Good Graphics Card that isn't a 8800GTS?

[ZeWarrior]

or for an AGP slot, an x1950pro is probably the best.

oh, and a c2d (e6600) and the 8800GT draw just over 200W from the mains, so a 305w card theoretically could run it, but the voltages on the 12V rail probably would be to little.

There's an x1950xt for AGP 8x.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814241049

And Dell uses quality PSUs so I know that those PCs can run it at least, not sure about other companies.

 

[shaffaaf27]

if it's agp nothing beats an nv40 (geforceFX6800) plus you can flash or soft mod it to quadroFX4000 if you're into 3d modelling/rendering(gelato)/animation

nevertheless nomater what you choose i'd suggest to get a 2nd hand. 99% it will either work or won't work and will save you a lot of money


Wtf? An X1950XT kills that card. And wtf you cant soft mod a card into another card.

yes you could. it just depends on the card. if you take a x2900 XT, and pro, if you flash the bios of a XT onto a pro, it becomes an XT.

 

[Salamantis]

After several hours of fairly jernky play on Team Fortress 2, I decided to get a new graphics card. Currently I have a Nvidia Geforce 7500 LE and I keep hearing that the 8800GTS is meant to be the best but at that price I see on some sites for it, I expect it to jump out of my PC and shit gold. So is there any other brand that are cheaper but still good?

Oh my god that made me laugh my ASS OFF.

 

[shaffaaf27]

or for an AGP slot, an x1950pro is probably the best.

oh, and a c2d (e6600) and the 8800GT draw just over 200W from the mains, so a 305w card theoretically could run it, but the voltages on the 12V rail probably would be to little.


There's an x1950xt for AGP 8x. And Dell uses quality PSUs so I know that those PCs can run it at least, not sure about other companies.

yes i know dell use pc power and cooling PSUs, but always check the V12 +- rails to see if they can handle the 8800GT, caus the 8800GT needs (along with other components) 26A.

 

[ZeWarrior]

if it's agp nothing beats an nv40 (geforceFX6800) plus you can flash or soft mod it to quadroFX4000 if you're into 3d modelling/rendering(gelato)/animation

nevertheless nomater what you choose i'd suggest to get a 2nd hand. 99% it will either work or won't work and will save you a lot of money


Wtf? An X1950XT kills that card. And wtf you cant soft mod a card into another card.

yes you could. it just depends on the card. if you take a x2900 XT, and pro, if you flash the bios of a XT onto a pro, it becomes an XT.

But it technically won't get the same results as an xt because of the XT having superior specs. If you can flash an X1950 Pro to an XT, according to you, you can flash an 8800GT into an GTX or Ultra which isn't possible.

 

[acrocosm]

hmm? you think so? i asure you that you can i'm a happy owner of the stated quadro retailing soemthing like £1000 when it first came out. My card is actually an aopen a400 bought second hand half a year ago for £70. I had it soft moded but i want to be able to run maya on linux to so i flashed it.

comparison in performance in maya? it doesn't crash anymore, and i got something like 500% performance boost.

quadros are not so good for games as they are intended and optimised for proffesional use and so it actually drops the performance by a marginal degree but it still serves me fine for games

edit: oh you guys are fast! you beated me severily on that

not all mods are possible of course it depends on the gpu and wheather or not a hack exists

 

[ZeWarrior]

hmm? you think so? i asure you that you can i'm a happy owner of the stated quadro retailing soemthing like £1000 when it first came out. My card is actually an aopen a400 bought second hand half a year ago for £70. I had it soft moded but i want to be able to run maya on linux to so i flashed it.

comparison in performance in maya? it doesn't crash anymore, and i got something like 500% performance boost.

quadros are not so good for games as they are intended and optimised for proffesional use and so it actually drops the performance by a marginal degree but it still serves me fine for games

Lol so can I soft mod a 7600GS into a 7900GS?

 

[Awdofgum]

8800 GTX! That is what i got, it is awesome im not going to need a new one for 5-7 years.

 

[acrocosm]

check the guru3d forums i don't know if that's possible

rivatuner is your tool

 

[ZeWarrior]

check the guru3d forums i don't know if that's possible

rivatuner is your tool

Rivatuner? okay..

 

[shaffaaf27]

if it's agp nothing beats an nv40 (geforceFX6800) plus you can flash or soft mod it to quadroFX4000 if you're into 3d modelling/rendering(gelato)/animation

nevertheless nomater what you choose i'd suggest to get a 2nd hand. 99% it will either work or won't work and will save you a lot of money


Wtf? An X1950XT kills that card. And wtf you cant soft mod a card into another card.




yes you could. it just depends on the card. if you take a x2900 XT, and pro, if you flash the bios of a XT onto a pro, it becomes an XT.

But it technically won't get the same results as an xt because of the XT having superior specs. If you can flash an X1950 Pro to an XT, according to you, you can flash an 8800GT into an GTX or Ultra which isn't possible.

NOT AT ALL...

the specs for an x2900pro are under clocked versions of the XT, therefore, giving it a bios mod, would automatically clock it to XT speeds. everything else about the cards are the same.

a few years ago same situation had risen with the 6800 series. one of them was an under clocked, less pipelined version of one of the other 6800 series cards (methinks the 6800GT), and cost a lot cheaper, so a bios flash worked on that as well.

google VGA bios flashing, and you might come up with something and learn something new

 

[Jiggah]

Yes, you can softmod some cards to better versions. The 8 series cannot do that because of the pipeline limitations and reference boards are way too drastically different. The last card from Nvidia I heard of that could be softmodded was the 6800LE, the cheap end model, could be modded to the then high-end 6800GT by unlocking additional pipelines through a utility called Rivatuner (it's a staple program for the overclocker community ala CPU-Z).

And yes there are mods out there to turn some cards into the quadro. I think Ze is assuming that somehow this applies to every card, only certain cards, even then certain cards that were probably manufactured at a certain time because there could be small yet fundamental changes to the board design.

 

[ZeWarrior]

Yes, you can softmod some cards to better versions. The 8 series cannot do that because of the pipeline limitations and reference boards are way too drastically different. The last card from Nvidia I heard of that could be softmodded was the 6800LE, the cheap end model, could be modded to the then high-end 6800GT by unlocking additional pipelines through a utility called Rivatuner (it's a staple program for the overclocker community ala CPU-Z).

And yes there are mods out there to turn some cards into the quadro. I think Ze is assuming that somehow this applies to every card, only certain cards, even then certain cards that were probably manufactured at a certain time because there could be small yet fundamental changes to the board design.

That's exactly what I assumed.

 

[superkrm]

benchies for AMD's new midrange cards are out now

www.techreport.com

 

[slayerspud]

8800gt is the best midrange to high card out atm. Destroys anything apart from the 8800 ultra in benchmarks, and real world testing.

 

[Dylaan]

I'm looking to go for a cheap graphics card... Am I correct in thinking that the 7900 is better than say the 8600?

 

[Harsky]

In a really horrible but scientific measure, my cousin asked me to get him a graphics card so what did I do? I ordered an 8600GT and I noticed that it was freaking huge. So I'm using his PC as a benchmark to see if anything after 8600GT is really value for money. And no. He didn't have the budget for 8800GT

 

[wohoo]

Duude! ATI just launched their HD 3000 series! get one of those, they are alot cheaper than the 8800 series. OR the new XFX 8800GT with 256MB memory, wich is as cheap as the AMD/ATI cards

 

[MrKuenning]

The 7900GTX might be faster than say an 8600 but I would get an 8 series...

Go to this page..
Ignore everything except for the Texture MT/s. That tells you how many million textiles per second the card can push through. Knotice the 7900GTX can process 15,600, while all the lower 8XXX series including the 8600 is less than 10,000

However as soon as you enter the 8800 range you get 24k -39k

Thats a huge jump. Plus its Direct X 10


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of...rocessing_Units


The only plus with the ATI HD 3XXX range is it supports Direct X 10.1
The Radeon HD 3870 which comes out on the 19th does only 12K textiles.

Granted there are other variables (Memory Bandwidth being a big one to look at) but I use raw textile power as a gague for me to compare them.

I am not an ATI fan, I never have been, the only thing ATI i own is a Wii

. But I have to admit they did beat nVidia to the DX10.1

Personaly I am waiting for GeForce 9 series. Shouldent bee too much longer. And should blow everything away, and support DX10.1

One thing to note is DX10 doesnt mean crap if you arnt running vista.

So if you are an XP guy I would but the 8800GT its cheaper and more power ful than the 8800GTS.

XFX GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - 269 at newegg.com

 

[Jiggah]

I'm looking to go for a cheap graphics card... Am I correct in thinking that the 7900 is better than say the 8600?

The 7900GS is faster than the 8600. The recommendation for the 8600 simply because it's DX10 is not a good one. I'd still get the 7900GS. The reason is simple, the 8600 will be a slideshow for DX10, there is literally no point in using 8600 as a DX10 card, you'll essentially have to play the DX10 games with all the DX10 stuff turned off, so you'll be playing in DX9 mode anyway.

The new ATI series is not as good as Nvidia and literally priced the same or maybe a little bit lower. ATI did a last minute price drop because of the 8800GT release.