Choosing a new video card

[SuxoR]

Hey tech forums, I've been plagued by a problem lately, and this place is quickly becoming my one stop for all info :]

I haven't kept up with all the new video cards coming out, mostly because there is so many and the differences are small (I think) so what advice would you give to someone who is looking to get a video card in the near future?

What do I look out for? Besides the memory amount and clock speed what are big features that separate um?


Thanks guys

 

[dhgunit]

I don't know if you can go wrong with either a 4850, 4870, 4870X2, 9800 GTX+, GTX 260, or GTX 280. You will get what you pay for, but all the video cards I listed are pretty good performance for your dollar.

 

[SuxoR]

What would be the differences though?

 

[dhgunit]

I mean, you can go to newegg and look at the tech specs, and see the difference.

But all that really matters is how much you want to spend. If you want to spend $175, then get the 4850. If you have an Nvidia board and want to spend $200 with SLI in mind down the road, get the 9800GTX+. If you want to spend $270 get the 4870, unless you have and SLI board and would consider it in the future then get a GTX 260.

If you want the top dogs get either the GTX 280 or the 4870X2.

I don't really know what you want.....do you want me to list the exact differences? You can look that up yourself, it would be easier for you.

The more money you spend, the better performance you will get. IMO you can't go wrong with any of those cards that I previously listed.

I just got my GTX 260 today and it is great. Got it through step up from a 9800GTX, and for some reason I got the EVGA SSC version instead of the normal one....lucky me.

 

[BennyV04988]

I bought my GTX 260 for $206 shipped, open-box from Newegg. It arrived with everything fully wrapped and you couldn't possibly tell that it wasn't retail.

I had to get OC my CPU to 3.0GHz to lift the bottleneck.

I would say to buy a 4870 or a GTX 260, they perform the same more often than not.

 

[veg1992]

I mean, you can go to newegg and look at the tech specs, and see the difference.

But all that really matters is how much you want to spend. If you want to spend $175, then get the 4850. If you have an Nvidia board and want to spend $200 with SLI in mind down the road, get the 9800GTX+. If you want to spend $270 get the 4870, unless you have and SLI board and would consider it in the future then get a GTX 260.

If you want the top dogs get either the GTX 280 or the 4870X2.

I don't really know what you want.....do you want me to list the exact differences? You can look that up yourself, it would be easier for you.

The more money you spend, the better performance you will get. IMO you can't go wrong with any of those cards that I previously listed.

I just got my GTX 260 today and it is great. Got it through step up from a 9800GTX, and for some reason I got the EVGA SSC version instead of the normal one....lucky me.

Also nVidia cards have PhysX support now (Google "the force within"), but there are people working on porting it to AMD Cards

I say HD 4850 is great in terms of bang of the buck

 

[Nagasama]

I just got my GTX 260 today and it is great. Got it through step up from a 9800GTX, and for some reason I got the EVGA SSC version instead of the normal one....lucky me.

dude, that rocks!

 

[dhgunit]

dude, that rocks!

Yeah, and the step up cost me like $5.85 for shipping and that was it.

What sucks though, is that UPS couldn't find my house and when I called them they said it would arrive next week. I told them that wasn't acceptable, they told me I could go pick it up at their shipping center. I said great, and they told me someone would call with a time to pick it up.

Well....little did I know it wouldn't be in my neighborhood UPS, but rather the main one out by the airport. I live in West Little Rock and the airport is on the east side. So I had to make a 40 mile trek last night that cost me more in gas than the entire cost of the step-up and shipping from Brea, California.

Oh well, I needed a comp for the weekend.

 

[SuxoR]

Do you need to upgrade your power supply for most of these cards?

What about compatibility like GDDR3,4 and 5?

 

[Ventriac]

with the x2's you'll need a lot of power, but i think the single cores require a min of 500w