NOOB: Need Advice: Single Card GPU--for NWN2 and C&C3

[PeaceLoving]

I don't think I'll wait for the DX10 GPUs. They will probably come out expensive anyways.

I'm planning to play Neverwinter Nights 2 and Tiberium Sun (C&C 3). I wanna try turning on the AA and HDR. (I've never done it in my life cuz the best card i'm using right now is only a GeForce 6200 :? )

I read in another thread about the HIS 1900XT Ice3Q something. Btw 1900XT, 1950XTX, and 7900GTX--which would be enough for the 2 games I have mentioned and yet be the quietest, coolest, and best saver of electricity.

Pls attach an article comparing 1950XTX with Geforce 7900GTX. Want to know which would be quieter, cooler, and use less electricity. Thanks.

 

[illuminatirex]

"only a GeForce 6200"...that sux so badly.....lol...(just kiding m8) lol lucky u lol if I would have the gpu u have right now i would wait till the dx10 cards come out and be happy with it (yet again im not you) I think its not worth geting any of the cards even the 1900 nowedays knowing that much beter (speed wise, functionality/option wise, and beter cooling/ocing wise) cards will come out soon, and the games of 2007 and such will require much more than even the mid 1900 if You want to have al details to a max, and such, check out a game "project offset", even fear looks crapy compared to it, even thou it was the "ultimate" game (atleast visualy there were much oh, and ahs about it), thats why im building a new system now but with the cheapest pciexpress card i could find, so i wouldnt miss it when i will swich to a dx10 card about this time next year, when all the excitement cools down a bit, if You want to go with a high end card now thats sweet for games nowedays and others which come out in early 2007 (maby)but You will not see the "beauti" in other games later on but its ur funer...er decision lol, lol and all that is coming from a person that still uses a radeon 7500 A-I-W, and got a radeon x850xt couple of days ago(still waiting for a store that has a mobo availabe), and will probably get a dx10 card in a year or so...but anyways lol, and here after so much rumbling the answers to Your questions(or atleast i tried to give some )

in regards to the ati vs nvidia, usualy nvidia's cards use less power, and are relatively a bit more quiet, ...in regards to the AA and HDR, if im not mistaken the ati cards can do both at the same time, nvidia cards might not...(i might be wrong on this one thou)..thats what i got from some reviews in which far cry was used as a test app. the 1900xtx is a nice buy pricewise $380 (around that) considering it did cost over $500 not so long ago, that or even the 1900xt wil alow You to play the c&c 3, if you are primarely thinking of geting the gpu for that purpose, hm...quieter maby the 1900xt and xtx maby they are not, if You will plan to stay with the stock hsf you might have a bit of a "jet" there, but i dont think thats much of an issue if you play games with the volume relatively high.otherwise its noticable.....lol hope this helped a bit here, btw i think that the his icq had relatively good reviews in regards to cooling, not shoor about the quietness.

 

[PeaceLoving]

Thanks for the advice... appreciate it....will take your advice and go with 7900GT or 1900XT while waiting for DX10...(at least end of next year) LOL!

I'm aiming for this kind of system. I wonder how much a system like this would cost?

E6600
1900XT
2 Gig RAM (Kingston or Corsair VS)
500 Watt PSU (a moderately priced brand)
HD 120 Gb Seagate
P5B mobo
DVD ROM (any moderately priced)
DVD RW (any moderately priced)

Please give a a quote (average) ......ex.$1000 .....(of course it would be nicer if it were cheaper!) lol!

Thanks :lol:

 

[illuminatirex]

check on newegg, or price grabber

 

[towely]

Thanks for the advice... appreciate it....will take your advice and go with 7900GT or 1900XT while waiting for DX10...(at least end of next year) LOL!

I'm aiming for this kind of system. I wonder how much a system like this would cost?

E6600
1900XT
2 Gig RAM (Kingston or Corsair VS)
500 Watt PSU (a moderately priced brand)
HD 120 Gb Seagate
P5B mobo
DVD ROM (any moderately priced)
DVD RW (any moderately priced)

Please give a a quote (average) ......ex.$1000 .....(of course it would be nicer if it were cheaper!) lol!

Thanks :lol:

That system would run you around $1700-1800 USD. I am building a similar system (albeit with higher performance RAM and a better PSU )and it is costing a little over 2000 CAD.

I would reccomend waiting 2 weeks for the x1950xtx because it is supposed to run significantly cooler, quiter and faster than the 1900 series.

 

[Morton]

Thanks for the advice... appreciate it....will take your advice and go with 7900GT or 1900XT while waiting for DX10...(at least end of next year) LOL!

I'm aiming for this kind of system. I wonder how much a system like this would cost?

E6600
1900XT
2 Gig RAM (Kingston or Corsair VS)
500 Watt PSU (a moderately priced brand)
HD 120 Gb Seagate
P5B mobo
DVD ROM (any moderately priced)
DVD RW (any moderately priced)

Please give a a quote (average) ......ex.$1000 .....(of course it would be nicer if it were cheaper!) lol!

Thanks :lol:

I don't know about C&C 3, but NWN 2 will support SM 3.0 HDR. This means that if you want to enable both HDR and AA, you will need to have a new generation Radeon preferably from the high-end category to sustain good FPS rates with all the visual settings turned on. Radeon X1900 XT(X) is good, but the new X1950 XT(X) could be even better. You could save some money on CPU and get E6400 instead of E6600. You could put the extra money on a 250Gb or 320Gb hard-drive because 120Gb nowadays isn't that much (my NWN 1 is taking up 20Gb with all hak paks and stuff 8O). When choosing which PSU to buy, it's a good idea to keep in mind that DX10 video cards will probably need more power in the future (NWN 2 will be a DX9 game, though). I guess for a single DX10 card you might need a PSU with at least 500W which has two or more 12v rails that can sustain up to 36 amps in total.

 

[illuminatirex]

the 1950xt xtx will be much quieter, a bit faster about at max 7% faster, so i gues if the noise is a major factor (and 7% of speed increase is not much) its beter to get the 1950 one, btw i thought they are already available since august 27th or so, or maby just on paper lol....btw the hsf of the new 1950 looks sweet lol

 

[Doughbuy]

I don't see the point in getting a E6400 instead of an E6600, shrug. I would still like the extra cache even if it doesn't offer that much performance gain now, would be useful in other applications in the future. If you have to have your system soon, than the X1950XTX is the way to go. I'm holding off until at least Thanksgiving to get in on Black Fiday deals and see whats happening in the industry.

Yeah, its pretty much a paper launch, only review sites got the cards, says they probably won't be out on shelves until mid september.

 

[towely]

the 1950xt xtx will be much quieter, a bit faster about at max 7% faster, so i gues if the noise is a major factor (and 7% of speed increase is not much) its beter to get the 1950 one, btw i thought they are already available since august 27th or so, or maby just on paper lol....btw the hsf of the new 1950 looks sweet lol

Much quiter and cooler. The added speed is just a bonus.


The x1950xtx was a paper launch. Retail availability est. 14 September.

 

[DaveUK]

This depends entirely on your budget.

To be honest, you'd be better off buying an X1900XT (overclocked to near-XTX speeds) with a Zalman VF900-cu cooler mounted with AS5.

The X1900XT will be at most 15 percent slower than an X1950XTX, but will probably be 50 percent cheaper. You will also find that the Zalman cooler will run quieter and with lower temperatures than the X1950XTX with stock cooler.

I'd personally buy the X1900XT w/ Zalman and save the £150 price difference from the X1950XTX towards the first fleet of DX10 cards and a copy of Vista. *That* will get you the most value for your money.

And yes, I'd get an E6600 over an E6400 too.

If you're gaming at higher resolutions with 4xAA and 8xAF you may want to seriously consider 2x 7900GT's on an SLI board (similar money to an X1950XT). Noisier, true, but better performance if you have a large monitor.

 

[illuminatirex]

lol yet another reason for me to wait till the dx120 cards come out, and stay for now with the x850xt till about this time next year or so lol....hopefully the x850xt will give me nice visuals(im still waiting for my mobo to be available, the rest is "collecting dust" still lol)

 

[thelvyn]

6400 is better if your planning to OC though. The 2mb core2's OC better then the 4mb ones do.

 

[purdueguy]

PSU: Hiper 580W PSU - $110

CPU: Intel C2D E6400 - $235

Video Card: Un-freakin-believable. Get this card. Period. No questions asked. Best bang for the buck for a high-end card. You'll have to pay retail first and send in for the $150 mail-in-rebate. Waiting for the X1950XTX is a waste of time and money for the price of this card.MSI X1900XTX - $284

Check for yourself. Video Card Benchmarks

Motherboard: P5B is fine. Only one problem. No firewire support. ASUS P5B - $154

Memory: Corsair XMS2 2GB - $186

Hard Drive: Western Digital 250GB - $86

DVD players: Don't have any recommendations but you can buy both for around $60.

Total: $1115.00

One question. Are you planning on using an existing case or are you planning on buying one also?

Hey towely, sounds like you got ripped off. Sorry man.

 

[illuminatirex]

2 late lol i already got all the parts except the mobo, im still waiting for a place to get the p5w dh mobo from, btw in regards to the last post, and overall, i think that even todays high end gpus are ....(sory to say it) worthless, compared to what will come out soon in the 6 months or so range in games, will totaly "pawn" all crap(in my opinion) like oblivion and other games visually, i might have mentioned this or not, but games like project offset, elvion, dragon kingdom, haze, crysis (partially) annihilation kingdoms(not shoor if thats the corect translation, my german is a bit rusty), and other games will totaly surprise many, even those with gpu cards like 1900xt and such will regret geting them "now" ...thats why i tried to spend as less $$ on a gpu as possible now, and besides i honestly do not see a game nowedays that would "wow" me, (i havent played bf2 , or bfme2 yet ) but overall graphically, or even game wise i think the past 2 or 3 years were kind of a "stagnation" atleast in the quality, repleyability, and overall sence, im shoor those who remember older games will agrie with me, or is it just me that is still searching for a game that would captivate one so that he/she sits till the early morning hours by the screan, half asleap, but still craving for more while playing a game? lol, im shoor those "times" might return again in the mid to late 2007 if we will look at some games from the visual perspective, no offence i admit that letsay fear, doom 3, crysis had their moments of faim, but they were just another "minor visual evolution", , but if some of you would look at some of the titles that i have mentioned above like project offset, im shoor that ull be "wow'ed" honestly I have to say that i was amazed by po, and i was more amazed at its graphics than crysi's graphics(which i admit are nice) but i have to say there is no comparison. po, and i might add haze, and a bit dragon kingdoms, and a litle less elvion are just amazing....some trailers are on gametrailers.com's site, especialy many high def videos are worth looking at, just amazing things. ....lol that was a lot of text lol...sorry about it, just had to get it out lol

 

[PeaceLoving]

Thanks for the detailed specs reply! ....$1000 not enough huh? I got my P4 2.8E rig for around $600 3 years ago. The computer industry is really bleeding us dry! (tho we bleed willingly! LOL )

Illuminatirex....how much did you spend for your whole E6600 rig?

 

[illuminatirex]

i think itll be areound 1300 or so and including a tv wonder 650 pro in it(im still searching for a place that sells it)