new vid card

Does anyone here have any experiences with Zotac brand cards?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ckTab=true&Keywords=(keywords)#scrollFullInfo

I am looking at this one (I'm a cheap bastiche, and I doubt I'll need much more than this for a couple of years, by which time, I'll be in a new rig anyway). But I've never heard of the company, so I wanted to get any feedback I could.

I was hearing good things about them few months back when researching my rig.

Here`s one and here another.

Don't buy a card with the nvidia 9800 chipset. Too old, too slow, bad price/performance-ratio. 3 years ago these cards (-> renamed chips) rocked. But now you can get more than twice the bang for a few bucks more.

Looking into the GeForce 460GTX might be a good starting point.

Gorath said:

Don't buy a card with the nvidia 9800 chipset. Too old, too slow, bad price/performance-ratio. 3 years ago these cards (-> renamed chips) rocked. But now you can get more than twice the bang for a few bucks more.

Looking into the GeForce 460GTX might be a good starting point.

Click to expand...

QFT.
At Tom's Hardware there is a useful hierarchy Graphic card list.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...e-gtx-560-ti-gaming-graphics-card,2857-7.html

Gorath said:

Don't buy a card with the nvidia 9800 chipset. Too old, too slow, bad price/performance-ratio. 3 years ago these cards (-> renamed chips) rocked. But now you can get more than twice the bang for a few bucks more.

Looking into the GeForce 460GTX might be a good starting point.

Click to expand...

Has it been out that long? Last time I bought a card, it was a 7800 GT, and the 8k series nVidias had just came out not long before. There was no 9k series available at the time. My parents are actually using that card now.

Obviously, I'm out of the loop!

My vote is for the GTX 560 Ti(if it's within your price range - otherwise the 460 is a good bit cheaper and still more than adequate). Though I'm partial to nvidia, as I've tended to experience better support/playability for older games with their newer cards and/or drivers…

HWcanucks has a decent review on the card, here.

If your state side and not in a rush you could always hunt through slickdeals, they usually post good deals. But the 560 is new so don't expect to find any major rebates or price reductions just yet… The 6950 is also a good option if you prefer ATI.

Oh and just to illustrate the difference between a 460GTX vs 9800gt:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-review/19

Crysis Warhead DX10 1920x1200 2xAA:

GTX 460: 33 FPS
9800 GT: 16 FPS

Far Cry 2 DX10 1920x1200 8xAA:

GTX 460: 55 FPS
9800 GT: 25 FPS

MasterKromm said:

My vote is for the GTX 560 Ti

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I was about to suggest the same card. That 560 ti is slightly faster than a GTX 470, and retails for $250. It gives near high-end performance at a mid-range price.

It sort of pisses me off because I paid over $300 for my GTX 470 less than a year ago.

My trusty 9800GTX 512mb died on me yesterday. On windows XP, where you get +20% performance in dx9 apps, I could run anything and everything cranked.

I'm back on an 8600GTS 256mb now but mostly playing indies like dominions 3, battles of norghan, dungeon crawl stone soup and a tiny bit of Wyvern for an oldschool laugh. Also, heroes of newerth runs fine.

So, since I'm in the market as well I thought I'd post what I took away with me from my brief hunt. I'm really in no rush.

9800GTX(aka gtx240) max power draw 170 watts, 70GB/sec BW, 256bit bus, 512MB, 675MHz gpu
($200)GTX460 160 watts, 115GB/s, 256bit bus, 1GB, 675MHz gpu
($500)GTX580 240 watts, 192GB/s, 384bit, 1GB, 772MHz gpu

edit: See http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=632&card2=559 for more cards and to compare two side by side. Fantastic resource, this site.

Bare in mind that the 9800GTX is more powerful than the current generation consoles. If something is going to release with a console version your 9800 rig will be able to run it better at high resolutions.

DX10 was a no show. Sure, I never left XP. Did I miss anything though? Nope. I see DX11 going much the same way with titles running exclusively on a dx11 renderer being extremely rare. ~33% of the pc market is still dx9, after all and xbox uses a modified version of dx9.

Microsoft used to sell MS-DOS 5 patches in a box. Theres no reason dx11 couldn't run on xp they just wanted to sell everyone windows again. Then again and again, only getting you to upgrade because they drop support and force you to.

Pretty much until we see the DirectX box 1080 you won't need to take your graphics too high to be able to play most releases.

I'm probably going to hold off until Guildwars2 and dungeon siege 3 are released, try them on 8600gts, then upgrade to something with <= power draw of my old card so i dont have to grab a new PSU too.

ps. I've always gone with nvidia cards but theres probably a cheaper ATI card out there with a faster GPU for less green worth considering. A friend is very happy with a 5770 he got cheaply.

What you need to establish is the resolution you will play your games in. And what operating system/CPU you`re gonna be using

If you stick with old 1280x1024/low-to-medium settings you might get away with it on this card for some time...
If you decide you want more you might need new monitor/ram/mobo/PSU/fans.

I'm on a Win 7 machine, AMD Athalon II quad core 3.2mhz cpu with 6gb of DDR3. Nothing special, but it'll do for awhile. I will likely need a PSU, not sure what this rig has in it offhand, but I'd just about bet on it. I'll plan that out once I get the card picked out, and know what I need to get.

Here lately, I've not been much of an avid gamer. The newest game on my HDD was Dungeons and Dragons Online, while the newest fps was Team Fortress 2. Most of the games are MS DOS or C64 disk images. I just bought Ghostbusters, and it's a slideshow, so I have to upgrade.

I do have some newer games, like DA:O, but I haven't got them installed. The sad fact is, most games coming out are crappy console games, with an even crappier port done to them (see Ghostbusters as a good example, piss poor port, and the gameplay is somewhat repetitive, but it's Ghostbusters). And the publishers punish and mistreat actual paying customers in retaliation for pirates, which they blame for the low sales of the crappy, poorly ported console games. Instead of blaming the utter lack of quality in those titles.

At any rate, my rant on PC gaming notwithstanding, I don't foresee any significant gaming purchases in the next couple of years, and those I do see are not likely to push a old Voodoo 2. I buy mostly indie titles, and most of those have ran fine on my old laptop, which had the Intel GMA 4000 chipset, or in other words slightly worse off than a VIC II from a C64.

I've looked at the ATi cards, but every time I do, I see a common trend in people having issues with them. I've also known a few people who used to keep their rigs as close to the top as possible, building a new one annually, and they've always said ATi was junk. So I'm a bit wary of them, though I've never used one. Always went nVidia, and never had a problem. My last two nVidias are still in use, actually, one on a friend's computer, the other on my parents.

I've had several Nvidia and ATI graphic cards throughout the years. Both had issues.
To have issues is perfectly natural with PC gaming.
Currently I've an ATI 4890. After two years is still working well with all my games (old and new). I play combat/flight sims, milsims (ARMA 2), space sims, FPS, RPG and retro.

I just upgraded my Video Card from GTX 260 to GTX 560 TI , I uses less power than the 260 and supports DX 11. The card is Highly recommended, I usually buy the EVGA brand but use standard nVidia drivers. Like Azraelck I am also running an AMD Rig but using a Phenom II X4 965 CPU (3.4 GHz) and an nVidia Chipset on my ASUS Motherboard.

In don't expect to upgrade for the next year unless the 6 Core CPU prices start to drop.

azraelck said:

I'm on a Win 7 machine, AMD Athalon II quad core 3.2mhz cpu with 6gb of DDR3. Nothing special, but it'll do for awhile. I will likely need a PSU, not sure what this rig has in it offhand, but I'd just about bet on it. I'll plan that out once I get the card picked out, and know what I need to get.

Click to expand...

Even though you don't plan on buying a lot of new games, you should really spend the money for a decent card. One of the mentioned mainstream cards will be just right for this CPU & RAM combo. A GeForce 9800 is too slow for such a PC.

As I wrote, the easy choice is a 460GTX. Lots of choices regarding RAM, noise, special features. Plus it's not that much more expensive than a 9800.
Newer cards also make sense, of course.

Yeah, I'd like to buy new games, but the publishers make it hard for me to do so.

At any rate, I'm taking y'alls advice, I've picked out a EVGA 460GTX that really isn't much more expensive than the 9800 GT I linked earlier, I'll order it next week after I get my next check. That should do me until I decide to buy or build another computer, which may be a laptop instead of a desktop, depending on whats out there. Thanks all.

Urgent question:

How fast is a Radeon 6850 in combination with a Phenom II X4 965, especially compared to a GeForce 460GTX?

According to Tom's Hardware's ranking the two are about on the same level. Measurable faster than my Radeon 4890 (on an Intel I7 920 machine). And I run almost everything at 1920x1080, maximised settings.

Says Pibbur, who normally is a bit afraid of making hardware recomendations.

Thanks!

azraelck said:

At any rate, I'm taking y'alls advice, I've picked out a EVGA 460GTX that really isn't much more expensive than the 9800 GT I linked earlier, I'll order it next week after I get my next check.

Click to expand...

If you don't mind me asking... how much is the card you picked out, and where are you ordering from?

Newegg, of course! Silly human! I've had excellent luck out of Newegg before.

$160 when all is said and done for the card, gotta order a PSU as well so that'll set me back a bit more. I'm looking at those now.

azraelck said:

Newegg, of course! Silly human! I've had excellent luck out of Newegg before.

$160 when all is said and done for the card, gotta order a PSU as well so that'll set me back a bit more. I'm looking at those now.

Click to expand...

Don't buy a NoName PSU. Their quality is too unpredicatble. There are several solid brands in 40-50€ price range. Whatever that translates to in the US. I always liked BeQuiet, but other brands aren't objectively worse.