video cards

I'm not really fond of nVidia but they seem to be good cards. I suggest you take a look on ATI cards as well. 4850/4870/4890 are really god cards and they are not very pricy.

 

if you are looking for bang for buck cards, go for ati. the 4770 is a great card for the $100 price tag (plays crysis on high at about 58fps at 1650x1050 iirc)

 

I'm gonna get a NVIDIA GTX260 made by Asus. I wanna play Crysis on Very High at 1680x1050

I'm not even looking for a ATI card as I had one until last month. The freaking drivers screwed the screen resolution up EVERY TIME. At least the NVIDIA drivers do not do this (currently on my old old old GeForce 6200 with 64MB )... And I like the idea of CUDA and PhysX, and ATI cards do not have those.

 

At least they can use DX10.1 Plus once ATI and Intel finally get Hardware acceleration for the Havok engine(which IMHO is the only thing keeping them on equal terms atm) ATI cards are gonna blow them out of the water.

Also I would agree with KeitaroBaka and recommend getting an ASUS EAH4890

 

Yeah, ATI's driver support sucks, they wouldn't even make a driver that supports a certain refresh rate for my 23 inch monitor even though I am pretty sure the card was capable of it.

And for the price of a 9800 GTX, you can get a GTS 250 which has a slightly better graphics core and the same memory clock speeds for less money. Never buy overclocked cards, they are a waste of cash, you can OC them easily enough yourself if you want.

 

Get a Zotac, EVGA or XFX if you are going the Nvidia route. The 9800GT is superior in every regard and can be overclocked further then what the 9600GT can, you are comparing apples to oranges here. Wasting extra money on a OC'ed card when you can buy a better model with the same stats that can be OC'ed to be greater then the cheaper model at it's max OC makes more sense.

 

Can someone rank where the ATI Radeon HD4830 is among some of the above mentioned cards/most common cards/top cards? It's what I have, but I don't know if I should've gotten a better one. I got it for $100.00 at my local computer store so I think it was a good deal.

 

That card is just fine, with some overclocking it can match, and even beat an un-overclocked 4850

 

9600gt card is so old you are really pissing your money away if you still give any money for it (better they should pay you for getting this card).

9800 is not considered a bad card but im not sure if your value for money is there if you want to play "latest" games.

There better alternative's:

GTX 260 (+)
4770

The GTX 260+ i think is a good deal for the money sadly the card is a little noisy. The 4770 is silent compared with GTX260+ card and is easier on the Power Supply Unit. Which is something you need to look at when buying a 9800 or GTX 260.

www.pricewatch.com i tend to use to lookup deals. If that fails try newegg.com for a price indication.

 

All the GT 200+ series cards are somewhat more expensive then the 9000 series cards, really stats wise the GTS 250 is slightly better then the 9800GT as it has faster memory clock speeds, however it isn't as good as the 9800GTX, better off with that instead or just shelling out the money for a GTX 260.

 

They are the same card, but have some slight differences. The GTS 250 has a better overall power management. Unlike the 9800GTX+, some GTS 250 cards are shorter and only sport a single power connector. If you can find it, the slightly smaller form factor is a plus.

Also, the GTS 250 can be found cheaper than the 9800GTX+.

The ATI 4770 or the GTS 250 are good choices for a budget build, as well as the slightly slower 4850. Anything slower than the 4850 is almost completely useless to modern/future gaming as I see it.

To the OP, at the price of a 9800 GT, pick up an ATI 4770 or a GTS 250.

 

The price difference between the GTS 250 and the 9800GTX isn't that much though, maybe a 10 dollar difference depending on the model.

 

Go to Slickdeals and search video card.

Go wild.