Poll: It's that time again... Graphic Card Upgrade, help needed.

[Caliostro]

So it's that time again, when my good'ol graphic card (GeForce 8500 GT, 1gb Ram) can no longer live up to the daily demands of modern gaming. Considering graphic cards are a fundamental part of gaming these days, and that my budget is limited, I'd like the escapist's "hardware buffs" to give me a little hand picking. I'm looking for the best "bang for my buck", so to speak, the best performance I can get out of the limited budget I have.

Option A: ASUS GF EN9800GT 512MB DDR3 DUAL DVI HDMI - 139? (~199$ USD)

The 9800GT series seems pretty reliable these days. 140? is an acceptable price for me, and I expect it to last this next generation of games going "full max" on the graphics... Or at the very least, very high.

Option B: XFX GF GTS250 512MB DDR3 DUAL DVI HDTV - 129? (~185$ USD)

The renamed 9800GTX series, at a better price than the above seems like the better choice... What bothers me is the cheaper price... It's not common for better items to be cheaper, which leads me to the question: Is the price difference justified by the difference in brands (ASUS being more expensive than XFX) or is there a downside to the GTS250 comparatively to the aforementioned 9800GT?

Option C: XFX GF GTS260 896MB DDR3 DUAL DVI (comes with the game Farcry*) - 249? (~357$ USD)

*Note: I think this is a typo, and it's actually FarCry2, but that doesn't really matter much.

This one was actually recommended to me by the store owner, mentioning the higher 896MB of memory... However, the price is quite steep for me... So the question goes, does the extra jump in the series (250->260) and the extra memory REALLY justify the 120? (~172$ USD) extra I'd have to shell out for it? Far Cry seems interesting, but I'm not that interested in paying extra for the game, there are other games out I'm more interested in.

Option D: You name it.
I admit, I'm more focused on Nvidia than ATI, simply because, last I checked, ATI suffered a bit more from slight incompatibility issues, causing some performance loss comparing to Nvidia, but things might have changed meanwhile, so... I'm up for suggestions.


So, thoughts?

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

I'd go 9800 personally

 

[T3h Camp3r T3rr0r1st]

you going DX10?

if not go for a nVidia 7950 512 but if you insist on X10 go for a 512MB 8800 GTX that leaves room for Tri-SLI for a very cheep price

 

[Caliostro]

Well I voted before i read. I voted GTX260

However. If you can an ATi Radeon 4870 would be a better choice. I don't know about prices in your area though.

EDIT: Get a sapphire model. Sapphire make the ATi cards run a lot better

Around here the cheapest 4870 goes for 299? (~428$ USD)... Bit out of my budget I'm afraid.

you going DX10?

if not go for a nVidia 7950 512 but if you insist on X10 go for a 512MB 8800 GTX that leaves room for Tri-SLI for a very cheep price

Yeah I want dx10 compatible. I'm hoping to switch to Windows7 as soon as it is released and "public tested" enough, so to speak. Althought the 7950 does seem to offer very good performance, it still seems like a step backwards in comparison to the others, unless I'm missing something.

On the 8800GTX: Basically get 3 8800's instead? Seems interesting... I'll look into it, thanks.

 

[Borrowed Time]

*le snip*

Hrm, I'm not exactly sure where you're getting your prices from, but I just looked up a Geforce 260 GTX with 896 MB of ram for $175.

Personally I currently have 2 8800GTX's in my machine SLI'd and it rocks. Granted though, the 8800's are around 100$ a pop and it's just as good to get 1 260GTX. I slapped a 260GTX in my wife's machine and it keeps up with mine just fine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150361

Here's where I got that price quote.

Although I haven't checked the differences at all (such as if there's a different number of pipelines) but here's one for $160.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150329

Edit -

Durr, my bad. GTS not GTX. Personally the GTS has some crazy clock speeds but for the price difference I'd go with a GTX instead. You can actually find some factory overclocked to close to the GTS speeds, such as here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130433

160$ after rebate.

 

[Caliostro]

*le snip*

Hrm, I'm not exactly sure where you're getting your prices from, but I just looked up a Geforce 260 GTX with 896 MB of ram for $175.

Personally I currently have 2 8800GTX's in my machine SLI'd and it rocks. Granted though, the 8800's are around 100$ a pop and it's just as good to get 1 260GTX. I slapped a 260GTX in my wife's machine and it keeps up with mine just fine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150361

Here's where I got that price quote.

Although I haven't checked the differences at all (such as if there's a different number of pipelines) but here's one for $160.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150329

From retail in my area, which is where I can buy. Lack of a credit card makes internet transactions unavailable to me. So yeah.

 

[Borrowed Time]

*more snippage*

Can't you get one of those prepaid credit cards from a local department store or something? I know that walmart here in my area in the states allows you to get a prepaid visa card for a 4$ fee or something.

 

[Caliostro]

*more snippage*

Can't you get one of those prepaid credit cards from a local department store or something? I know that walmart here in my area in the states allows you to get a prepaid visa card for a 4$ fee or something.

Would love to, but I have never heard of them here (Portugal).

 

[Borrowed Time]

*more snippage*

Can't you get one of those prepaid credit cards from a local department store or something? I know that walmart here in my area in the states allows you to get a prepaid visa card for a 4$ fee or something.

Would love to, but I have never heard of them here (Portugal).

Hrm, damnation. The problem with getting a couple 8800GTX's is that they're actually pretty hard to find anymore as the 9000 series basically pushed them out. Let me do some searching and see what the difference between the 9800GT and the 250GTS is clock speed, etc. is. I wouldn't pay for the 260GTS honestly. it's a nice card but a bit too much for me.

They accept paypal I believe.

Good call, they do in fact accept paypal.

http://www.newegg.com/HelpInfo/FAQDetail.aspx?Module=2

 

[AdambotLive]

8800GTS 640MB.

around £70 in the UK, so $150 in US i think?

It can run crysis and most games on high, not sure about AA and AF.

 

[Woodsey]

Well if you've got the money go for the GTS260 I say, the extra video RAM WILL be worth it, (you should be scraping as much of it as you can IMO). Plus, you'd probably save money, as you wouldn't have to upgrade as soon as you would the 9800 (although you're right about it going max settings - my 512mb 9600gt still can and I can see it doing that for a while). But I'm under the impression video RAM is getting more and more important so, go for the most.

 

[headshotcatcher]

Get ATI HD4870 or HD4890, best cost/effective videocards around

 

[Borrowed Time]

Would love to, but I have never heard of them here (Portugal).

Hrm, the 250GTS blows the 9800GT out of the water.

250 GTS =

Core clock: 760 MHz
Stream Procs: 128
Mem clock: 2300MHz
OpenGL: 3.0
Max Resolution: 2560 x 1600

9800 GT =

Core clock: 600 Mhz
Stream Procs: 112
Mem clock: 900MHz
OpenGL: 2.0
Max Resolution: 2560 x 1600

Just a quick comparison.

 

[T3h Camp3r T3rr0r1st]

Well I voted before i read. I voted GTX260

However. If you can an ATi Radeon 4870 would be a better choice. I don't know about prices in your area though.

EDIT: Get a sapphire model. Sapphire make the ATi cards run a lot better

Around here the cheapest 4870 goes for 299? (~428$ USD)... Bit out of my budget I'm afraid.

you going DX10?

if not go for a nVidia 7950 512 but if you insist on X10 go for a 512MB 8800 GTX that leaves room for Tri-SLI for a very cheep price

Yeah I want dx10 compatible. I'm hoping to switch to Windows7 as soon as it is released and "public tested" enough, so to speak. Althought the 7950 does seem to offer very good performance, it still seems like a step backwards in comparison to the others, unless I'm missing something.

On the 8800GTX: Basically get 3 8800's instead? Seems interesting... I'll look into it, thanks.

any time but trust me 7950 is super good!

 

[Azhrarn-101]

ATI HD4890 1GB, similar price-range as that GTX260, but runs circles around it.
It's almost in the same performance class as the GTX285, but much cheaper.

ATI is by far the best bang for your buck this generation.

 

[Caliostro]

They accept paypal I believe.

Good call, they do in fact accept paypal.

http://www.newegg.com/HelpInfo/FAQDetail.aspx?Module=2

My my, that does make the 260 a lot more appealing... at 110? on newegg and free shipping, it's squarely within the price I was looking for.

That said, if I end up going with the other two, the 250 seems like the best option yeah.

 

[Borrowed Time]

They accept paypal I believe.

Good call, they do in fact accept paypal.

http://www.newegg.com/HelpInfo/FAQDetail.aspx?Module=2

My my, that does make the 260 a lot more appealing... at 110? on newegg and free shipping, it's squarely within the price I was looking for.

That said, if I end up going with the other two, the 250 seems like the best option yeah.

Mind you, those are GTXs that I linked and not the GTS. The GTX has a bit slower GPU clock speed then the GTS (anywhere from 100 to 200 MHz depending on who you buy from). The cost is much more managable though and the speed difference is negligible when it really comes down to it.

ATI HD4890 1GB, similar price-range as that GTX260, but runs circles around it.
It's almost in the same performance class as the GTX285, but much cheaper.

ATI is by far the best bang for your buck this generation.

Hrm, most of the HD4890's I see have an insanely slow Memory clock speed, sitting around 1000MHz. Sure it has a crazy number of stream processors and generally a fairly high GPU clock speed, but for 50$ - 100$ less and twice as fast Mem clock speed you can snag a 260GTX. I guess it depends on what you want really. I've personally had issues with ATI cards before so I guess you could call me a bit of an Nvidia fanboi as the GeForce series has always been fantastic for me. :shrug: