What video card for gaming?

[scared but happy]

As the title says! I have fitted a NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 and it is a bit slow, what do you all recommend for gaming now ie HL2 lost coast. Without killing my bank account. oh and a minimum of 1024x768 res.
Otherwise PC is OK 3.15Ghz 1Gb ram etc.

I got lost after my Voodoo 2 SLI stuff.

[_dobbo_]

Take the top of the range for either nVidia or ATI, count down one or two models, and then there's your card.

[Church of Noise]

sbh, if you're thinking about selling that fx5200, could you drop me a message please?

Thanks!

Alex

[robbieduncan]

Depends on the motherboard. If you have a PCIe (PCI Express) motherboard then a 7800 card is the obvious choice. These are not available for AGP and are not likely to be available so a 6800 card would probably be the best choice. I have a 7800GT and it's able to play pretty much any game at 1280x1024 with everything maxed out (Doom 3 runs with everything at max, 4xAA and 4xAF).

[steve_evil]

You're a bit stuck, you mention not wanting to ruin your bank balance, but to see HL2: The Lost Coast as it's meant to be seen you will need to spend a fair bit of money, going for one of the mid level cards won't show off any of the advanced effects in The Lost Coast, my X800XT which was a top-notch card a year ago still chugs on it in sections and it isn't a particularly cheap card even now. Saying that, The Lost Coast is about the biggest test of a graphics card there is at the moment, so the cards that can run it as it should be (like the 7800 mentioned previously) will do you fine for at least another year and a half, by which time they will start to look a little tired with the titles that will start to appear. It's the main annoyance with PC gaming, but it's also why it stays so far ahead of the Console pack. The next gen consoles are up there with the very best the PC can offer at the moment, but given a couple of years and the PC will be on a whole new level.

[scared but happy]

What sort of prices am I looking at? £100-£200? I dont have this PCIe motherboard is that something I will need now to keep up? if so how much are they?

Church of Noise said:

sbh, if you're thinking about selling that fx5200, could you drop me a message please? Thanks! Alex

Will do, when I can find a card. There seems to be so many choices.

[steve_evil]

To see the effects in the lost coast you need to be spending £250+ and the motherboard to run it will probably be another £70. Or you could get an average card for £150 but I doubt it will cope too well with the Lost Coast.

[pentoman]

go to www.tomshardware.com and look at the VGA Charts. It's pretty easy to see from there how much graphics power you get for your money, and where it stops being good value for money to spend extra. A Geforce 6600GT looked good price/performance wise to me last time I looked, but it won't be the totally all-singing-all-dancing card (more Evo VII FQ320 than Evo VIII MR400).

Russell

[robbieduncan]

scared but happy said:

What sort of prices am I looking at? £100-£200? I dont have this PCIe motherboard is that something I will need now to keep up? if so how much are they?

My 7800GT was around £250. If you have an Athlon (not Athlon-64) you may well be looking at a new CPU to go with that PCIe motherboard, in which case you may need new RAM as well.

My last upgrade cost £700 all in for new Motherboard, CPU, RAM, Graphics Card, Harddrive and a copy of Windows-64bit (optional).

[Mr Whippy]

May also need a new PSU for these new heavy power sapping graphics cards!

I'd just stick with what you have and do a full upgrade to decent bits.

I tried doing a halfway house upgrade a while back and needed a new PSU, then RAM etc as the old stuff was a bottle neck.

Best to just get what is best bang per £ at that time and get the whole lot, cpu, ram, mobo, gfx etc...

www.futuremark.com have good forums for asking. Give budget and current spec and they'll tell you what to get to get biggest go for the money!

Happy upgrading

Dave

[FourWheelDrift]

I've just shoved an Nvidia Geforce 6600GT (256mb) into my PC, it needs at least a 250w PSU (I have a 300w) and has doubled my frame rate from my old FX5500 (also the 256mb version). I could have bought online and waited but couldn't be bothered so went down Sleazy World last Sunday and paid £129 for it (I know, I know). I only bougt that one as their were no 6800's or even 7000 series cards in stock there.

But I am happy with it, I get these increases.

GTR with FX5500 - 1280x1024x32, low settings race mode - 30fps
GTR with 6600GT - 1280x1024x32, high-full settings race mode 60-70 fps

GTL with FX5500 - 1280x1024x32 (DX7), low settings - 20-30fps
GTL with 6600GT - 1280x1024x32 (DX9), med-high settings - 40-50fps

more than enough, they eye doesn't recognise anything above 25fps as anything else but smooth but does notice changes in FPS so a good constant 30+ is easily good enough for good gaming.

[scared but happy]

FourWheelDrift said:

Lots of stuff

Ok so is it a AGP or PCI express? If I buy an AGP version (£120 ish) then what speed differance over an PCIe +/- ?

[FourWheelDrift]

Mine is the AGP version, can't comment on PCI I'm afraid.

[_VTEC_]

The 6600gt is actually a very good mid-range card and quite a bit better than the ATI 9800xt. I've got one on the Xmas list as it happens.

[leosayer]

I've got a 6600GT and am having problems with Call of Duty 2 at 1280x1024, have had to down grade to 1024x768 for now.

[jfrf]

theres really jack all diffeence in speed bwtwen agp and pci-e

Its just that pci-e is the new format.

you can still get decent fast agp cards

tpp of the range agp card is ati x850xt pe at about 250 quid.
not cheap but its fast

[pentoman]

Can you get any motherboards that support AGP and PCI-express?

That's the dilemma I'm currently having.

P.S. After much investigation a Geforce 6600GT is great performance/price wise, or for a little more ££ the Radeon X800 (XT model ideally).

Russell

[Rob P]

How about going SLI?

Expensive but it does mean that in a year or so the second card will be much cheaper....

[robbieduncan]

Rob P said:

How about going SLI? Expensive but it does mean that in a year or so the second card will be much cheaper....

This is what I am banking on. In 6-8 months when my machine starts feeling a little slow I can pop a second 7800GT in.

In answer to a question above there are a couple of boards that support both AGP and PCIe but they are not great.

[pentoman]

robbieduncan said:

Rob P said: How about going SLI? Expensive but it does mean that in a year or so the second card will be much cheaper.... This is what I am banking on. In 6-8 months when my machine starts feeling a little slow I can pop a second 7800GT in. In answer to a question above there are a couple of boards that support both AGP and PCIe but they are not great.

cheers for the answer.

P.S. I'm amused by the concept of 'just one' 7800 GT being out not fast enough in 6-8 months time!

I am refusing to buy Nvidia any more after their patchy drivers for my nForce 2 and inconsistent graphics performance (in some cases the Geforce 4 is better than the FX5900!?), and also I've never been at all impressed with my FX5900 - in fact all the NV35(?) products were rubbish.

So ATi here I come! And VIA for a Socket 939 board.


Russell