The Short List: the Best Gaming Videocards for the money - Page 6

What, am I that touchy?

Sorry illicitsc, Off Topic.

I don't know. I haven't been around here long enough and I don't want to find out the hard way :!:

***stupid double post. Where'd the delete button go?***

*** #@%$!! ***

we're not going too of topic lol. think of it more as a compliment towards cleeve's thread. we're talking about good looking CG characters.. rendered by GRAPHIC CARDS lmfao.. ff7 ac looks so much better than the half ass job the people did on the character designs with oblivion. i start the game and it tells me to choose a character.. i dont wanna choose anyof em.. they are so ugly!

I will likely add the X1900 GTO once it's widely available.

aaarrrgghhh I can't take any more pixel pipelines, shaders or any other lingo I don't understand, pretty please could someone treat me like a fool and just tell me what pci-E video card I should buy for no more than 140 english pounsd (about 280 dollars.) I play most of my games on 1024 resolution and i just want them to look pretty! Thanks alot. Nat.

is it really as simple as buying the most expensive one?

I'm currently running a PNY 6600GT 128MB AGP board. I'm looking to hold out just a bit more until the new Conroe chips from Intel and whatever AMD throws out there to compete on AM2 arrive. I don't want to buy a new 939 MB at this time due to the new chips having different sockets, so that rules out PCI-e for the moment.

So my question is will a 6800GS or the X800GTO be a significant upgrade over the 6600GT? I think one move video upgrade would hold me over, but the 7800GS is way to expensive for the boost it will likely provide, the 6800GS seems to be a lot more bang for the buck.

Currently I play WoW mostly and some HL2 and I'd like to play Quake 4 as well and maybe Oblivion. The only thing I've benched it on recently was Doom 3 and it's about 68fps at 1024x768 with no AA.

System Specs: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Winchester @2.01Ghz) with 1024MB PC3200 DDR RAM, EPoX EP-9NDA3J MB, WinXP Pro SP2

Thanks.

Yeah, maybe Oblivion will be a way off, next upgrade...but the 6600GT out benches the 6800GS? Wow, there are 4 more pipes in the GS with a 256bit memory lane. How is that?

But I wonder how big a boost I would get in HL2, Doom 3, Quake 4, and World of Warcraft. WoW runs pretty smooth at 1280x1024 but there are moments of pause when flying. I just don't know if spending 180 bucks on a new video card is worth it if I will only be getting 5 frames boost. I'd check the VGA charts here but the latest ones seem to make little sense.

Been a month since you've updated the list...let me ask you something though. The radeon x700 AGP card is just barely over $100 (http://www.3gplaza.com/estore/cont [...] srccode=PW). Out of curiosity, if it DID somehow fall below $100 and all other things being equal, would it be on the best agp card under $100 list, or does the 6600 still beat it? Honorable mention? Funny that the x700 is rarely mentioned anywhere--what's your take on it? I ask because on paper it appears to outperform the 6600 AGP...

So far the prices I've seen on the X1900GT have not been impressive. Currently pricegrabber only lists Dell and Directron as possible vendors. All with a price around $380.00, which isn't very reassuring. However it is still too early to begin comparing prices. I'm sure Dell will keep the high price tag, but once it's widely available the better vendors will have better pricing.

Cleeve, a couple of updates now...X1800GTO can now be found under $200 USD, and 7600GT can be found for $155 USD after mail-in-rebate, which means very soon it might be below the $150 USD range Regardless, X1800GTO makes your recommendations incorrect. I am interested to see if you now list X1800GTO as the best card for the $150-$200 range now, or if it is still only honorable mention.

I haven't visited this sticky in a while. Good job keeping it current.


Just thought I'd add, the X1800XT 256MB can be found oem for under $250 without rebates even. (I bought mine a couple weeks too early at $255 AR.)

$243.85 shipped - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102007

*** MAY 15, 2006 UPDATE ***

A few little things:
- Moved the X1800 GTO from honorable mention to the $150 - $200 category as prices have dropped.
- Removed X850 XT from $150 to $200. With both the 7600 GT and X1800 GTO SM 3.0 cards in that category it's a harder sell, and the 7600 GT has proven it can stand toe to toe with it in most apps.
- Added the X1800 XL in the $200 to $250 category
- Added the X1800 XT 256mb as honorable mention to the $200 to $250 category (OEM newegg price on one right now! If this is consistant It'll replace the X1800 XL obviously)

Hate to say this, but...looks like you may have to change the $100 range too: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814135185

the best gaming card is not from ATI nor NVIDIA. this is a secret card that all gamers should know. i present u the BEST gaming card of ever....and it never outdate....CREDIT CARD.
when u have all the money, u can always get the most powerful card.

Well, the X850XT might be a harder sell, but I think it might not necessitate removing it entirely, perhaps simply relegating it to an "honourable mention" for now.

After all, ostensibly, we all buy these cards to play games with, and logically, we'd rate cards based upon the games we plan on playing. As odd a standout as it is, the current "top benchmark" program, Oblivion, bizzarely hands the "mid-range" crown to the X850XT, particularly at higher resolutions. It manages to actually scorch the 7600GT, especially in the foliage tests. (overall, X800 and X850 cards do unusually well, even compared to R520-based cards)

Even in the forests? (particularly forest oblivion gates, the worst-performing spot in the game for ANY card)

Alas, since I have no SM 3.0 cards in my possession, I've had limited experience seeing Oblivion with HDR enabled, particularly compared to the ~350 hours I've played it on my own machine.

Well, I just discovered something; although I had ignored it earlier, it appears that there is a so-called "fake HDR" mod availible for Oblivion. It adds in a new shader that tweaks with the light values.

Of course, I might be mistaken, but from the descriptions they give, and what I can gather from the source code, it actually *IS* HDR, just not a very good HDR shader. Visually, it looks much like the "real" HDR, and in some cases, it appears even better; it works on SM 2.0 cards, and works with AA as well, and even performs better than HDR. This could perhaps put a serious argument in favor of the X850XT. (honestly, I wasn't looking to make a further one, it's just that I realized I had to make this thing known of)

The current thread on the official Elder Scrolls forums that covers this is found here. Fortunately, it's not being posted in very often, so chances are it (the thread) will remain for a while.

We would need to have a similar topic for the processor, RAMs, monitor, etc...

The recommendations for the ATI cards include "1080P HD capability". What exactly does that mean? How can I hook-up my video card to a 1080P compatible TV to get full 1080P? The one Toshiba set I'm looking to buy only seems to run 1080P via 1394 input. Does that even make sense? Thanks.

your right on that one but , but beware many new lcds, plasmas and such are going to just DVI and HDMI, they for the most part still have component

i'm not exactly sure what your price range is, and i know you mentioned the X800GTO and the X1600XT but i would recommend getting the 7600GT over both of those...

No 7600 GT available, this guy is AGP if he's running a Radeon 9550...

If you have to choose between the X1600 XT and X800 GTO... they will perform closely, the X1600 XT will have a slight advantage in most stuff, and it's newer technology so it allows for SM 3.0 class stuff like OpenEXR HDR.