[billyboy920]

As noted in an earlier post, I am building a new rig and would like some opinions on hardware options.

I am looking at an EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card priced at about $220. I want to get the best value for my money in a video card for a relatively high end build. I am not a frantic gamer but I do want something of good quality and flexibility that will not be out of date in 2 years.

Is this a good deal for the price, anyone have other recommendations?

thanks

Edited by billyboy920, 27 January 2008 - 01:27 PM.

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I had a radeon x1950 pro that i bought on ebay for $80. It plays plenty of games and its pretty cheap...

[arpalermo]

I had a radeon x1950 pro that i bought on ebay for $80. It plays plenty of games and its pretty cheap...

[billyboy920]

thanks, Ill look on e-bay and amazon

[reconman]

I'd recommend the Radeon hd3870, it's a much better value for the price than the 8800gts. The memory size is 512mb (the gts only has 320mb) and it's got GDDR4 memory while the GTS has GDDR3. And it's a much faster card than the 8800GTS.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814103050

Edited by reconman, 27 January 2008 - 11:01 PM.

[billyboy920]

I'd recommend the Radeon hd3870, it's a much better value for the price than the 8800gts. The memory size is 512mb (the gts only has 320mb) and it's got GDDR4 memory while the GTS has GDDR3. And it's a much faster card than the 8800GTS.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814103050

Just read the anandtech review ant they like it. I'll put it on my wish list.
thanks

[Troy]

Hi there,

this card beats all the cards mentioned so far, for only a few dollars more than your $220 budget. I would save an extra $20 and get it, you won't regret it.

Troy

[stettybet0]

I second Troy's recommendation. However, you say that you don't want the card you choose to be out of date in two years. Well, unfortunately pretty much every single piece of PC hardware will be out of date in two years. This card will look like nothing when the 9 series comes out in August. But then again, the 9 series will look like nothing when the 10 series comes out. My point is, waiting in the PC hardware game will get you nowhere. You have to jump in sometime, and I can't think of a better place to jump in than with the 8800GT.

[Troy]

By the way, what PSU do you have/are you thinking of getting? All of the suggestions so far a reasonably demanding on the PSU.

Troy

[billyboy920]

By the way, what PSU do you have/are you thinking of getting? All of the suggestions so far a reasonably demanding on the PSU.

Troy

I expect to get at least 600 watt PS to go with new case, http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811119138 , just haven't decided which brand yet. Still on the fence regarding Mobo, should I wait for bigger selection of X-48 chipset boards. The only one from Intel requires DDR3, which looks like a terrible investment given the big drop in ddr2 prices. I can get 4 gig of Corsair DDR2 800 for $98 right now. The X-48 mobo on the market right now look grossly overpriced to me. Looking to order parts and build in late march at the moment. May wait till summer if something exciting looks to happen in the near term.

Edited by billyboy920, 28 January 2008 - 05:07 PM.

[reconman]

Wow, I didn't released the 8800GT dropped in price so much. Forget the hd3870, go with the 8800GT!

Edited by reconman, 28 January 2008 - 05:19 PM.

[Troy]

Looking to order parts and build in late march at the moment. May wait till summer if something exciting looks to happen in the near term.

Perhaps we'll look at a build closer to that date, there will be new parts released by then. Give this thread a bump around mid-March.

Troy

[james_8970]

At this point I do not recommend anyone purchase a 8800GT. Currently there is a known problem with these cards that no one knows how to fix, as the issues appears to be very, very, very random (nVidia is obviously keeping quite).
Basically a break down of what is happening:
The card will boot and then throttle telling the user there is insufficient power, this happens on 800W PSU as well as other PSU. If you thought that was interesting, the problem goes on. So people go and try a different PSU, and it'll work (same model numbered 800W PSU, same batch number). Replacing the motherboards and various other pieces of hardware tends to fix it, but the end result is the user will have to RMA something to resolve the issue. As I said, this issue is extremely random and a solution cannot be tracked down at this time.
While the grand majority of the cards will work fine, there is still the chance.....
James

Edited by james_8970, 28 January 2008 - 07:24 PM.

[reconman]

Well, as far as I know, Nvidia is still scheduling to release the lower end Geforce 9 cards in mid February and the higher end cards sometime in March or April, so I would go with your decision to wait.

[stettybet0]

The 9600GT will be released on February 21st and it will be the best price/performance card, costing about $150 but giving performance at about the same level as the HD3870, and even better with AA enabled. The 9800GX2 and the 9500GT will be released in March and the 9800GX2 will be the most powerful GPU available. The above cards, however are just die shrinks of the 8 series (or in the case of the 9800GX2, two 8 series cards stuck together). The real 9 series cards should be available in August. The flagship card, the 9800GTX is reportedly 2-3 times faster than the 8800GTX, with about 3 teraflops of computational power (the most powerful single card currently available (on paper), the HD3870X2, has only 1 teraflop of computational power). If you are waiting until the summer, I would strongly recommend this card, or a cheaper 9800GTS or 9800GT version, which should still be great choices.

[james_8970]

The flagship card, the 9800GTX is reportedly 2-3 times faster than the 8800GTX, with about 3 teraflops of computational power

Again, this is impossible with todays technology. We will not see the 3 teraflop mark till 2010 at the earliest. I can see 1.25 or 1.5 teraflops (maybe), but 3 teraflops is a huge over exaggeration on a single core GPU.

If you want a mid range card I'd suggest waiting, or if you want to wait for nVidia's due GPU solution. I'd be willing to bet that nVidia will not be releasing anything in august, there have been a way to many delays in the market as of yet and ATI has already announced that they will not release their R700 products till 2009. nVidia has no reason to launch anything till October/November (just before the holiday season).
James

Edited by james_8970, 29 January 2008 - 12:08 AM.