I just got The Witcher for Christmas, and I don’t even want to try to load it up on the GeForce 7300LE that’s in there now, so now it’s time for fun with upgrades.
I want to stay somewhere in the $100-300 range, I want 512MB, I want DirectX 10, and it can’t be a GeForce or a PCIe 2.0. Those last two stipulations are kinda killing me, but I can’t have GeForce because of the bullshit video problems with Sims 2, and I can’t have PCIe 2.0 'cause this motherboard don’t got it.
I was looking at the Radeon HD 2600 series, and some of those looked pretty good, but to be honest, I don’t know what the hell I’m looking for beyond what I listed. How do I distinguish between all these different manufacturers, clock speeds, etc? What’s the difference?
So basically, uh, tell me what to buy. You do hard part, me eat cookies.
I have a Radeon HD 2600 and I’m not impressed with it. It replaced a GeForce 7600 and while it runs a little smoother, it definitely wasn’t a huge leap. And although I like ATI (now AMD) I HATE their drivers. First you have to have the MS .NET package installed. Then you have to install the driver itself, then the bloated Catalyst Control Center if you want to be able to do any kind of fine tuning. Three reboots and half an hour later you might have working drivers. IIRC, Nvidia was one reboot. The HD 2600 isn’t really a gaming card either. It’s more of an “oh, shiny, it can output to HDMI!” I’m relatively satisfied with it but next time I’m getting the GeForce. Way more bang for the buck.
Don’t even consider a Radeon HD 2400, they are pieces of shiiiiiiiiiit. Way worse performance than a GeForce 7600.
I haven’t heard of the problems with Sims 2 but it may have been fixed by a driver update or a patch. So your best money is something in the GeForce 8800 mid-range line. I like EVGA but there’s lots of good card manufacturers for NVIDIA out there.
DirectX 10 does nothing for you unless you’re running Vista, BTW. You didn’t specify if this was the case.
I just rolled my eyes so hard they damn near (oh, excuse me, almost) fell out.
Anyway, thank you, DWMarch, for advising me against the 2600s. What I really want is a GeForce 8800GTS, but the game I play the most is Sims 2, and I just checked the game’s website, which confirms that the issue is still unresolved. That particular card (and actually all of the 8800s, IIRC) is listed among those that have problems.
What I may end up doing is just getting a GeForce anyway and using the workaround cheat I’ve been using to keep it from crashing my game. I don’t want to, because it turns off some of the cooler aspects of the card (namely shaders), but if there really is no comparable Radeon card (that doesn’t require PCIe 2.0), well, screw it.
PCIe 2.0 is pretty much a non-issue, because even the very latest cards don’t do anything 2.0-specific. They all say 2.0 meaning “will fit into a 2.0 slot and not explode” but they do exactly what they would in a 1.0 slot. No GeForce is a killer though, because that rules out the top-performing video cards. I believe the ATI 3870 is about the most gaming horsepower you can get in a non-GeForce flavour, and it’s in your budget - grab any half-decent brand of that and you should be good.
Well, that eliminates my main problem right there. I thought by saying the interface type of a particular card is PCIe 2.0, it meant it HAD to go into a 2.0 slot. Thanks for clearing that up! I think the HD 3870 might just be the way to go.
Care to fill me in on what your idea of a “half-decent brand” is, though? There are so many… I don’t know the first thing about telling them apart.
Yeah, it’s not something they talk about much but 2.0 cards work in 1.0 slots AND vice-versa. Not only that but no-one has managed to really max out 1.0 yet (for home applications at least) - I think it’s a ‘marketing upgrade’. Have a trawl through somewhere like beyond3d for more detail. The only thing you need to watch out for is that occasionally a particular motherboard design will flat-out refuse to play with a particular card, but that’s very unusual nowadays.
In terms of half-decent brands - pretty much anything where you recognize the name but don’t expect it to come with a cuss-word attached. Asus, BFG, eVGA, MSI, PNY, Sapphire, etc. Generally speaking they’re just the ATI reference design with a few stickers and maybe a couple of games thrown in, although a few do offer significant redesign work, extra coolers, 3-year warranties, free t-shirts, overclocking etc. Personally I just buy whatever is the cheapest from a manufacturer I have heard of before.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou… that is an awesome website. From what I can tell, the HD 3870 performs pretty comparably to the 8800 GTS, and the real top performers are out of my price range anyway, so I think I’ll be getting the 3870. Thanks again, you are magnificent.