Choosing Graphic Card from Dell

[eugeneeg]

Hi,

I'm trying to put a system together from Dell and I feel I need some help with the Video Card choice. I'm an acasional gamer and would like to play current games.

The choices are:

128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory

256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X600 SE HyperMemory

256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800

256MB Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX

What would you recommend? I feel the choice is between 256MB ones, but I can't decide which one.

Thanks,
-Eugene

 

[pickxx]

Does the 6800 have letters at the end of it? Like GT, GS, Ultra? anything?

The 7800GTX is a AMAING card that will play any game on the market maxed out....its a beast card. if you can afford it, get it


but other then that the 6800 will be good and will play any current game but with reduced settings.

And the other two are trash. Dont even consider them

 

[eugeneeg]

Does the 6800 have letters at the end of it? Like GT, GS, Ultra? anything?

The 7800GTX is a AMAING card that will play any game on the market maxed out....its a beast card. if you can afford it, get it


but other then that the 6800 will be good and will play any current game but with reduced settings.

And the other two are trash. Dont even consider them

No letters that I can see, but please take a look here maybe I'm missing something.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DXPS400F1&s=dhs

Thanks.

 

[pickxx]

Alright i will rank everything from 1-10 in my eyes to give you soe referance.


the two ATI cards are rubbish, the X300 would be a 1, and the X600 would be a 2.5....you couldn't game with either.

The 6800 thats lised is a 4.5, you could game a little but you would have to lower your settings quite a bit. and the card would be outdated in about 18-24months.

the 7800GTX is a 8.5 You can play any game turn everything on high and go....if yu can afford this....GET IT! its seriously worth it.


I would say either get he 7800GTX, or if you can't afford that get the lowest option and buy a card from www.newegg.com once your computer comes. You have all kinds of options from 150-400 bucks that dell doesn't carry

 

[eugeneeg]

Alright i will rank everything from 1-10 in my eyes to give you soe referance...

Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[pickxx]

Buy me a 7800GTX if your getting one too...

 

[pauldh]

Yeah, Dell has lousy choices really. The two ATI's they carry stink, and the two NVidia's are way overpriced. Of course, buying the cheapest one and upgrading yourself will give Dell an excuse to not offer tech support anymore, so do this only if you are confident in your abilities and didn't plan on using Dell's tech support anyway. Basically, the 6800 is a decent midrange card and the 7800GTX is an amzing gaming card. Buy whichever you can afford of the two, or buy the cheapest X300se and upgrade it yourself to a X800GTO, 6800GS, X800XL, 7800GT, etc.

 

[eugeneeg]

How does 7800GTX perform when used other then gaming, like digital photo/video editing and Internet? The reason I ask is because I have heard that gaming cards have their drawbacks when used for non gaming tasks, but I'm not sure I understand what it means.

Thanks.

 

[pauldh]

Only drawback to these cards for those uses is the power consumption and possible noise depending on the manufacturer. Basically, no need to buy a 7800GTX apart from high resolution gaming as any passive cheap card can surf the web, etc.

I think the drawbacks you may have heard about are to do with professional workstations/3d modelling, etc., where a card running the proper drivers for these tasks is better than a gaming card running gaming drivers (and vis-versa). But this won't effect web surfing or you home video editing. If you like to game and are buying from Dell, get the 7800GTX if you can afford it.

 

[mpjesse]

Good question. Most video editing programs and all photo editing programs do not use the video card to do anything. We're just now seeing hardware accelerated video encoding on video cards that's actually worth a damn.

The majority of editing and encoding software out there (at the user end anyways) uses the CPU to do anything. Internet runs the same no matter what card you use- so doesn't matter there.

Unless you're using some hard core several thousand dollar video editing software, don't worry about how the card performs in video editing- cause it won't matter.

I would suggest the 6800 card. It's reasonably priced and runs all current games well at 1024x768. You don't seem like a hard core gamer- so getting the GTX is overkill.

-mpjesse

 

[eugeneeg]

I would suggest the 6800 card. It's reasonably priced and runs all current games well at 1024x768. You don't seem like a hard core gamer- so getting the GTX is overkill.

-mpjesse

In terms of visual affect (when playing games) is there a big difference between 6800 and GTX? You are correct I'm not a hard core gamer, but I would like to play current and future games from time to time. Would you say that a given game looks a lot more real with GTX or is it just a little better?

Thanks.

 

[dhlucke]

Get the 6800. The 7800gtx is way overkill for an occassional gamer.

 

[dhlucke]

I would suggest the 6800 card. It's reasonably priced and runs all current games well at 1024x768. You don't seem like a hard core gamer- so getting the GTX is overkill.

-mpjesse

In terms of visual affect (when playing games) is there a big difference between 6800 and GTX? You are correct I'm not a hard core gamer, but I would like to play current and future games from time to time. Would you say that a given game looks a lot more real with GTX or is it just a little better?

Thanks.

For you? Probably not much of a difference. By all means if you can afford it get the 7800gtx. If it's stretching your buget though don't bother.

The difference is in the game settings you'll be able to play at. If you can crank up every game to the highest settings you'll see everything that the game can offer. When you lower game settings certain things dissapper. Maybe it'll be th cloud of blood that shoots out of a body or a 2 lane paved road will now look like a dirt road. Do you care? You decide. The 7800gtx also allows you to play games at higher resolutions without it being so bogged down. I run a 24" LCD and the native resolution is very high and thus very taxing on my system. If you're going to run a big monitor then get the 7800 gtx. If you're just going to play the occassional game on a regular monitor though then I think the 6800 is fine.

 

[eugeneeg]

dhlucke,

I see what you saying...I don't play the games that often, but when I do, since I'm getting a new system I'd like to be able to play them they way they were intented to be displayed...Another thing is that I'm thinking about a future and it seems that GTX card will last longer as new games come out. Am I correct about this?

By the way I'm going to have 19' Ultra Sharp LCD from Dell with this card.

Thanks.

 

[pickxx]

Like i said....if you can afford the GTX GET IT

You can play all games the way they were ment to be played....and it will be an awesome card for a long time....3-4years you will still be able to game on it.

Its your call, but GTX if you can afford it....


DH has a 2405....that bastard.....which is the best computer monitor that isn't sold in the TV dept at stores...lol

 

[eugeneeg]

Ok, good deal, thanks folks again...I'm getting it

 

[pauldh]

Good deal because you will want to play at your LCD's native resolution, which I assume is 1280x1024. The 6800 will already struggle to play the newest games at 1280x1024, even without FSAA. Reducing the resolution lower than native will reduce image quality on an LCD. The 7800GTX will be a nice card letting you play everything at your native resolution, with eye candy to boot. Enjoy.

 

[Rob423]

with the money your blowing on those upgrades jeeze lol

Sucks when you can't build your own stuff.