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Topic: Graphics Card

so im building a new desktop, and i need a good graphics card, but my budget is about only 200 bucks, any suggestions?

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Re: Graphics Card

make sure it's Nvidia.  Too many problems with ATI nowadays

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Re: Graphics Card

yea, ive got a GeForce 9600M GT on my laptop right now. And that works perfectly fine, is there any better one? or is that good enough?

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4 Reply by avogadro (edited by avogadro 12-Jul-2010 02:56:04)

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Re: Graphics Card

there are tons better then the 9600M GT, and actually, the last two generations, ati has typically provided much better bang for your buck

this is tom's hardware chart for performance of video cards: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-radeon-hd-geforce-gtx,2676-7.html

you can get the 5830 for just under $200. the GTX 465 has roughly the same performance on the chart, but costs $250 at newegg.

i don't think your 9600m GT is on the chart, but i found a review  that compared it to others http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9600M-GT.9449.0.html, and it was slightly below the  Go 7950 GTX in performance, and that one is on the chart.

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Re: Graphics Card

"make sure it's Nvidia.  Too many problems with ATI nowadays"

Bollocks. They don't have any more problems than Nvidia cards and the best quality/price ratio. Go for a HD5850 or a HD5770 if the first one ist a bit too expensive...

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Re: Graphics Card

> Commander Christ wrote:

> "make sure it's Nvidia.  Too many problems with ATI nowadays"

Bollocks.

yay! we can agree on something! tongue

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7 Reply by avogadro (edited by avogadro 12-Jul-2010 03:00:22)

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Re: Graphics Card

the best deal i can find is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150436 $140, $120 after mir; and it outperforms a 5770... only slightly worse then the 5830... its what i bought way back when it came out, cost me $300, and i only got 512mB of ram sad

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Re: Graphics Card

aah cool, i'll look into that, thanks fellas

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Re: Graphics Card

how is the 5750?

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10 Reply by avogadro (edited by avogadro 12-Jul-2010 05:08:45)

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Re: Graphics Card

well, if you look at the chart its at the 6th tier down.... so not bad, not as good as the 4870 that i linked....

basically you can compare cards in general with that chart and seeing which tier they are both in. if you want to compare two cards in the same tier, google (name of card) review   and then go straight to the summary and it typically tells you its standings with other cards of similar performance.... google the card with the higher number when doing that too (higher number generally means newer card; a newer card review will compare to older cards, but a review of an older card will predate newer cards, so they can't be compared)

also, www.newegg.com is a good place to look for the parts and the prices for them.

so for example i google hd 5830 review; 3rd link from the top is http://www.anandtech.com/show/2947, anandtech.com is a reputable reviewer, so i clicked on that link and then i go to the conclusion page where it basically says its between the 4870 and 4890 (the 4870 and 4890 are very close in performance) in raw performance, but you get the added tech of the newer generation which means easier to set up multi monitor displays and its dx11 compatible.  it says at its price, its too much (it was at $240) but if they lowered it to around $200, it would be reasonable.

so then i go to newegg, and find its at $200... i then look for the 4870 which its only slightly worse then in performance and i see one in newegg for $140 and then $120 with mir...

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Re: Graphics Card

aaah, ok now it makes sense lol.
Im only doing this for starcraft2 lmao, so i need something that will be just enough to play it lol

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12 Reply by avogadro (edited by avogadro 12-Jul-2010 16:28:13)

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Re: Graphics Card

ah, well, rts's are typically more demanding on the cpu and ram i think, then the gpu, so make sure you invest in those... i imagine a $100ish card should be fine.... one quick question, what is your monitor's native resolution? higher resolutions are more demanding on videocards...   i will say my brother is in scii's beta and his monitor is very a low resolution and he is unable to run scii on max with the 8800GT from Nvidea... so i would suggest getting at least 1 tier above the 8800 GT.

also to go in a little more detail when i said higher number generally means newer.  the first digit of the card is basically the generation. so the 5850 is a generation past the 4870, so the 5850 is the newer card. after the first digit, the remaining numbers basically tell of its performance. of the 5000 series the 5970 is the highest performer, while the 5450 is the worst that i know of; but i am pretty sure that 5450 is actually newer then the 5970. each generation basically has 1 card that the generation starts off with, with ati it was the 5870. the numbers after the 5 just describe how much weaker or stronger they are compared to it.

nvidea has a similar system, but their current generation is called 400 not 5000. and also for some reason, they skipped the "300" generation and went straight from 200 to 400. so the 200 series nvidea cards are as old as the 4000 series ati cards. and then prior to the 200 series cards was the 8000 series card for nvidia, which is comparable in age to the 3000 series of ati. the 9000 series for nvidia was just a die shrink of the 8000 series, so they are slightly newer then the 8000 series, but they are not a new architecture, and i wouldn't call them a full series, they basically re-marketed the 8000 series to sell more cards.

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