recommend a graphics card

jeff lebowski

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a new mid-range graphics card, probably around the €150-€200 mark. This will mainly be used for gaming.

Anyone got any recommendations?

Cheers

jor el

From what I've read here and on review sites, I'd say the Gefore 6600GT would be the one to go for. That's what I'm going to get for myself anyway.

There was a thread last week I think where people were recommending the 6600GT over say the 9800PRO and X600 for mid-range resonably priced gfx cards. It's probably a few pages down by now.

jeff lebowski

I'll check that one out.

Do you think that card plus half a gig of RAM with a 2.4Ghz pentium is decent enough for games? Would adding another half gig of RAM make much of a differance?

jor el

Well, you can never have too much RAM, but I don't know if you really need more than 512M for games. I have 1G in my PC so I don't know if it's any worse with less, I do know that my FX5700 is a lot better on games like C&C Generals and Doom 3 than my FX5200 was.

I'd say the RAM is probably enough at 512M, but if you have a few spare euros then get more. Graphics card is far more important though.

Current proces for 6600GT is around €190 which I quite good, I'm hoping to pick up one cheapish in the States next month when I'm over there.

BloodBath

Get yourself a 6600gt and down the line you can get another 512mb of ram. It does make a big difference especially in newer titles like Doom3, HL2, Far cry. Windows xp alone will use about 150-200mb.


BloodBath

Horsefumbler

1gb of ram is the minimum these days

tman

definitely get another half gig of ram asap.
doom3 is utterly dementing with only 512mb.

1gb should be the minimum for any serious gamer

Deadwing

tbh i had nothing but trouble with my nvidia card (6800 LE) ive heard all 6 series geforces have trouble with older games (i had a nightmare trying to run battlefield vietnam on my 6800). So if i were you id get a radeon 9800 pro. probably one of the best all round cards out there atm, you wont find better if youre on a budget. I cant stress enough how much of a headache the geforce 6 series was for me..i went back to ATI after a month

astrofool

rarely had a problem with a 6800 ultra here, also nVidia drivers are generally held in higher regard than ATI's. Guess it comes down to what hardware it works well with.

Mutant_Fruit

astrofool wrote:

rarely had a problem with a 6800 ultra here, also nVidia drivers are generally held in higher regard than ATI's. Guess it comes down to what hardware it works well with.

Nvidia have been caught cheating at 3dMark and similar benchmarks before. afaik, ATI havn't.

VeVeX

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

Nvidia have been caught cheating at 3dMark and similar benchmarks before. afaik, ATI havn't.

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003May/bga20030527020153.htm

Maybe it wasn't broadcasted to such an extent as the nVidia "optimization" but Ati drivers did indeed change some graphics parameters when running the benchmark.

Besides both nVidia and Ati optimize their drivers for the likes of Far Cry, Half Life and Doom yet the benchmarks obtained from these games are supposed to be more believable ???

The 9800pro was indeed a fine card in its day. The nVidia options of today in my opinion are superior.

The fact of the matter is nobody should be put off nVidia cards because they cheated in a widely considered misrepresenting performance benchmark to begin with.