Graphics card choice??

Hi

I am building a gaming rig and need some advice on what G card to choose, CPU is Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz, memory is Corsair 4GB PC2-5300

Ideally i would like to choose the cheapest card available without building a PC that wont play the latest game

I have found a few but dont know what the overall difference would be regarding gaming performance

Club 3D nVidia GeForce 9500GT Passive Dual Heatpipe 512MB PCI-E2.0 £50.54

XFX GeForce 8800GTS 320mb DDR3 PCI-E £66.64

nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512MB PCI-E £79.29

MSI GeForce 9600GT 512MB Overclocked PCI-E £91.14

nVidia GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB PCI-E £132.19

I have given the customer a build price including the £132.19 graphics card and I dont think he was too impressed with the overall total so I am just wondering if I put a much cheaper card in, would that have an impact on being able to play the latest game

Thanks in advance

Lee H

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Comments

paintb4707

I would go with the nVidia 9600GT if the GTX is too much. I don't think the performance difference with OCed cards is even noticeable so save the money there. Usually when I shop for video cards I try to find the cheapest one from a reputable vendor. No reason to spend an extra $50-$100 on an OCed card, it will be outdated in 4 months anyways by the next gen card...

Nobylspoon

The 9600GT is great bang for the buck. I just ordered one on Newegg for $99usd. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127333

tiersten

The cards you listed should play the latest games but you won't be able to have all the quality sliders cranked up to max.

vCole

how about dropping to a different CPU, like the Q6600.

Looks as though they're equally priced, nvm

Lee H

Hi

So will there be a difference in performance, between

nVidia GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB PCI-E £132.19

and

nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512MB PCI-E £79.29

Cost difference of £50 but would the performance difference be that noticable

Thanks

Lee H

Nobylspoon

These are the primary differences in the 2 cards.

Core Clock
9600GT: 650MHz
9800GTX: 738MHz

Stream Processors
9600GT: 64
9800GTX: 128

Memory Clock
9600GT: 1800MHz
9800GTX: 2200MHz

cepera1987

Corsair 4GB PC2-5300 <<< This would be your bottleneck in the system performance

How about these:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130429

I've noticed about 20-40 FPS increase in most of my games going from 667 to 800 MHz.

Lee H

Nobylspoon wrote: »

These are the primary differences in the 2 cards.

Core Clock
9600GT: 650MHz
9800GTX: 738MHz

Stream Processors
9600GT: 64
9800GTX: 128

Memory Clock
9600GT: 1800MHz
9800GTX: 2200MHz

These figures look like a big difference, if there was 2 PC's that had exact same hardware and only difference was that each had a diff g card

nVidia GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB PCI-E £132.19

and

nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512MB PCI-E £79.29

Can anyone honestly say they would be able to tell the difference after playing COD5 on each PC

Thanks

Lee H

dynamik

What resolution do you want to be running at? You're going to have completely different needs if you're trying to hit 1920x1200 instead of 1280x1024.

I think there will be a noticeable difference between those cards. It's your call whether it'll be worth the cost though.

Knives Out

I bought a 9600gt over the summer and had nothing but problems with it, from all the reading I've done it seems to affect first gen 9600gt cards I believe. I'll play a game, WoW, or any other game and it randomly drops all video signal and the audio loops. The only way to get video back is to reboot the machine. It always seems to happen when the fan kicks in a bit louder on the videocard.

I've invested many hours trying different attempts to fix with no resolution - incl. upgrading my PSU, formatting and reinstalling my OS, using different driver versions, and whats worse - I slap at Geforce 7650 in my machine and this issue doesn't happen. I don't want to void my warranty by flashing the videocard BIOS. I'm going to end up RMAing it I think, this is the first time in 8 years of computer support I couldn't fix something.

Google "9600gt black screen" and you'll find many descriptions of this problem. And I have a fairly new decent machine atm, AMD Quad Core, 3gb ram, 650ps (with appropriate voltage/amps for this card). It doesn't appear to be a heat issue because the card is barely at 50c when this happens.

I've also had it temporarily die on me on two separate occasions now, even after the reboot the card doesn't give any video signal at all. If I've left it for a day, it seems to be ok.

Just wanted to mention this as an FYI, or if anyone has heard of this and may know a solution it'd be appreciated