Cheap good GFX card?

[Will]

My main target is for it to be under £100 but better than my old X800pro. - it would be great if it has dual DVI out and it has to be PCIE (it's the only slot I have - well I have 2 acutally)...

Not bothered about ATi vs Nvidia - though if it matters I have an NVidia mainboard.

If anyone has a card which superseeds my x800 that they want to pass onto me at a reasonable price that would be fine too. My current card is starting to fail - hence the question. The only games I ever play (a couple of time a month :o) are things like HL2, Civ4 and other FPS. I'm running Vista too.

I see lots of what I remember being awesome cards for around 70 quid - but of course I don't really know enough about it anymore.

[Matblack]

I was considering one of these

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Products.ASP?CatID=15&FilterCategories=296&Thumbnails=yes

DX10 too

MB

[Will]

Crikey there's a huge range and a huge price difference too!

Which would be the best of the cheaper range?

[Joe 90]

aye i'd of said 8600 series ftw.

i was considering it for the DX10'ness which makes it top my x850xt :(

but my vista install went tits up so no need now :/


Crikey there's a huge range and a huge price difference too!

Which would be the best of the cheaper range?

Go for a GT over standard and if you can obviously a GTS would be nice :)

then brand wise i'd got Gainwood over Gigybyte/Diamond - but if you can stretch that BFG GTS is a nice card :D

at the bottom end though i guess this (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=661335) will be okay seen as though its 512mb. Plus is a bargain price!

but it depends how long you want it to last and what you'll use it for. Obviously looking at that scan page there are DDR2 and DDR3 clocked at various speeds so it depends on what you need.

[Will]

Cheers for the advice so far guys :)

[Zirax]

I seem to remember that these 8600 cards clock like crazy?

[LeperousDust]

I don't know how well vista is with the nVidia cards though, all i know is i've got a 7400go (the go probably makes it a problem) but i've had sod all in the shape of decent drivers (and i'm still waiting). Totally useless, Wish they'd get there act together properly :(

[Zirax]

Are you using a laptop for that go chip. You'll be waiting a very long time as nvidia are not even supporting my 7800gt go in xp on my laptop. I had to get custom drivers which are essentially normal nvidia drivers with the ini file changed so that they will install for the card.

edit:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/
I got mine from guru3d

[Will]

The nvidia drivers for the cards suggested so far appear to be vista compatible....

[Zirax]

Sorry Will went ot for a moment there. Alex was referring to the issue of getting new laptop drivers under vista for nvidia's "go" gfx cards, not the 8600 card that you were looking at

[Matblack]

I was looking at this one.

Its cheap and it has passive cooling which will be ideal for my build :)

MB

[LeperousDust]

Sorry yeah i may have got slightly confused, and i have found that site Zirax, but a lot of the drivers dont seem to work for me, plus its hella confusing, i dont really know which ones to get or not and if i'll brick my laptop, and i dont want to have to reinstall vista just yet!

[semi-pro waster]

If you aren't too bothered by DX10 compatability and ATI have sorted their drivers out then the X1950pro is well within your price range and offers very good performance. If I remember rightly it beats the 8600GT in most circumstances with DX9 games and is either not far behind or equal to the more expensive 8600GTS as well. :)

[Will]

Thanks for that SPW. My current dying ATi card's drivers work well - so I'd hope that wouldn't be a problem.

[LeperousDust]

Nog sure what youre like with second hand stuff, but there are some utter bargains to be had... I'd actually go that way Will, i don't really buy much hardware new now, becuase what i usually want is a step or two down from bleeding edge, which means someone else paid that premium before me and i'm passed on a nice little saving. Never had any problems with anything this way either :)

Anyways worth a look on the MM...

[LeperousDust]

Something like this? (http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17784466)

[Joe 90]

|Show|, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

wtfs on that page?

[LeperousDust]

Hmmmm, well it was a link to a thread in the MM thats obviously been moved/deleted etc...

[Matblack]

I bought one of these

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=661333

in the end, its silent and i does a lot of video processing which takes pressure off my obviously highly overworked Q6600 :D

MB

[Will]

A friend of mine is willing to sell a less than month old 8800GTS to me for 50 quid - from what I've seen online it seems a good price and good spec (it's the 320mb version), he bought it in error and he'd rather give me a deal rather than sell it to someone else - I had dropped a hint too ;) :p

[semi-pro waster]

That is a great deal, massive step up from your X800 card. Only question would perhaps be how good is your PSU?

[Will]

It's a 540W one. It should be ok no? If so I'll get it this afternoon! :D

[LeperousDust]

They're power hungry beasts, and some people would advise against it. But it'll probably just get by, if you do start crashing and failing when playing games you will at least know why though. Is it a decent 540w? How many rails? Try and keep big things on their own or separate rails etc...

[semi-pro waster]

As LeperousDust says, what brand is the PSU? Offhand I can't think of any PSUs that are exactly 540w but if it is from a good manufacturer and reasonably new then I'd have no worries about it. :)

[Will]

It's 550W actually. Akasa. Good enough?

[LeperousDust]

I'd probably go for it, considering its so cheap too... But i got told off (http://www.boat-drinks.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5940) for buying second hand cheap small power supplies, they do me great though as long as there decent branded etc... No q-tex or Hiper it seems either!

[Will]

I have less devices than you but I have a fairly chunky Zalman "flower" processor cooler, but it's not a big current hogger - I have some case fans, but again they are low speed big volume ones (I don't like noise :p). I think 550W is more than comfortable, I have quite a few spare connectors so it's not even fully loaded.

Anyway I purchased it last night - in the nick of time too as the fan of my X800 isn't really working properly and one of the DVI outputs is a bit flaky. I'll let you know how pretty it is! :D Well the output's bound to be better than what I've got now! :p

[semi-pro waster]

A 550w Akasa should be more than enough, Akasa are a decent brand which are aimed more at the 'budget' end of PSUs but still easily fine for what you need, anything decent from 400w up should be ok for an 8800GTS. :)

[Will]

I've had it over a year since my last PSU died - it's been really good, and not faltered since I've got it - I've wired in a multimeter to it so I can keep an eye on it, but it's peaking well under 420W let alone 550W. The only time there's a big draw is on initial turn on, or if I'm doing a CPU/System caning - but even then it's a steady draw rather than erratic spiking. I think it should be fine - can't wait to try it out tonight! :D

[Stan_Lite]

A 550w Akasa should be more than enough, Akasa are a decent brand which are aimed more at the 'budget' end of PSUs but still easily fine for what you need, anything decent from 400w up should be ok for an 8800GTS. :)

Saved me some typing there :D

I'm running an overclocked 8800GTX, two HDDs and several 120mm fans along with all the usual gubbins off a 600W Antec PSU with no problems at all - 550W should be more than enough for your setup.

[Will]

From what I've read, 460W onwards is more than adequate on a normally loaded system. I'm happy I'll be fine - anyway we'll find out tonight! :D