Graphics Cards

I've been thinking of getting a new graphics card for a while, now (If you remember, I had the Power Supply topic, which I needed to support a new card).

My price range is preferably under $150, and definitely under $200. The Geforce 8600GTS looks rather nice, as well as the Radeon HD 2600XT. Both are around or under $150.

Should I be looking at any other cards? Should I wait to buy one? Should I worry about the DirectX 10.1 ordeal? I'm not a huge gamer, but I would like to play modern games such as BioShock and (soon, hopefully) Crysis.

Any suggestions?

Get the 8600.

Go for ATI.

Ha, any other information?

Should I go for more memory (i.e 512 vs 256), or is that not all that important?

Joshua: Why the 8600?
Ked: Why ATI?

The 8600 supports shader model 4.0. It has the same features as the highest-end graphics cards on the market right now, and just lacks the performance of the 8800. 256 MB VRAM will be fine.

ATI has a history of releasing drivers that do not properly support OpenGL.

At the moment I would get an X1950 Pro. Not a DX10 card but lightning fast, in fact probably quicker than both the cards you mention.

Actually, quite the opposite is true. In much the same way that FireFox has a bad reputation for not properly supporting web standards ( because IE let all the errors pass by unnoticed ) ATI create drivers which properly support OpenGL to the letter, and Nvidia create drivers which allow all kinds of errors to pass by unnoticed. The result being that people *think* that ATI drivers are reponsible when most of the time it's that Nvidia are just making broken code work when they shouldn't.

All of which doesn't mean you shouldn't get an Nvidia because there is a lot of dodgy code around, but it's not usually ATI's fault.

Don't worry about DirectX 10.1. None of the game developers will be, because they will aim for systems that are going to make them lots of cash i.e. DX 9.0C.
If they did go DX 10.1 (or DX10) then they would have wasted time,thousands of pounds and resources just for a small market share (though DX10 is becoming viable as more people buy PC's with Vista and DX10 capable cards) and there wont be many people rushing out to buy a DirectX 10.1 Graphics card (that don't exist yet) just because M$ say that "OH LOOK YOUR STATE OF THE ART £460 EVGA Nvidia 8800 Ultra 768MB WONT WORK WITH WITH OUR LATEST GAME API SO YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY ANOTHER"

So I would say go Nvidia 8600 GTS 512MB but before you do make sure that the card

1... is compatible with your mother board
2... your power supply unit has enough jucie for it
3... that it will fit in the case and wont clash with any connectors as some can be quite big (the 8800 Ultra has this problem as I found out the hard way. Its just that I can't fit another one in there to SLI them without ditching a hard drive)

I was looking at the X1950, but the lack of DX10 support is off-putting.


Which would entail what? I know very little about hardware, although hopefully that'll change soon.


Done. 650W


I've successfully fit an 8600GT in there before, so unless there's a noticeable size difference between the GT and GTS, this shouldn't be a problem. I won't be going for SLI anytime soon.


I've all but decided to go with the 8600GTS, after hearing the feedback and looking at multiple reviews. (Not that I might not change my mind). As for 256 or 512 I haven't decided... the 256 is certainly cheaper.

Any more advice is appreciated.
Thanks again!

Don't let that be a deciding factor. Even the 8600 GTS is going to be very slow at DX10. I mean *very* slow. It's DX9 performance is excellent ( dunno how it compares to the X1950 mind you ) and I've had it playing BioShock recently at 1280x1024 with everything max'ed but honestly anything less than an 8800GTX Turbo Mega Ultra is not good at DX10.

No.

Do you need it now?

Got Vista? Yes. Got XP? No.

Then wait until Crysis comes out, and buy whichever card comes bundled with the game. Then buy BioShock at half price.

Right up until the point were you BSOD with an IRQ_LESS_OR_EQUAL STOP error, because the drivers you're using are different from the drivers the developers were using, and nVidia decided to fix the bug the game relied on. Do you think there's a reason it's customary for game developers to specify which version of the nVidia Detonator drivers you need to use?

Aye, which Nvidia owner can say they haven't had to deal with that a few times?

Its always a good idea to keep video and audio (hell any) driver up to date.

I had to update the nvidia drivers just to plat Halo 2 (and boy, what a waste of money that game is because it looks like the game models where aim at a pre nvida fx GPU, and the mouse response is crap making it unplayable (unless its the KVM switch that I have that's causing the problem will have to try a direct connection some other time))

Mother board wise you'd need to check whether you have AGP or PCI-Express, and if it's PCI-Express then you'd probably need to make sure it's x16 for the latest cards.

It would be safe to say the nvidia 8 series cards are PCIe (though there was a rumor that there was going to be a AGP 8600), but there is a ATI X1950 Pro AGP card. Its always best to check the motherboard/graphics card manufactures support (LOL!) forums for any quirks with any model of graphic card (In the past I have had one or two, mostly with ATI/Gigabyte combonation's). A bios update may get round them, but motherboard bios updates are not for the faint hearted.

You will pay a big premium for an AGP version of a recent card. You're better off just upgrading the motherboard.

I pretty much like ATI. (SEE SIG)

Yep, my motherboard has a PCIe slot, and will support the 8600.


I saw it, although it seems that currently Nvidia is offering the most power for the best price.

Thanks for all your help, everyone!

I bought a Palit 8600GTS, 512mb card the other day. I hadn't heard of the brand before but they do a nice 8600 at a good price.