Which is the best brand for graphics cards??

What kind of games do you want to play? What resolutions? Do you have an LCD with a fixed resolution or CRT?

I'd also say your budget/how much you can spend and region would be useful to give suggestions. That's a beast of a system so I'd hope you have decent budget to give it a 3d card to keep up with it.

 

Well to be honest Im not much of PC gamer. Ive got a Playstation for that but I want the piece of mind that I do ever want to play games on it that the graphics card will be able handle it with ease. Im going to be putting Vista Ultimate on it though so it needs to be ready for that at least. Plenty of memory, a decent processor. Two outputs isn't essential but if the one I choose has two then so be it..

Id spend up to £250 id say. Thats a maximum though, I would like to find one for less then that is possible.

The screen I have is an IBM Thinkvision 17" with a max resolution of 1280x1024.

Damien

 

I would say that a GeForce 7600GS would suit your purposes right now. I don't know of any British websites that you can go to, or of any stores . The 7600GS is a mid-end card that will be able to run Vista and play newer games on medium settings (like Oblivion). Just don't expect it to run any DirectX 10 games well....most videocards right now aren't DirectX 10 cards except for the GeForce 8800GTS or 8800GTX which will run you up about $500-$600 or roughly 280Pounds, although is for, well right now, extreme gaming. Look here.

 

Well, I would suggest an 8800GTS for direct x 10/future compatibility.

 

Guess that's a no to a GeForce 8800.

I admit that you might be able to push your budget a considerable amount to afford an 8800GTS. However, such a card would be a waste of very valuable (that's how I think of it at least) money because you say you are not a PC gamer. There is absolutely no logic behind getting a top-of-the-line graphics card unless you are a very Hardcore Gamer.



Since you don't do much gaming, any variation of the GeForce 7600 series would be superb. They are great mid-range cards. I would suggest getting a 7600GT, for a price much lower than your £250 maximum.

I really think that a 7600GS would "not be worthy" of the rest of your PC's hardware. The parts you have already purchased for the build are absolutely fantastic, and a 7600GS would be the definite lowest point of all your parts. For only about $40 more, a 7600GT would be much better, even if you don't game much.


By the way, you don't have any RAM selected.
Either you haven't listed it or you haven't selected it yet. Update us on that.


Good luck with your build!

 

Or a X1950PRO wouldnt be bad either.

 

I think your totally right. An 8800GT is like £379 which I just cant justify spending when I dont really play games on the PC that much. I have decided on the XFX Geforce 7900GT. All the reviews I have read have been fantastic. Going on specs, its an excellent card for what I need and all for £180.

The RAM is the other thing I dont have yet as it quite pricey! The mobo I have takes up to 8GB with 4 dimm slots, I'll probably load it with 2GB to start with though, just to get me going.

Apart from that and the graphics card, Im just waiting on Vista to come out really. Although I do have a copy of XP Pro I probably will install while waiting for that.

Thanks for all your help

Any other suggestions? What do you think of the graphics card I have chosen compared to the rest of equipment I have?

Damien

 

It is personal preference as far as ATI vs Nvidia goes,

They both offer same image quality, and their top boards are pretty close in speed,

With this system you got, you can definitely get a high end card and your CPU won't be a bottleneck,

Get a DX9 card, unless you gonna use uncle billy Asta La Vista billy!,

Get a 7800GT or ati 1800xt ,, try for 512mb ,, good luck my friend,

 

ATI has always been the leader in image quality...

 

You're right actually. The anisotropic filtering in the x1xxx series of cards is better than in the GeForce 7xxx series.

 

Not to mention that in 95% of the nVidia line, you can't have HDR and AA at the same time (the only drawback of my card ).

 

Those cards are both old-ish. They have been replaced by X1900XT -> X1950XT and 7900GT -> 7950GT.

 

You will NEVER need 8GB for your purposes. 8GB is in server territory. 2GB is hardcore gamer, 1GB should do you fine. Personally, I use 2GB, but even in games like Oblivion I don't notice any difference at all between 1GB and 2GB.