video card brands & models

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utaustinstud

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So I'm looking into buying a new video card but don't know much about the various brands that are out there. I've read on Newegg that XFX support sucks but they have a lifetime warranty (which is moot if their support sucks). Any recommendations on brands?

I'd also like some recommendations on models. I'm not sure of my budget. I'm putting together a new system and would like to be able to play games at high resolutions (1600x1200 or 1920x1200) so I'm obviously needing a powerful card. Is the 8800gt the way to go? Or would the cheaper 9600gt still be able to play well at those resolutions? If neither of those cards are good enough for high resolutions, what card would you recommend?
 
jay2tall

jay2tall

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I like XFX and eVGA for nvidia cards and have always been a fan of Sapphire for ATI cards. What display are you running on? 16x12 and 19x12 resolutions? is it s 24"lcd or bigger? just curious.

at those resolutions a 8800gt would be ok, gts would be a little better (but better cooling). 9600GT is slighly under the 8800GT but is cheaper. You could always get a 9600gt SLI setup for a good price and at higher resolutions it would work pretty well. or 8800GT sli setup or even gts sli setup. what price range are you looking at? what is your current gear?
 
Annisman

Annisman

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As of right now, I would absolutely recommend a 9600 to anyone, it is very high performance for the money, also if you SLI it, which is not too expenisve, it beats out even the best cards out there.
 
jay2tall

jay2tall

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I agree. 9600gt's in SLI are a great setup. Especially now that almost every game has support for SLI and if it doesn't it's older and one card will run it at 100+fps.

I even thought about this but do not have an SLI mobo so my solution fit my situation.
 
jay2tall

jay2tall

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Hey thanks. That edumacated me a bit. I like there referece to Foxconn as I needed clarification on them as well.
 
jay2tall

jay2tall

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Very good point. I concur.
 
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utaustinstud

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So I've been away from the forums a couple days and have tons of responses. Thanks for all your help.

I've been looking at my budget and it seems to be not very SLI friendly right now. I've also thought about buying a cheaper computer (one that's not gaming capatable--at least not with the current games) and then buying a gaming console a few months down the line when I have more money.

If I decide to go that route--a non-gaming system I feel the 8800gt or 9600gt is just too much. I definitely will want to watch HDTV on my computer (so I'll probably need a little better video card for that perhaps) and I'd like to run Vista Ultimate with Aero (once I actually make the switch from XP to Vista).

If I'm going the non-gaming route, should I just get a 8600gt? I'm thinking I'd like to go with an Nvidia card because I'm thinking of the Hauppauge TV Card (anyone have any reviews/comments about them?) and the Nvidia card would probably work better with the Hauppauge card than an ATI card would.

Thanks for your help.

TurdBurglar: I noticed you have the P35-DS3L MOBO. I've heard really good things about it and that's the one I was thinking about getting for my system. Do you have anything good/bad to say about it?
 
TurdBurglar

TurdBurglar

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The P35-DS3L is great for my uses. It has great overclocking options and has been very stable for me. No firewire, no RAID, one parallel ATA connection. Allows for a very high FSB. I ran a 500FSB with an e6550 for months with not one stability issue. It does exactly what I need it to.
 
blacksci

blacksci

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I also have this motherboard, its a straight forward install as far as recognizing your hardware you have installed with it. The one big thing you have to watch out for is download the audio drivers and install them before your update xp or vista, if you dont you will not have sound until you uninstall the ms update and reinstall the gigabyte sound, i had this happen to me also. Also to get to the updated bios you have to hit ctrl+f1 when in bios to get to the advanced overclocking features, overclocking the cpu is simply done by adjusting your multiplyer, you dont have to mess with voltages, unless you like to do that sort of thing. The 8600 is garabge when compared to either the 8800 series or the 9600. If you want to save money and get decent graphics consider a 3850, im not a huge fan of ati, but hey thats the best card in its pricerange.
 
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utaustinstud

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So blacksci you said that "overclocking the cpu is simply done by adjusting the multiplier" but that doesn't make sense to me as I can't adjust it since it'll be locked, no? Unless of course I go with the extreme intel's (which my budget DEFINITELY won't be allowing for).

Also, if I get you correctly AFTER I install WinXP then I install the latest audio drivers from gigabyte's website and just simply AVOID any & all driver updates from the MS Update site? I usually do this anyway--I'd rather get the driver from the person who MAKES the hardware instead of some software company.

Also, you're telling me once I flash my BIOS to the latest version I then enter BIOS setup to OC and hit ctrl-f1 to get the "advanced overclocking features". What's the difference between the "advanced" and the "standard" features? Or are you saying that ALL OCing features are accessed via CTRL+F1?

I've also been looking at the GA-EP35-DS3R MOBO as well because it has 8 vs. 4 SATA connections AND it offers an E-SATA bracket. I've tried to get ACTUAL transfer rates for E-SATA vs. USB 2.0 but all I can seem to find is theoretical speeds like "e-sata should be as fast as sata." But I don't really care about THEORY...I want REAL WORLD performance differences. And I'm also wondering if the extra $30 JUST to have E-SATA is worth it? The other feature of the board is RAID but I don't care about that...I'm not going to have more than 2 MAYBE 3 hard drives and so I don't see the point.

Thanks again for all ya'lls help.
 
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utaustinstud

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Also, if I go with the 8800GT, which one should I get? I look on Newegg and there's about 20 different models all priced differently and about 10 different brands.

I've thought about getting a base card--one with 1800Mhz Memory and OCing it to 1900 or 1950 but how hard is this AND will it void the warranty?

Also, if I'm going the 8800GT route, what kind of CPU do I need? Can I get by and game well with a E2160 and OC to 3Ghz or more or should I go with an E4500 and OC that one to 3+Ghz? Or should I go with some with 4MB L2 cache? I guess that's what I'm really asking--how much L2 cache would I need to have so my CPU isn't the bottleneck? Or does cache really matter in ACTUAL gaming performance--not in benchmarks or system tests?

Thanks again.
 
blacksci

blacksci

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Alrighty alot of questions ill answer to the best of my ability, here goes.

1. you can overclock any intel cpu, there is no lock, by multiplier i mean if you are set at 9x246 which puts you at around 2.4 gigs, you increase it to 9x333 and your at 3.0 gigs, with out volt modding.

2. Yes you do want to go to there website and download all the latest drivers, and then you can let microsoft update. For some reason though if you let microsoft update first, you will have no sound, kinda wierd, but true with this board.

3. Flashing your bios only needs to be done if your having issues with the current settings, if not its best to let it be.

4. You can change voltages and such after you hit ctrl+f1 without it you just get basic oc options, youll see.

5. I havent used e-sata, but the newer sata drives are just a hair slower then raid0 arrays, to give you some perspective.

6. I personally would go with the 8800gts(g92) its a little beefier cpu then what the 8800gt's have to offer, and has a dual slot configuration, so cooling wont be such a issue.

7. If you oc your card, you have to accept the agreement, and in that agreement it will tell you if you are voiding your warranty or not, although i know many people who still get rmas even if they have done so.

8. And lastly you always want the best and most powerful cpu for your system you can afford, if you can get a higher cache size, you will see a performance diffrence in responsiveness of your programs and games. More cache means the cpu has to spend less time using ram to access info, and in turn gives you better performance.

hope i was able to help you clear some of this up.
 
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kb7bth

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i like ati all-in-wonder cards.

 
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