and get the 6800 GT at the top of this page.

Overclockers UK GeForce 6800 GT cards

I'd be really greatful for any help, as I don't want to go blowing my money on a card, only to find out that it's not as powerful as I'd hoped.

 

[Cruzharo]

Meh i am way to lazy to read...

But best bet would be... well search google for some bench marks and see what does best.

Also, it greatly depends on what you are going to use it for too.

 

[-JLN-]

Well, I'll be using it for gaming. So I want a decent card. I've checked some benchmarks, but benchmarks are never really representative of the kind of performance you're going to get when you're playing through games. It's also harder to find good benchmarking tests on exact makes of each type of card, so I'd like to get some opinions from here.

 

[Hash]

Well the 6600 GT is the absolute best in it's price range. If you don't wanna make the jump to the high end cards then you should definately go for the 6600 GT.

On the other hand, if you do want to save up some money, I think it will definately be worth it. First off, the 6800 GT is a much more powerful card, and while the 6600 GT isn't no slouch, it just doesn't hold up to it's big brother. With a 6800 gt you will be able to easily play all the newest games out right now, as well as upcoming games like F.E.A.R, Age of Empires III, and others at the highest quality settings. And with the new line of 7800 cards coming out, it's gonna push that 6600 even farther down the line, and make it look even weaker. Bottom line is if you don't mind saving money for a 6800 gt, then do it. The extra power you get will be worth the higher price tag.

Also, since the new 7800 series of cards are coming out june 22nd or somewhere around there. You could save up money, then wait for the 6800's inevitable drop in price before you buy it.

 

[-JLN-]

From what I've read, the 6800 GT does appear to offer a lot of bang for it's buck. I'm leaning towards getting it at the moment, as it's not that much more expensive, and the shader 3.0 support makes me feel comfortable knowing that I'll be able to run future games with high graphics settings, which is something the Radeon X800 XL I was looking at doesn't have. Thanks for the advice Now if only I could find the damn delivery prices on that site

 

[Tsunami]

IMO you should get the ATI x850XT PE. In BF2 it owned the 6800GT and the 6800 Ultra in all tests except for like one.

 

[|Overlord|]

well i'm on the waiting list for the 6800 price drop , or i could go my hand at a plain milk flavoured 6800 and do a pipe unlock

there is a mid-range card planned for this generation to , 7500 i think. If you can wait then do so (i dunno how long i'm waiting to i get the evil fx5200 out of my hands , my overclocking shows some improvement , but obviously i need a better card , and i'm holding on to see what's on offer not to far down the track)

 

[-JLN-]

IMO you should get the ATI x850XT PE. In BF2 it owned the 6800GT and the 6800 Ultra in all tests except for like one.

That's all well and good, except for the fact that they are in the price range of £300 to £325. At most I'm willing to spend around £230, which is why I'm looking at the 6800 GT and the X800 XL as they're both in my price range. Hopefully it won't take long for this generation of cards to go down in price once the new ones are released, I don't have the patience to wait too long for such a drop.

 

[Kasey]

I don't know how much it costs but you should get the Radeon X850. http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx850/index.html
That's what i want to get it's the best that ATI ever made.

 

[-JLN-]

Well I've been checking reviews and benchmarks for a good hour now, and I'm considering getting the regular 6800. It'll cost me about £70 less, and offers better performance than the 6600 GT for a small jump in price. Now I've got a couple of questions about installing the card. I've heard that the 6800 series requires a good power supply. First of all, can anyone give me any links to specific details on the power it requires? Also, I'd like to know how I can tell if I've got a good enough power supply. Treat me as a total idiot please, I haven't got a clue what the power supply inside even looks like.

 

[Tsunami]

Your powersupply is in the top part of your case near the rear. The reccomended power supply's are 450 Watts and higher.


Here's the best 6800: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125142


Having a hard time finding out how much power this thing sucks up, but if you got a 500 watt power supply or higher you'll be fine. To check, open up your case and read on the power supply (look for stickers on it, it says somewhere)

 

[|Overlord|]

GIGABYTE , ewwww........... i would rather bfg , gigabyte mainboards haven't been known well for good overclocking potentional but good performance at the deafult speeds i see in them , but still most of us like to do some overclocking at one stage. i'd say it's a simlar story with their cards

 

[-JLN-]

Well, I finally decided to go for the 6600 GT. It arrieved this morning, and now it's not working. If I use the drivers that came with the card, I can get onto windows, but my comp hangs whenever I load a game. If I download new Nvidia drivers, it starts up, then hangs with my mouse pointer in the middle and a blue screen behind. The Omega drivers work the same as the ones that came with the card. I thought it might be because I previously had an ATI card, but I've used driver cleaner and it's still not working. I'm now letting windows update for the first time in a while, if this doesn't fix it I guess I'll have to send the card back and save for a Radeon X800.

 

[Smith|]

Try uninstalling any drivers you had before the new card...

 

[-JLN-]

Yeah, I uninstalled my ATI drivers and then ran the driver cleaner. Updating windows hasn't helped either. I get the feeling it's a compatibilty issue, after looking for people with the same problems, I found a guy who had the exact same problem, and he has the same processor, and thinks he has the same mobo. So it looks like I'm **** outa luck.

 

[|Overlord|]

sometimes the best way to remove drivers is doing it by yourself and going to add/remove programs

what mainboard are you using , tried a bios update for the mainboard or a vga bios update for the gfx card ?

 

[-JLN-]

I did remove the drivers myself from add/remove programs. Then I used the driver cleanup utility to get rid of any ATI stuff left. No point giving advice now anyway, it's being sent back. Thanks anyway though.

 

[Vagabond]

if it was the agp model did you connect a Power cable that you power drives with e.g. (HD,CD/DVD-rom drives)

 

[Smith|]

If he didn't, a window would've popped up saying "We have detected that your PSU isn't delivering enough power to the graphics card. We are lowering the clocks to insure a safer atmosphere." Or something along those lines, but it'd still work.

 

[-JLN-]

Yeah, I connected the power cable. I didn't get any message about it not delivering enough power, so I assume I did it correctly aswell.