Help with choosing graphics card

[sacoops]

Hi. I am new to this and have done some research on graphics cards but i am still stuck on which one to go for. I have an Intel P4 3.6GHz, 1GB RAM, PCI-E slot and i want to spend no more than about £140 or $240. Any ideas that you may have would be helpful. Please bear in mind that i may not be able to buy from shops like newegg.com as they do not ship internationally to me. I can get a Sapphire x850xt for about this price. Is that good? I have a 350w power supply too. Will that limit anything?

 

[sacoops]

I can get an 512MB x800GTO for $190. Good?

 

[ikjadoon]

Good choice, but I thought the X850 XT was faster than the X800GTO. You could of course OC it, though...

~Ibrahim~

 

[sacoops]

How easy is that to do. Are there any instructions on the web somewhere?

 

[ikjadoon]

A friend of mine did a while back.Well, he is a very good overclocker.... He is actually working for Overdrive PC. You could go over to their forums and maybe PM him, tell him I referred you...

~Ibrahim~

 

[sacoops]

Also i am confused as to why there is such a divide between nVidia and ATi. What are the pros and cons of each?

 

[pauldh]

I can get an 512MB x800GTO for $190. Good?

If that is $190 USD, then No, it's not really a good buy. (If it's not USD, then disreguard any prices below.) A X850XT would beat the 512MB X800XL in everything except COD2 which likes the added vram. And the X850XT can be found for around $160 ( in the USA) now. For $190 you can buy a 7600GT also. AFAIK, There has not been any reviews pitting the two against each other. I think they would trade blows (depending on the game and settings) and personally believe the X850XT may come out on top overall. Other thing to consider is features, X850XT is an SM2.0(b) card while the 7600GT supports SM3. I'd be looking at these two cards if you can't stretch the budget to a much better card like the $300 X1800XT 256MB or the 7900GT.