Another one of those Video card recommendation threads

[Veggita2099]

Yea looking for another video card. I recently upgraded my PC. I got a dual core athlon 4800, 2 gigs 800megahertz DDR2 memory, and a built in geforce 6100 with 128 megs of shared memory. Needless to say the video card, while being better then most integrated, still sucks.

This motherboard uses PCI Express. I am not looking to spend a lot of money. This card has caught my eye. ITs in the 8000 series and has a lot of memory on it. It also supports DX10 which I understand is a good thing?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... u=S15-1016

[butters]

I haven't really been following video cards lately, but I do know that I would wait on a DX10 card. DX10.1 is coming out very soon, and it's going to be largely incompatible with the feature set of DX10. Plus, unless you are running Vista, you won't benefit anyway.

[Ex-Cyber]

Yeah, Microsoft calls 10.1 a "side-by-side" update, meaning that 10.1 doesn't actually replace 10.0. Thus developers can readily code to either one.

[melancholy]

I am in the same situation. I plan to buy a new Gateway tower today. I was going to build my own, but yesterday we had a clearance on a Gateway with an Athlon x2 5000+, 2GB of ram, a 320GB hard drive, and a few other goodies for only $420, much cheaper than if I had to buy it all separately and build it myself (plus I won't have to re-buy Vista for it). But of course the video card sucks, so I'm currently trying to choose between a 8600GTS or an 8800GTS. I cannot decide if a $150 price difference is worth the extra performance.

[Veggita2099]

If you buy a card that has DDR3 memory will it cause problems running in a system with ddr2 memory? I thought about spending a few extra dollars and going with another card with a faster chip and DDR3 memory.

[Calavera]

I am in the same situation. I plan to buy a new Gateway tower today. I was going to build my own, but yesterday we had a clearance on a Gateway with an Athlon x2 5000+, 2GB of ram, a 320GB hard drive, and a few other goodies for only $420

Seems like a pretty good price, wanna buy me one to?

[gamedudex2]

If you buy a card that has DDR3 memory will it cause problems running in a system with ddr2 memory? I thought about spending a few extra dollars and going with another card with a faster chip and DDR3 memory.

i remember reading current ddr3 ram thats out have latency issues. ya might wanna wait another year on that. 1. they improve 2. price drops. ddr3 is pretty expensive right now.

[Code-Red]

Well, all I've got to say is this:

For the price of one 88, you can Dual SLi two 86's. If you don't have SLi, get an 8600 GT OC. No need for an 88, unless you're hardcore.

[sixteen-bit]

If you buy a card that has DDR3 memory will it cause problems running in a system with ddr2 memory? I thought about spending a few extra dollars and going with another card with a faster chip and DDR3 memory.

No problems. System RAM and your card's video RAM are completely seperate and it's definitely worth the extra to get a DDR3 card.

[Vlad Tepes]

I'm also in the same situation. I'm about to buy a machine that I posted about not long ago. I've been throwing around the idea of getting something less expensive than, say, an 8800 GTS, like an X1950 Pro or GeForce 7900, until the current DX10 cards drop in price. I dunno, though. I'm getting awfully impatient, and I don't wanna upgrade my video card in a year. Decisions decisions...

[Code-Red]

Well, in order to help you, we need to know what situation you have. What kind of games/videos/programs do you use?

[Veggita2099]

I ended up buying a EVGA Geforce 8600gt. Has 512 ram DDR3 ram, 675megahertz cpu and DX10 support. Was a little more then I had hoped to spend, but I am sick of every few months looking for an upgrade. Also hopefully my random reset problems will go away I figure its the video card built into this MB that is causing it. The only time it resets is when I am playing a graphically intense game. In any case it outta be a huge upgrade to the geforce 6100 that uses 128 megs of shared memory.