Graphics Card

[Felix Saddler]

Hi, i currently have the ATI Radeon 9800 pro 128bit graphics card and was wondering if i should change it. If so, what should i change it to?

[born2fly_au]

I have just upgraded my video card from a low range one FX5500 to a mid range 7600gs. About $180 Australian. I am happy with it and still managed to stay within my low budget. It all depends on how much you have to spend, Do you prefer Nvidia over ATI or vice versa, what you want to do with the computer. Are you playing high end games or simply using it for the internet and letters. Also is your present hardware going to handle a high end card, AGP or PCI Express. These are things you need to think about as well as how long are you planning on keeping the computer or are you going to get a new one in the next 12 months or so. If you are a serious gamer then i would concider waiting til vista and directx 10 is released as new videocards are going to be out soon that are designed around this technology. First thing i did was read a lot of reviews and i mean a lot. Here is a good start - http://xtreview.com/review140.htm Then got the best card in my price range that would meet my critiria.
Best of luck with your choice Allen

[Mac the Knife]

Adoption of Vista is going to be slow (apart from people who buy a new PC and will have it forced on them) - Vista has lots of cute eye-candy but there's no compelling reason to upgrade, it isn't like going from 98SE to XP. The Home edition is so crippled that it won't run Aero Glass and upgrades to Pro and higher are very expensive. Established users have little real reason to change this time around and MS knows it.

Apart from Direct-X 10, Vista will have Direct-X 9cL for cards that are not Direct-X 10 compatible - DX9cL will allow them to access most of the capabilities of DX10 without forcing people to buy a new card.

Game writers will produce releases that work with DX9cL - no-one is going to release DX10 exclusive games for quite a while, simply because they just won't sell in numbers (and miss out the DX9c market which'll be around for quite a while yet).

So go to Vista if you must, but don't put off buying a high-end card by the DX10 story - it really won't be a big factor for several years. Chances are, any good card you buy now will serve you well until it dies.



PS: M$ won't backport DX9cL to XP - they say it "too difficult" - the truth is that they could but won't, in order to drive more sheep to Vista and fill their bloated coffers still further.

[Felix Saddler]

Ok, i have been looking around for sometime and still cant decide on a suitable card. Can anyone help me find a top of the range graphics card?

[Mac the Knife]

If you're really looking for top of the range then this should suit you



http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadroplex.html

[Felix Saddler]

I think thats a bit too 'top of the range', i have decided to buy a new pc with 4GB RAM, 2 x geforce 7950x 1gb graphics and a core duo 3.0 extreme processor. Hopefully this should handle just about most things!

[A V 8]

Sounds like quite a machine Felix.

If you don't mind me asking, where are you buying such a machine and how much is it costing you?

Cheers

AV8

[Mac the Knife]

Originally Posted by Felix Saddler

........4GB RAM, 2 x geforce 7950x 1gb graphics and a core duo 3.0 extreme processor. Hopefully this should handle just about most things!

Sounds like some fairly extreme willy-waving to me

Still, at least Vista will run at an acceptable speed

[Felix Saddler]

I have just purchased it from www.pcspecialist.co.uk for just under 2.5K. Pretty expensive but boy will it be a machine. Hope this helps.

FS