Looking for advice before buy a New video card

popey21

Im just about to order this: XFX GeForce 6800 Extreme Gamers Edition 128MB DDR TV-Out/Dual DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-018-XF) from

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/GeForce_6800.html

I just want to make sure that this would be the best buy for the money. Is this the best performing card for about €275. Should I wait for something else soon to come out? Should I get it with a better fan and save on delivery by ordering them together. Will this card play all the games being released for the next 2 years?. I would love to find somewhere I could order this without the games bundle to get it a bit cheaper

mewso

Those cards dont vary much from that price. I'd with the games it's not bad but on a personal note I wouldn't buy it purely because of the 128MB Ram. When you see games like Doom 3 claiming they need 512MB Ram to play at max then 256 starts to look like the minimum. I'd be more tempted to go for 9800XT OcUK value card on their site so that I have a good card and can wait and see how long AGP has left then if AGP dies out grab a PCI-E card.
Having said that for the price it'll probably do the job and perform well.

uberpixie

popey21 wrote:

Im just about to order this: XFX GeForce 6800 Extreme Gamers Edition 128MB DDR TV-Out/Dual DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-018-XF) from

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/GeForce_6800.html

I just want to make sure that this would be the best buy for the money. Is this the best performing card for about €275. Should I wait for something else soon to come out? Should I get it with a better fan and save on delivery by ordering them together. Will this card play all the games being released for the next 2 years?. I would love to find somewhere I could order this without the games bundle to get it a bit cheaper

Nvidia 6600GT will be out in a few weeks. It performs more or less the same as the 6800 standard and is priced at €200.

Now god only knows what price it will be when it hits here and chances are it is going to be in short supply when it does hit.

Just might be worth your while getting the 6800 now while you have the money :-)

Either card will do you well for the next 1.5 to 2 yr

grimloch

musician wrote:

Those cards dont vary much from that price. I'd with the games it's not bad but on a personal note I wouldn't buy it purely because of the 128MB Ram. When you see games like Doom 3 claiming they need 512MB Ram to play at max then 256 starts to look like the minimum.
.

512mb to play is reffering to the RAM not the graphics card

L5

grimloch wrote:

512mb to play is reffering to the RAM not the graphics card

No , hes right, its actually referring to the graphics card memory necessary to run Doom 3 on Ultra settings without slowdown. 512mb..which incidentally isnt available yet!

grimloch

L5 wrote:

No , hes right, its actually referring to the graphics card memory necessary to run Doom 3 on Ultra settings without slowdown. 512mb..which incidentally isnt available yet!

ffs thats a bit overboard now ive seen it fun grand on a 128mb so,

anyway the only 512mb gfx was a wildlabs one a while back on komplett

TacT

yeah, apparently you need 512MB on the gfx card to run DIII at ultra settings. Anyone with a high end machine that can confirm this?

Winters

uberpixie wrote:

Nvidia 6600GT will be out in a few weeks. It performs more or less the same as the 6800 standard and is priced at €200.

Can you show any reviews to support this. Looking at the tech specs of both the 6800 should beat the pants off the 6600 and also last a lot longer then it. If it is true, I might be tempted to save up and invest in a 6600, im fed up with BFV problems and my 9800.

My next card will be a NVidia. Im very much fed uo with my last ATi card.

halenger

There's a 640mb graphics card out there too but those cards are in the thousands...

Are the 6600s not PCI-E only?

jocky

I have Doom 3 and it runs fine with a 128mb card.
Min system requirement is 64mb video no mention of anything higher anywhere!

uberpixie

Winters wrote:

Can you show any reviews to support this. Looking at the tech specs of both the 6800 should beat the pants off the 6600 and also last a lot longer then it. If it is true, I might be tempted to save up and invest in a 6600, im fed up with BFV problems and my 9800.

My next card will be a NVidia. Im very much fed uo with my last ATi card.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_6600_gt/

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1643479,00.asp

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjYw

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040907/index.html

Shame about your 9800. I have had a 9800 for well over a year and it has given me nothing but rock solid performance and zero problems.

The 6600gt is nice for the price, the 6800 does pull ahead at the higher resolutions by 15 frames+. Buts it's nice to see a main stream card that actually is good. Not just some old tech repackaged with a new string of numbers and a letter or two added to the name.

P.s. first versions of the 6600gt will be pci express, agp will seemingly be launched a few weeks after. prolly in short supply :-)

BloodBath

ffs thats a bit overboard now ive seen it fun grand on a 128mb so,

I run it on ultra settings and it runs fine except every now and again (rarely) there is a slight jerk as it loads new textures to the memory. To run efficient and smooth it needs 512mb of texture memory so it doesn't have to keep swapping or switching to the system ram with the agp aperture.


BloodBath

popey21

thanks for all the advice

I found it on ebay for €256.108

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=27387&item=5121016412&rd=1

I Might just shop around till I get it at a good price without the games. If I was going to get the 6600gt I would wait till they bring out some good Amd Motherboards with PCI Express and go with the SLI option eventually.