Shoutbox

Because it's faster, new technologies, SLI.

Personally, i am about to buy a new computer and i am going to wait on the graphics card because they are about to go down in price by a LOT, so i would wait, then decide on which one you want....Best thing to do is read the reviews on major sites.

Tandy

the  nVidia 6800s are going to fall in prices since the 7800s are arriving

i've always used nvidia's, and never wanted an ATI, because of the problems my friend had with about 4 radeons (driver problems), they're both good at making cards but because of the driver problems my friend had i've always been against ati

i find the drivers for my dads radion 9200pro suck balls. I find nvidia's are much better (i have an fx5700le)

My advice.... buy a nice little Athlon64 or *shudders* a P4 and a nForce4 SLI Motherboard.  Then just get a GeForce 6600GT (or 2 for 6800U performance roughly) and if you got P4 you'll need DDR2 Memory too.

Basically:

Athlon64 2800/3000/3200
nForce4 SLI Motherboard (ASUS, DFI, MSI & ABIT reccomended)
GeForce 6600GT (or 2)
Use existing PC3200 (400MHz) DDR
Maybe a better PSU, something like 450W

or the AGP Route:

X800 256MB or 6800GT 256MB


Try to avoid X300, X600, 6200, 6200TC, 6600 (standard) and the 6800 (standard) as you can get better performance from an alternative.


The only things PCI-Express brings performance wise is SLI (Crossfire) & the fact that the top spec cards aren't available in AGP formats.  They do provide more available bandwidth but modern day games just don't need it, yet.

hey that's sorta what i wanna get

Athlon 64 3400+
i was gonna go Nforce 3, but is 4 better?
Geforce 6600GT/6800 Ultra (when they come down in price)
Case with 350W psu, is that enough?
512mb DDR400

Tandy

i got a ATI Radeon x700   an works well, .. i'll never touch an nvidia till i hear promising good reports bout them,

I think it depends on what games you are gonig to play. I have a copy of PCFormat where they did a huge supertest of loads of different graphics cards, and then put a file with detailed tests results on the cover dvd, if i find the CD i will post that excel file.

It basically shows that in some areas ATi beats nVidia, and in others nVidia beats ATi.

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer

quote:

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Originally posted by squall_leonhart69r
Go PCI-E its more future proofed and then you can buy a 7800GTX  or ultra when its released

killer cards

HDR Lighting makes the new splinter cell game look heaps kool

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Yeah! go Pci-express, spend 500 extra bucks on a new mobo and a new CPU, while you could've bought a similar card on AGP

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Indeed. I wouldn't recommend PCIe at all for now, unless you won the lottery so to speak, or always want the latest from the latest. "Performance vs. money"-wise it isn't worth a penny IMO.

You're far better of waiting a few more years until the BTX form factor is widely spread and becomes a bit cheaper and then upgrade to that (instead of now spending $500 extra on new mobo and cpu just for the PCIe, and within two years again spending +$1000 on new PC with BTX layout)

For more about PCIe see this excellent article:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1087

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As for ATI vs nVidea, I believe the choice is simply personal. I've used both and both are excellent manufactures and it will only come down to money vs. what you get for that money. So I think the best thing to do is to fix the amount of money you want to spend and and then search for cards for that money from both manufactures and then start comparing the features, not vice versa...

quote:

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Originally posted by saralk
It basically shows that in some areas ATi beats nVidia, and in others nVidia beats ATi.

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I couldn't say it any better...