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I need a new graphics card :(

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flsh

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Looks like my old one is about to die (besides, it was getting slow on some games) so I need a new one. Which card should I get in the 300-350$ range? I don't care about the bundle or extra cooling.
A few things before anyone picks me a card though,
1) I have an MB with an AGP slot, not a PCI E, is there a converter or anything?
2) I have an LCD which can desplay upto 1280*1024.
3) I play my games with high AA, I don't really care for great AF performance if that matters.
4) I play mostly D3D based games like HL2, the upcoming FEAR and AoE3 games.

Thanks in advance.
 
I'm out of date with video card knowledge, but X800XL sounds about right for you.

I don't understand your obsession with AA. At 1280x1024, games should look best at 2-4X AA and 8-16 X AF. Otherwise textures are going to be blurry as hell.
 
AoE3 uses SM3.0 - For that the 6800 GT may be a wise choise as well




(I'm also pondering which of these 2 I'm going to purchase this week. SM3.0 vs. ViVo...)
 
I care more for FEAR though, any idea how's the 6800GT running it?

And it's not that I'm obsessed about AA, it's just that I notice jaggies (a lot at times) even at 6AA, while 4AF is really sharp in my eyes.
 
My 6800GT runs the FEAR SP demo at a decent enough clip, but I need to get 2 gigs of system RAM in order to get the res above 1024*768-because of the texturing, apparently. I don't usually use AA to maximize performance, though.
 
6800 GT would be your best bet.

I got for $300 at NewEgg.com a couple of months back.

Leadtek AGP 6800 GT. It can overclock to something like 430/1150 just fine.
 
Error Macro said:
6800 GT would be your best bet.

I got for $300 at NewEgg.com a couple of months back.

Leadtek AGP 6800 GT. It can overclock to something like 430/1150 just fine.

Well, my Leadtek did overclock to Ultra speeds and ran 3dMark05 with no artifcats-got a nice jump from 4808 to 5334 with no problems in temp due to the NV5 Arctic Silencer me and my best friend put on it, but Doom 3 froze and locked up about a half-hour in with no warning signs at all-and the temp never got above 56c. Now I'm running it just slightly overclocked at 375core\1050mem using RivaTurner RC 15.6 and the latest Forceware drivers just dandy. Not too shabby for $250 total.
 
PotatoeMasher said:
Sorry if it's on those pages, but i didn't see this:

anybody know how many dvi/vga outputs the ati has?...

looks like gf has 1 dvi 1 vga

ATI is 1 DVI, 1 VGA.

--

The 6800 GT runs the FEAR demo well with no anti-aliasing. With 4X @ 1280 x 1024, it doesn't run too good. I suppose lowering settings would help though. In any case, Monolith claims that the final version of the game will be optimized further.
 
x800xl it is cheaper and just as good as the 6800gt. It even beats it by a good margin in some games. (hl2) No sm3.0 but who cares.
 
I'm with those recommending 6800GT because of Pixel shader 3.0 capability. I'm using a X800Pro in my gaming rig, but the card was aquired a while ago. If I was buying today, I'd go with 6800.

BTW, Detonators > Catalysts. There, I said it.
 
Shogmaster said:
I'm with those recommending 6800GT because of Pixel shader 3.0 capability. I'm using a X800Pro in my gaming rig, but the card was aquired a while ago. If I was buying today, I'd go with 6800.

BTW, Detonators > Catalysts. There, I said it.

Yes, but Omega Catalysts > Detonators > Catalysts
 
nm. was thinking 6600GT. 6800GT is definitely better than x800XL. Wish the PCI-E ones weren't $350 when I was buying my rig a month ago. :\
 
I'm in the same boat at the moment, pondering which VGA-card I will buy this/next month. I've got it down to 2 cards, but don't know which one will be best for me.

the cards:
Asus Radeon X800 XL 256MB DDR3 (AGP, 2x DVI, ViVo)
XFX GeForce 6800 GT 256MB (AGP, 2x DVI)

Both are €310 with shipping

I'm currently running a Northwood 2.4 (@2.6) on a Asus P4G8X mobo. 1GB DDR2100 RAM (mobo can't support higher) and a Sapphire 9800 Pro @ XT flash. My PSU is a 380W Coolermaster so it should be enough to for these cards. The thing is, every benchmark you can view online, they test these cards with killer PC's - will the differences on those benchmarks (6800 pulling ahead in OpenGL / Doom 3 - x800xl gaingin a LOT of ground with AA / FSAA) be noticable on a less than stellar PC (eg mine) Or will they both perform at exactly the same level as my CPU and RAM are the biggest bottlenecks in this case. (I do my gaming at 1600*1200 - AA only if my framerate is steady enough at this res)

Then the next point. Space. The Nvidia card a quite a bit longer than the X800XL, but I can't find measurements anywhere. (and it's a bit cramped in my case as it is, too many HDD's :D)

Last point. Which is better. SM3.0 and a higher FP precision. Or ViVo?! I could very much use the ViVo (NTSC GC but the converter box has died on me) but I don't want to miss out on certain games because developers are too lazy to code a 2.0 (as in PoP - where you only have 1.1 or 3.0)
 
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