• Please make sure you are familiar with the forum rules. You can find them here: https://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?threads/forum-rules.2334636/

New Video card.

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
Nimsky

Nimsky

Grizzled Veteran
Nov 22, 2005
4,180
945
Elitist Prick Nude Beach
#1
Well, it looks like my 8800GTX died. I'm getting REALLY bad problems. Games completely lock up, graphics mess up in a very weird way, vertical bars, framerate dropping to 1 per 25 seconds, etc. I just did a hard drive format + Windows reinstall, but it looks like the problems persist. :( It even creeps into Windows itself. For example I'm posting a message right now, and every few minutes the PC completely locks up, can't do anything, and then after a couple of seconds I can type again. It can't be a virus because I just did a complete format.

So, I'm in the market for a new video card. Can you recommend me a good one? Which cards are considered "the best" these days? In the meantime, I think I'll install my old card. :-/
 
Last edited:
#3
Radeon 4870...

...or if you want to save some cash, an Asus 9800GT Ultimate. It's fast and cheap. Just because it's called a 9800GT it doesn't mean it's a renamed 8800GT. It is a renamed card though. It's actually an overclocked 8800GTS 512 with a BIOS flash. Also you can get another now or later and SLI them for a total price around the same as the cost of one 4870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121266
 
Upvote 0
#4
I guess the Gforce GX260/280 and ATI Radeon 4870 series are what's considered top of the line consumer cards at the moment. In terms of performance they are about the same I think. Expensive, sure, but its the most important component if you are a gamer!

For a bit cheaper I'd go for the Gforce 9800, since I'm an NVidia fanboy :p

My only gripe with modern gfx-cards is they're so friggin HUGE, I could barely fit my GX280 in, had to lose a HD just to fit it...
 
Upvote 0
#5
User Name said:
Radeon 4870...

...or if you want to save some cash, an Asus 9800GT Ultimate. It's fast and cheap. Just because it's called a 9800GT it doesn't mean it's a renamed 8800GT. It is a renamed card though. It's actually an overclocked 8800GTS 512 with a BIOS flash. Also you can get another now or later and SLI them for a total price around the same as the cost of one 4870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121266
Click to expand...
No it is not. The 9800GT has 112 Shaders, the 8800GTS has 128 shaders. The 8800GT and the 9800GT are almost the same exact card.

His 8800 GTX would mop the floor with the 9800GT.

Skip the entire 9800 series all together.

The GTX 260 is the best nvidia card for the money, the new GTX 260 Core 216 is a new revision with 216 shaders instead of the original 192 shaders.

The best nvidia has to offer right now is the GTX 280, but a revision that includes a die shrink from 65nm to 55nm and perhaps GDDR5 Memory.(even though the extra bandwidth is not needed over GDDR3 right now... it is just more expensive.

Nvidia has pledged to take the Performance Crown back from ATI by the New Year with a card dubbed GTX 350 it is rumored to be an entirely new architecture with 2gb on board memory and a GPU die size of 55nm.

Right now the most powerful card on the Planet belongs to ATI with the 4870X2 GDDR5 1mb.

You can get a 8800 GTX for $159 now at Fry's, and it is better than most cards in the 9800 series at resolutions above 1680 x 1050 because of its larger memory bandwidth due to the onboard 768mb of RAM.

Tiger Direct has the 8800 Ultra for $199. I have 2 Ultras on my 680i in SLI and it is rock 'n roll.

If you want some of the best advice about current hardware, especially but in no way limited to GFX cards... go to the evga website and post your question with your full system specs and you will get tons of solid advice. Don't worry if you do not own any evga products, the do not discriminate.

http://www.evga.com/forums/
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
#6
Buddy Lee,

You are correct about most of the 9800GT series, but not the one I linked to. The Asus 9800GT Ultimate is an over-clocked 8800GTS 512 that was flashed to a 9800GT. I know because I have one. It has 128SPs and is clocked at 725/1750/2000. It is also cheaper than any card that rivals it as it is only $150. I was giving him a cheap option that is comparable to, if not better than the 8800GTX he wants to replace.

If he wants to spend the big bucks than a 4870, or GTX 280 is fine. I just showed him a good, cheap option.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
#7
My bad, I had not heard about that, no wonder the ASUS Card is the only 9800GT that is tri-SLI capable. :DIt is basically a 9800 GTX over clocked. Is it 65nm or 55nm?

But still, above 1680 x 1050 the 9800 series are gimped because they only have 512mb of memory. I doubt he would see much of an improvement over his 8800 GTX. And may actually lose performance if he games at 19 x 12 or higher.

I would still recommend the GTX 260 since it is about 1.5 times the power of the 8800 GTX. They can be had for $240 after rebate.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
#8
Got the 4870 here and its been pretty good for me, and bang for buck its supposed to be the best at the moment, it even shows pretty good crossfire/sli performance if you want to add another in the future. Only had two niggles with it, my saphire version had a crap fan profile, but that was fixed with an ASUS bios flash and if you play mount and blade (though i dont think you do) it just doesnt work properly with the 4xxx series or any ati with 8.6+ drivers.

But if ur wanting to go Nvidia the 260 offers similar perforamce (some benchmarks have shown it slightly worse than the 4870 on occasions actually, though on paper and more of the time its better) but at a slightly higher price.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
#10
My Geforce 8800GTX OC 768MB has also died :( so I share your pain. I'm now stuck with a Geforce 8600GS 512MB :( at the moment because I bought another PC that came with it to test out if my 8800 card was really to blame. I've had mines for nearly over a year now, it was a BFG brand and the cause of death was probably due to overheating problems maybe because I had my soundcard fitted right next to it or my case was badly ventilated. Every now and then I reboot my computer my card would go into 1-bit mode and I'd get these awful blue pixels along the screen even at the Microsoft loading screen at the start. Surfing the net would also be a real pain as I'd get frequent crashes :mad: and the display was unreadable. Nearly every program such as games are impossible to run. I paid
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
#12
fOgGy said:
My Geforce 8800GTX OC 768MB has also died :( so I share your pain. I'm now stuck with a Geforce 8600GS 512MB :( at the moment because I bought another PC that came with it to test out if my 8800 card was really to blame. I've had mines for nearly over a year now, it was a BFG brand and the cause of death was probably due to overheating problems maybe because I had my soundcard fitted right next to it or my case was badly ventilated. Every now and then I reboot my computer my card would go into 1-bit mode and I'd get these awful blue pixels along the screen even at the Microsoft loading screen at the start. Surfing the net would also be a real pain as I'd get frequent crashes :mad: and the display was unreadable. Nearly every program such as games are impossible to run. I paid
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
#14
Nimsky said:
Looks like we have exactly the same problem! Same card, blue pixel stuff, it even lasted just as long. :eek: It was a good card but I was hoping it would last longer than 1 and a 1/2 year. :(

I tried installing my old Radeon today, but I don't think it fits on this motherboard. Oh well, I'll buy a new one soon. Now I'm stuck with vertical blue bars and a weird resolution which hurt my eyes.
Click to expand...

Not forgetting the infamous BSOD when my card sometimes randomly ran normally but then the next minute BANG the screen turns black and locks out even if you left your computer on idle.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
#16
Considering the budget you put on your pc I can assume you know best...
But since no one mentioned it, I think it's worth to say...

If your current unstable card still boots up to windows, can it be that it has overheating problems and be recovered by removing the gigantic fan cover (if it has a fan failure or mad dust accumulation ?
 
Upvote 0
#18
necropimp said:
ATI has the best cost:performance ratio right now

of course all these means jack crap to me... i'm broke, stuck with AGP, and rockin a 7800GS
Click to expand...

Not exactly, if someone has an SLI capable Mobo then 2 8800GT 512's for about $220 would beat a 4870 in a lot of games, and the 4870 cost like $250-$300.

Nvidia dropped their prices lately so they are really about even.
 
Upvote 0
#19
Bought myself a Geforce GTX260 today. :D Works fine, thanks for the advice. Man, that was 5 / 6 days straight without gaming!:eek::p:D

Also apparantly ati cards may last up to 100 times longer than nvidia cards....
Click to expand...
Might be so. I've read up on the subject and it turned out I wasn't the only one without the pixel artifact problem, it really seems like it's quite common with GeForce cards. If this one dies within 2 years as well, I'll probably switch to ATI permanently.

But I'm happy with my new one.
 
Upvote 0
#20
Nimsky said:
Bought myself a Geforce GTX260 today. :D Works fine, thanks for the advice. Man, that was 5 / 6 days straight without gaming!:eek::p:D

Might be so. I've read up on the subject and it turned out I wasn't the only one without the pixel artifact problem, it really seems like it's quite common with GeForce cards. If this one dies within 2 years as well, I'll probably switch to ATI permanently.

But I'm happy with my new one.
Click to expand...


Why the hell did you get a gtx260?

its slower and more expensive than a hd4870
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Community News
Forums
Merch
Menu