Your mission: recommend me a good PCI card. The spending limit is 200 bucks (American).
I’ve got a couple things bouncing around, a guy at work sent a recommendation to me, and I’m still slightly confused.
There’s a difference beterrn PCI and PCI-express and AGP. I have an AGP card right now. It’s a FX5700 LE. It doesn’t eat up Medieval 2: Total War or Neverwinter Nights 2.
I want a card for 200 or so bucks that eats these games up, either with or without overclocking.
Help?
Nvidia cards like yours are numbered as a consecutive series.
Yours is a 5700
Since then, there has been a 6xxx series, 7xxx, and now 8xxx (all first digits). There are lots of options within each line but the higher series are obviously a generation higher although it is possible to have performance overlap.
The 8xxx series are brand new and developed for Vista but they are very expensive and you can probably rule those out because you really need a whole new system and a boatload of cash.
The Nvidia 7xxxx series is probably a good bet although I recently got a 6800 and I am happy with it. It was cutting edge 18 months ago after all.
The best thing to do is go to www.newegg.com and look at cards in those series. The Nvidia chipset is what you are looking for and the cards are made by lots of manufacturers like BFG and others. There are too many options to just recommend one so I would take a look at them ask about the options you think might be good.
Well, what’s the difference between this and this and this and this? It it simply picking the highest model number? What about overclocking options?
I realize this first one is a PCI. That’s why I picked it for the comparison.
First up: Do you have PCI Express, or just regular ol’ PCI? You said you have AGP. If you only have PCI and not PCI-E, then don’t get a PCI card, get an AGP card. AGP kicks PCI’s ass. But if you have PCI-E, then get a PCI-E card, cause they kick AGP’s ass (in general. Obviously, the best AGP card will be better than the worst PCI-E card, but you get the idea.)
Ah. I thought PCI was better than AGP. I am obivously wrong.
So let’s discount PCI from the entire heap. We’re looking at AGP only, because I’m PCI-express-less.
The 7800 that you linked is a very good card. I get this stuff from various extreme computing magazines BTW. It isn’t cost effective for me to own 20 by myself. I don’t know much about Radeon cards although some of them are good. Nvidia based cards took a lead recently although things are evening out now.
However, that one is an AGP card and you said you wanted a PCI one. They will have one in PCI as well if that is what you need.
Your motherboard likely has one slot or the other although both is possible. You just need to figure out whether you have AGP or PCI.
I have one AGP and three total PCI. I said I wanted PCI originally because I thought PCI was better.
AGP will work fine. That 7800 is a good bet. It is close to state of the art.
There. Bid is out on Ebay for a BFG Tech GeForce 7800GS.
Additionally, thanks a lot, guys.
Stupid computers…stupid games…and stupid games not working on my stupid computer because of the stupid video stupid card…
…not that it bothers me or anything.
It should serve you well. I just remembered it from an article I read earlier in the week and the reviewers were very impressed.
In case you second-guess it, the customer reviews are outstanding.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1819505&Tab=11&NoMapp=
The higher model number nVidia doesn’t necessarily mean “better” overall. The series number (6xxx, 7xxx, 8xxx) does, but within each series number are the individual models, from least powerful to most, however the least powerful of the higher series number, generally speaking, is nowhere near as powerful as the most powerful in the previous series; a GeForce 7200 will be blown away by a GeForce 6800.
For that kind of money, I’d reccommend going for either a 6800GT or GTX if you can find one. Otherwise, if you can score a 7800 series (7800LE, GT or GTX) go for that. Mind you, I spent $600 for a 7800GTX a little less than a year ago so I can’t see it having come down in price too much; I ended up getting $430 for that 7800GTX last summer when I upgraded to the 7950GX2.
Still, even the 6800 will blow the FX series away, especially if you go with the GT or GTX models.
I’ve got a Nvidia 7800GS in my Shuttle and it’s very good. I’ve got a silent (fanless) 7600GS in this PC (my workstation) too. You need the GS because that’s the AGP version. Better might be the ATI 1950 AGP, which is recently out, but I’ve yet to see benchmarks. Do note that both the 7800GS and 7600 GS have one DVI and one VGA connector, whereas the 1950 has two DVI connectors.
Yep, high bid still on the GeForce 7800. This should last me until I decide to upgrade the whole shebang and get Vista.
You might want to read <hijack>
this article before considering Vista. It’s certainly made me rethink getting Vista.
</hijack>
And yes, the 7800 is quite enough for pretty much any modern game.
Is there something simple I can use to overclock it like a motherfucker?
And I’ll wait on Vista. I’m not hopping out on the first release, no sir.
Depends on the model. Some models come pre-overclocked, so overclocking them further would accomplish very little. If it isn’t already overclocked then you can overclock it right out of the box. There is an INF file you need to download to unlock the overclock functionality in the nVidia control panel, but once applied it opens up a new menu allowing you to adjust both core and memory clock speeds. (The INF file is available right on nVidia’s website, though it’s usually packed in with their driver CDs as well, but you’ll probably want to download the latest ForceWare drivers from nVidia’s website anyway)