Shoutbox

Hey.

A friend wants to upgrade his old 7300GT to something better.

Can someone suggest me a video card from here?

He can give about €120-130 max.
DirectX 10 is not needed, but who knows? It may be needed in the future...
No preference over ATI or nVidia.
He plays games like Guild Wars, CS: S etc.
He can play the above games with no problems, but he recently tried NFS: PS and of course his 7300GT couldn't handle it.

I suggested to him this and a Gigabyte 7900GT that I can't find on the internet that cost about the same price.

Thanks for the help

Btw, you can also try this for finding a GPU. It may contain different products.

get an 8800GT. it's currently the best deal on the market.

quote:

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Originally posted by ShawnZ
get an 8800GT. it's currently the best deal on the market.

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Unfortunately, he doesn't have the money to buy one (things are costy here)

Also, out of curiosity, which one would you suggest? I see that there are many companies producing the video cards (example: Gigabyte, Club3D, etc)
What's actually the difference on all these cards?

Yep, I know, I'm a total noob when it comes to graphics cards

quote:

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Originally posted by Mike
I see that there are many companies producing the video cards (example: Gigabyte, Club3D, etc).  What's actually the difference on all these cards?

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As long as they are using the same Nvidia or ATI chipset, there is very little difference.  If you were to compare the different brand cards side by side, you would find most of them even use the same circuit board layout (supplied by Nvidia or ATI as reference).

The two areas where there might be a difference are quality of construction and overclocking.   Not-so-reputable brands might use cheap fans that fail in six months (although I've even had this happen with Asus cards), and generally cheaper components and materials (which could shorten the life of the card).  Some makers (e.g. BFG) routinely overclock the chipsets beyond their spec, producing better performing (but potentially less stable) cards.  It would be your friend's call whether he is comfortable with that approach.

I'd suggest you or your friend pick some top choices, then Google the particular brands and models, looking for reviews and comments from people who have bought those cards.