[dancingcleo]

Hi, as the title suggests I am looking for some new stuff for my computer. I built my computer about a year ago. Here's the important spec.
abit an8 motherboard
1 gig kingston ram
3200+ venice amd athlon 64 cpu

The rest of the stuff was taken from my old computer as i was on a budget. Now i got a little bit more cash and am looking to upgrade my graphics card and hard drive as i'm guessin these components would make the most difference to my setup. I'll only problly be able to do one at a time and I think ill do the gfx card first. I'm a moderate gamer who does play some quite power hungry games. The comp at the moment handles everythin quite well but id like the games 2 go a bit faster and I'm guessin that a new GFX card would speed stuff up a bit? I dont wanna spend too much really, but id like the card to last for at least a couple of years. I'm not crazy though about the detail lookin slightly shabby i just want it to run pretty quick with the detail lookin ok. Here are some cards that have caught my eye:

Leadtek Winfast 6800 LE 256mb 256bit PCI-E- £94.99
Xfx Geforce 6600GT 128MB DDR PCI-E Dual DVI TVO- £97.99
Sapphire X800GTO 256mb GDDR3 PCI-E VGA/TVO/DVI- £117.99
Sapphire X800GTO² 256mb GDDR3 PCI-E VGA/DVI/TV-out Lite Retail- £134.99
Leadtek WinFast PX6800GT-TDH256 GeForce 6800GT 256MB PCI-E TV-out DVI- £167.98
XFX GEFORCE 6800GS XXX PV-T42G-UAD7 256MB DDR3 TV + DVI- £173.46

The 6800GT and GS are actually a bit out of my price range but I'd b willing 2 go for them if they made a big difference to the gameplay and how long the card'd last for. Obviously I'd like to go for the cheapest one that'd suit what i need it for. I think I'm headin towards the Sapphire X800GTO². What do you guys think?

Edited by dancingcleo, 10 January 2006 - 02:44 AM.

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The 6800GS is a good price to performance ratio.You can play a lot of the new games at decent settings. It includes Shader Model 3 and SLi which is a big bonus. But your mobo probably doesn't have SLI. As for the X800GTO, it doesn't have Shader 3 and so may not play the lastest games. If you don't mind the extra, fork out for a 7800GT, this will give you a lot of head room. but 6800GS is cheaper. It just depends and the GS is a good gfx card. only gripe is that it's not passive cooling like X800GTO. I'd get the 7800GT, it maybe expensive but will give you more headroom than the GS, you'll likely be changing the GS for something by the end of 2007, 7800GT, at least 2008. it really all depends if you game a lot or just want a decent game once a while. but when overclocking, because of the 7800GT's 24 pipelines, it gives you more hit per MHz. So i think 6800GS for a buget gamer and if you can fork out the extra, splash out some more and get the 7800GT. Or wait for the 7600 to arrive in large numbers

otherwise stick to the 6600GT which is ok by the time you read this, 6800GS should be in your buget range.

Edited by Hammm, 05 February 2006 - 01:17 AM.

[Hammm]

The 6800GS is a good price to performance ratio.You can play a lot of the new games at decent settings. It includes Shader Model 3 and SLi which is a big bonus. But your mobo probably doesn't have SLI. As for the X800GTO, it doesn't have Shader 3 and so may not play the lastest games. If you don't mind the extra, fork out for a 7800GT, this will give you a lot of head room. but 6800GS is cheaper. It just depends and the GS is a good gfx card. only gripe is that it's not passive cooling like X800GTO. I'd get the 7800GT, it maybe expensive but will give you more headroom than the GS, you'll likely be changing the GS for something by the end of 2007, 7800GT, at least 2008. it really all depends if you game a lot or just want a decent game once a while. but when overclocking, because of the 7800GT's 24 pipelines, it gives you more hit per MHz. So i think 6800GS for a buget gamer and if you can fork out the extra, splash out some more and get the 7800GT. Or wait for the 7600 to arrive in large numbers

otherwise stick to the 6600GT which is ok by the time you read this, 6800GS should be in your buget range.

Edited by Hammm, 05 February 2006 - 01:17 AM.

[comanighttrain]

The sapphire X800GTO2 is the best choice as long as your not scared of a little overclocking. It is majorly clockable.

What games you play on it?

If you like doom or Battlefield 2 : 6800GS/T

if your a half life 2/ Counterstrike guy : X800GTo2



Personally, the X800GT02 would be my choice, but then again, i dont intend my gaming equipment to last over 5 years.

[Hammm]

i just think that overall nVidia has a better package. ATI don't seem to have many support for it's cards, such as Far Cry, none of the older generation have Shader Model 3 so it won't have a good long future. The drivers are a bit dodgey, Open GL isn't great. Sure, the new X1800XT cane the 7800 but it's still not as good. The price maybe same but nVidia's suppliers give better software, games bundle. The drivers are much more stable and mature and they offer a good SLI upgrade path. The 6800GS is certainly no slouch at half-life two and CS S but the framerates that GTO2 offers are invisible to the naked eye. In a test by PC Authority the 6800GS scored never less than 6 FPS behind the GTO in HL2 or Far Cry. At 1280x1024 4x AA 8xAF GS had 49 FPS in HL2 while GTO took 56 FPS, Far Cry was 53 for GS, 58 for GTO. Yet the GS gives the GTO a cane by over 20 FPS in Doom 3. however except for doom 3, all other games, you won't acutually SEE the difference. It'll just be there for bragging. Crossfire seems, at least in NZ, to be [bleep]. Master Cards are hard to find and so are the mobos but SLI is now mature to a point same chipset cards from different suppliers can be teamed up. So when games start to lagg in future, get another card for a lot less, then, if you don't have an SLI mobo, by one for 210 NZD or 63 pounds, really cheap as they get older and near double the performance

[warriorscot]

ATIs card support is hand own better than nvidia its driver support has time and time agan one many awards the catalyst series of drivers is the bet ive ever used.

SM3 isnt important at all all the features are identical its main purpose is its increased efficency which the nvidia cards needed as they lack the level of efficiency in built into ATI cards, efficiency is the ATI speciality Nvidia concentrate more upon raw power ATI get there card and then they see how ast they can get it witout undue tweaking then work on things like render efficiency and colour reproduction, image quality etc.

SLI is never a good option later down the line as card power increases almost eponentialy with generations and prices only drop below a certain level especially with nvidia they often will just stop selling them if they drop below a certain price level dual gfx cards is still more of a gimmick than a practical technology and definatley not worht the money its just another way for them to make twice the profit from you. The only way i ever reccomend it is if you have an insane amount of money when you build the pc otherwise its pretty useless as a later upgrade.

[Hammm]

i still don't like the way ATi gfx cards sound so badly lol

really noisy

Edited by Hammm, 05 February 2006 - 03:13 PM.

[Comrade General]

i still don't like the way ATi gfx cards sound so badly lol

really noisy

And how do you know it was the card? Maybe it was the case/fans?

[Hammm]

well my friend has a good system and he recently bought the x1800XT, before, it was peaceful with two zalman ultra quite fans and intergrated gfx(lol) and then we plugged it in and it sounded like a hairdryer

[Comrade General]

well my friend has a good system and he recently bought the x1800XT, before, it was peaceful with two zalman ultra quite fans and intergrated gfx(lol) and then we plugged it in and it sounded like a hairdryer

Bet he noticed a performance boost though.

[Hammm]

sure, a big hit, he was like, What the...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But man the noise was bad, like a constant drone, like flies, making you want to smack down hard on the noise maker i wouldn't have of minded a good old V8 grunt but that was just