Graphics Card.......

[catso]

OK so I'm looking for a new Graphics card, the usual problem want the best for the least, looking to spend up to £50 -£60. Want 256mb for PC that gets general use but kids play a lot of games and, they tell me, the existing card just doesn't cut it.

Any Recommendations, advice etc.

Thanks in advance.

[Platinum]

What card do you have at the moment?

(In Windows XP:

Right click > 'proerties' > 'settings' tab > 'advanced' > 'adapter' tab. It should be listed under adapter type.)

[pjskel]

Is your motherboard equipped with PCI-E or AGP for the GC?
That'll dictate things quite a bit.
You could use the likes of www.pricerunner.co.uk to find a comprehensive list of whichever type available.
For the budget, I'm thinking Nvidia 6600, possibly 7300.

Here you go - http://tinyurl.com/mk6k7
Change type to AGP if that's what you have. Nvidia 7600GS looking good if you up the budget another £10 or so.

Edited by pjskel on Sunday 27th August 21:34

[catso]

Current card is NVIDIA GEforce4 MX 420 AGP 4X which, I believe has 64mb.

[That Daddy]

ati 9800 pro AGP card,stunning card for this kind of budget,once an high end card.sapphire recommended brand,very clockable if your into that kind of thing.9800pro with arctic cooler BLISS.

[bez_uk]

Nvidia 6600GT (around £60- worth the extra £10) far better than any ATI for that sort of price.
www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/108147/rb/21345503677

The ATI X800 is about £100 (if you can find any in stock anymore) these far outperform any of the above but obviously a bit of jump in price. Worth every penny if you can find one.
www.cclonline.com/product-info-pc.asp?id=6210&pc=nextaguk

The ATI X1300 and X1600 are worth avoiding... they're rubbish. They cost about the same as the nvidia but there performance is shocking. (see below)

www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html
^^use this to check out how good the card is compared to others... the X800XT is a good benchmark for the sort of budget you're on.

[Platinum]

That Daddy said:

ati 9800 pro AGP card,stunning card for this kind of budget,once an high end card.sapphire recommended brand,very clockable if your into that kind of thing.9800pro with arctic cooler BLISS.

I picked one up a year or so back for about £80

Edited by Platinum on Tuesday 29th August 00:07

[catso]

Thanks for the advice, after looking around I've ordered an Nvidia 6600, hopefully that'll do the job.

[bez_uk]

6600 GT? If so it'll impress the kids over the old one!!

[pjskel]

Still think you should've gone with the 7600GS as it's a newer card and will play some of the current games with decent frame rates with a few features on rather than all set to a mixture of low/off.
But either way, you'll appreciate the extra horsepower the new card will bring.

[bez_uk]

Its newer yes... its more expensive yes and slower? YES!! check out the tom's hardware link above and compare benchmarks.

[mr_yogi]

the 7600GS is very good in PCI-E form but all the AGP versions I've seen have been crippled by the memory bandwidth

My Brother is looking for a new video card for under £100 and i've been through all these options with him. The 7600GS is an amazing card for the money but all the benchmarks I've found relate to the PCI-E versions, most of which have 400MHz(effective 800) or 450MHz (effective 900) DDR memory where as the AGP versions have 200MHz(effective 400) or 266MHz (effective 533) DDR memory

6600GT still looks top choice.

[bez_uk]

The 7600 GS as with the X1300 and X1600 can all make great graphics... what they cant do is framerates. To get round this you end up having to turn all graphics options down... in which case you may as well go for last gen graphics cards.
However the 7600 GT is the 6600 GT's update and the 7600 GS competes with the 6600 GS ... in that their individual matches the 7600's win, as one would expect.

Problem is the 7600 GT is nearer £150. And if you budget stretches that far... you can save £40 ish and get an ATI X850 Its last gen again... but kicks the ass of the 7600 GT.

Note: The 7600GS only marginally outperforms the 6600GT but can be anything up to twice the price.

Edited by bez_uk on Wednesday 30th August 16:21

[pjskel]

I did check the tom's hardware site - 7600GS was faster on a number (not by much I'll grant you).
That said though, if it was indeed PCI-E versions and the AGP bus really is a limiting factor, then you made the right choice.
I was always under the impression that the AGP bus wasn't fully saturated at 8x, but was a marketing lead thing rather than performance related.