Replacement Graphics Card

[Nimbus]

Alright, as much as I hate to admit it, my 9800 GX2 is officially dead. I shall mourn it's loss (as shall my wallet). I didn't keep to box, receipt, or warranty. Hell, I don't even remember fully where I bought it. Nevertheless, it's time to move on. I need a replacement and I have come to you guys to ask what I should get to replace it (GX2s are impossible to find, especially in Ireland, so don't recommend it. Also I hear it has bad "Microstuttering", whatever that is.)

What I'm looking for is something that will do for a long time. Money is not really an issue (Not rich. Just a cheap bastard. I haven't made a withdrawal in almost a year). Normally I would know myself, but I totally stopped paying attention to the hardware sector after building my top-of-the-line system about 2 years ago.

In short, "What should I buy"?

 

[LaughingTarget]

Don't waste your money on that. The best cards for the money are in the ATI camp right now. Go with a 4870 X2. Costs less and frequently outperforms everything in the Nvidia arsenal.

 

[Arachon]

How about an NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 [http://www3.pny.com/NVIDIA-Quadro-FX-5800-P2735C365.aspx]? With 4GB of memory (GDDR3), support for 32x Anti-Aliasing and Shader model 4.0, you won't have to upgrade your graphics card for at least a decade, and still be able to run the high-end games... Too bad it costs about $3000.

Honestly... If you buy the aforementioned card, you're not only rich, but insane. Apparently it's meant for stuff like rendering Pixar movies and such... Still... Would be a pretty cool thing to show off at a LAN-party... Though you'd probably need a monster machine to be able to use/cool it.

 

[DazZ.]

Honestly... If you buy the aforementioned card, you're not only rich, but insane. Apparently it's meant for stuff like rendering Pixar movies and such... Still... Would be a pretty cool thing to show off at a LAN-party... Though you'd probably need a monster machine to be able to use/cool it.

Would rape the power of a lan party lol.
Wonder how long it is till thats commen, youd need an epic everything else aswell if you didn't want a bottleneck.

OP: Price range? Is this a temp card till more moneys in your pocket? or just another card that isn't your old one.
Its late. Im going to log off before I skimread anymore. Night!

 

[LaughingTarget]

The Quadro makes a terrible gaming card. The card is optimized for workstation applications and doesn't work well for games. A great example is the Quadro 4800 vs a GeForce GTX 280. On the surface, their stats are just about identical with the GeForce outperforming the Quadro on clock speed. They both run the same driver, too. However, the Quadro 4800 absolutely crushes the GeForce in applications like Maya while the GeForce destroys the Quadro in Crysis.

Gaming card rely heavily on fill rates, something the Quadro series is poor at. A $139 ATI Radeon 4870 with 512mb of RAM embarrasses the $3,500 NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 at any game you can throw at it. They're simply optimized to do different things. Why spend the equivalent of three top shelf gaming PCs just to have a card that is beaten by a low budget solution?