What sort of graphics card would be the best

[JTwohigg]

What sort of price do you think would be the most (in the UK) for spending on a PCI-Express graphics card. Thinking of buying a new pc in the next couple of months but am worried about going for overkill with a graphics card for my dell 17inch lcd monitor
the max resolution of my monitor is 1280x1024 at 75Hz.

Should I really be buying one for about £100 or do you think the dearer £200 cards are worth it with this monitor

[Taxation]

A £100 gfx card will give you a good picture, but for gaming, i would suggest getting a X1800XT or 7600GT
Both very good, and you dont want to go overkill now, because a little behemoth call vista is going to come out along with direct X10 cards.
A 1800XT or 7600GT will give you playable frame rates,with almost all the eye candy turned on (with you max resolution), and will last until vista comes out and even further

I was contimplating about getting a connect3D 1900XT-X from novatech,going very cheap, but no point in getting it now tbh. 7900GT will have to do it :D

[JTwohigg]

the problem i have is that the pc i am using now is an athlon xp 2400 40 gig hard disk etc.

i was hoping to buy a new pc before xmas and was hoping to spend at the moment 650-700 for the whole thing.

been looking at the custom built pcs on another site.... can i mention the name... well i will anyway eclipse computers and for around 650 i could have a pc with a fairly fast cpu and all the other things i want but i am worried about buying a dear graphics card because i dont want to spend too much if my monitor is not up to it

all i want to do is be able to play all the latest games and by that i mean the ones that are going to be out next year and that. but i dont want to spend too much all i want is to be able to have a pc that will play all the new games coming out but only on my dell monitor

also have this worry about when vista comes out the pc i buy wont be good enough

[Taxation]

Vista will use the current range of cards, and support them until Gatesy boy decides to stop support.
Crysis is a vista game, and plays on direct X9 cards, and looks brilliant.
If i would be so bold to suggest a card.
Get the 1900XT or the 1900XT-X (connect3D from novatech.bout £260 for the XT-X,but will be as fast as a 7900gtx, and will be able to storm through games that come out this and next year.
But the 1900 series tend to be quite noisy, so get a aftermarket gpu cooler :roll:

[JTwohigg]

thanks for your tip in buying a card but like i said i have decided to buy a custom build off the eclipse site because i dont really want to be taking a pc apart i just want one that is all going. not that i aint keen on doing it its just this time i fancy getting it all as one and the custom builds on their site look what im looking for

i will tell you the options they have available if you want and can you tell me which one would be the best option in both price and usability with my dell monitor. thanks

heres the ones they offer in the package i am looking at on their site:


256Mb GeForce 6600 PCI-Express16 VGA Card £32.59
256Mb GeForce 7600GS PCI-Express16 VGA Card £60.13
128Mb GeForce 6600GT PCI-Express16 VGA Card £65.23
256Mb GeForce 7600GT PCI-Express16 DVI VGA Card £80.53
256Mb GeForce 7900GT PCI-Express16 DVI VGA Card £162.13
512Mb GeForce 7900GTX PCI-Express16 DVI VGA Card £293.71

to be honest on the budget that i am looking at i reckon £150 would be my maximum budget for a graphics card unless i was persuaded that it would be better to pay more as it will give me better graphics on my dell monitor. then again i dont want to have a really cheap one as im sure it wont be no good for playing the latest games. what im really trying to do is pick a card off this list that is suitable for my monitor and isnt overkill and doesnt cost too much and will play all the latest games on my monitor lovely... thanks for the help

[Taxation]

Get the 76GT
Very good performance, but change the cooler,because the little fan is very noisy

[JTwohigg]

thats another problem isnt it the noise, you say change the cooler but is it really that easy does the 7900GT have the same noise problem too though?

[Taxation]

The 7900GT has the same cooler as the 7600GT
and it is very noisy,i even resulted in taking it all apart (the heat sink and fan that is) and managed to shove a 80mm on there

[bunnydas8888]

I think if you give it a couple of weeks the price of the 1900xtx will be comming down. Or it might of already come down, i bought all the bits i need for a comp y'day & i managed to fork out about £250 for a sapphire 1900xtx, but alas, i too only have a 19inch monitor with a max res of 1280 x 1024

[Taxation]

a 7600GT or an 1800XT would be the best bet,or maybe a 1900GT,if you want to spend the money

[teknokid]

btw never go to eclipse computers. there costomer support is **** and there product were pretty bad to. get it from novatech (barebone) or try http://www.ebuyer.co.uk

[Taxation]

Someone that i know got a computer from eclipse and are happy with it,but im not sure that we are surposed to be promoting other companies :?
Get a motherboard bundle from novatech,and add other stuff to your liking,or go all the way and build your own system.

[Nox]

my 7900gt wasn't very noisy when i was using it, and very fast!

Nox

[Taxation]

mine had a very noisy whiny sound to it

[teknokid]

btw will direct x 10 games be backwards compatiable with dx9?

Get a barebone from nova then you can learn the basics.

[Taxation]

i should think so,but vista is going to be expensive,so i would get saving if you want to buy vista and a DX10 card, but vista should support DX9, so any card bought now will still work on vista. Get the bargains while they are still there

[Nox]

Increases in price of any computer gear is rare, and normally very short lived. Bargains are around, but nmost need seeking out, and generally the longer you wait the cheaper things get. However an increase in deman in ram has been predicted for vista!

As there are no DX10 games at the moment (obvious reasons!) I will try and use the current senario:

In general, if someone writes a DX9 game, you must have a DX9 gfx card to play it, if it runs on a DX8 gfx card, then by definition, it isn't a DX9 game, its a DX8 game.

So really your question is will DX9 games have DX10 features added in? and the answer to that is... unlikely :)

Nox

[JTwohigg]

btw never go to eclipse computers. there costomer support is **** and there product were pretty bad to. get it from novatech (barebone) or try http://www.ebuyer.co.uk

i see what you are saying but i hope not to be using their customer service that often hopefully it will work fine!

anyway the prices are not too bad and i dont really want to go through all the hassle of sorting out what tower i want and installing it all i cant be bothered when i can get someone else to do it for me. if i was going to buy a pc off novatech i would go for a barebones to be honest. but then you got the worry of making sure you got the right power supply for the graphics you buy and all that. fair enough making a pc is fun and possibly a tad cheaper. im sure i could do it quite easily enough but i cant be bothered with all the researching that comes with it, id rather research the speeds and things of cpus and graphics cards and that and get someone to have all the hassle of making sure theres enough power in the computer etc, just cant be bothered this time round