Hi everyone, I have read many reviews on different video cards but I'm a bit stuck in finding a good one for my 'new' system. The system which I like to upgrade its video card has the following spec: Its a HP XW8200 (this machine has only 1 pci-e 16x (version 1) , 2x Xeon 3.2Ghz 4Gb of Ram Nvidia Quadro Fx 3400 600W power supply I'm running Vista 64bit and OpenSuse 64bit on it and I'm really happy with it except the video card performance is not great in windows Vista but its excellent in OpenSuse! Here is what I want to use the system for : Programming (including Game development right now I'm using XNA framework) Graphics ( XSI mod tools, blender) Gaming (sometimes) (men this is a long post ) I was looking at the following video cards Radeon HD 4890 Nvidia GTX 275 Nvidia GTX 260 What do you guys think ? Also, how can I check to make sure my power supply can handle these cards? Any help/suggestion is appreciated!
You missed the all important part - your budget With what you've posted there, you're replacing a workstation card with a gaming card. Both are engineered towards very different end users and applications, and generally don't work well outside of their designed purpose. So a workstation card won't be any good for gaming as the frame rate will suffer tremendously, and gaming card won't be much good for use with mission-critical work and 3D rendering software. Workstation cards are generally very expensive, much more so than gaming cards, but they command such high prices because it would save the people that need these cards a lot of money because of how fast they are. You also pay a hefty premium for first-rate driver support because drivers for workstation cards must be absolutely 100% stable, and if anything goes wrong then the stakes are very high. Gaming cards, particularly those with CUDA support (i.e. nVidia 8 series onwards), can be used for 3D accelerated software, but they would be much slower than their workstation counterparts. However, you would be able to use them for gaming, so are better for crossover/varied uses such as yours. In the end it comes down to my original question: what is your budget? Can you afford an expensive workstation card? And is gaming on this machine important enough for you to sacrifice performance in other applications?
If you're running professional apps, you'll want a workstation class card (like the card you have) rather than a gaming card. Professional cards are much more expensive, but nVidia and ATI cripple gaming cards in 3d apps like Maya etc.
Thanks for the replies well my budget is between $200-$350.... (but if need be I could go a bit higher then $350) Since I want to put more focus on Game development on this machine and not really 3D modeling .... hmmm Just wondering what workstation card do you think is good? is a Quadro FX 4800 any good for gaming? Since I have a tight budget so it might be hard to find a good workstation card for my budget!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130484 gtx 285 it in your price range it worth it on sale now to also it comes with free game call of duty world at war (Not sure if you like cod game but it free so take it) not sure if it could fit in your pc ask some of the other people that know more how to build
Thanks for the reply, I just looked at it and newegg.ca has the same card for $413.99 .... I'm Acutally in Canada.... but I have been looking the 285 for sometime ...
This is what I'd recommend on that budget. Unfortunately not being from Canada I don't know if that's a good price or not, but a quick conversion to GBP tells me that's pretty damn cheap compared to what they're selling for over here (CAD$294 = £166, compared to £200-£210 here).
To be honest, unless you're dealing with high quality C4D stuff then it wont matter. Creating game models is easily possible on modern graphics cards. XSI will run fine on pretty much anything modern, tbh. I used to do models for my maps in Maya, and that was back when I had a 9800pro.
hmmm Interesting I will look into this Thanks! ... .Also keep in mind there is a ~13% tax on all products
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150367 here it 399.99 with farcry 2 and codwaw
hmmm, I might go for the XFX 285... hmmm if anyone is using this card how do you like it? (is the fan loud?...)
Just check some benchmarks im buying a rig using 2 x 285's and intel i7 920 cpu just check some out http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q3-2008/Crysis-v1.21,754.html as you can see gtx 285 is top gpu out now well gtx 295 is little better
Question what is the difference between these two cards (beside the big difference in the price!)? BFG Tech BFGEGTX2801024OCXE GeForce GTX 280 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card ($359.88 CND ) BFG Tech BFGEGTX2801024OC2E GeForce GTX 280 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card ( $588.99 CND)
Please don't go for either of these cards because: 1) The 275 is cheaper and is just about level (performance wise) with the 280. 2) The 280 has an annoying power connection set-up (6-pin and 8pin power connectors) whereas the 275 only requires 2 x 6pin power connecters. 3) The 275 is made from a smaller process so uses less power and creates less heat. 4) The 275 is better for overclocking than the 280 if thats what you are into. Here is a handy guide if you need GTX 275 Overclocking Guide IMHO, I would pick the GTX 275 because it is the better option and is £35 cheaper. The GTX 285 is £80 more expensive than the 275 and the performance increase is not worth the extra cash. The 275 would do you well for ages and if a game came out that it started to struggle with, buy another one cheaper later on and put in SLI. PS. Never buy an overclocked card because you can overclock it youself for no extra cash (It is no longer such a risky option). That is unless you are really scared of overclocking.
that just leaves the 4890, ive just bought the saphire 4890 oc, and let me tell you, this baby overclocks so much, standard is 850mhz, i had mine running sweet at nearly 1000mhz and the memory just over 4000 its so easy to overclock too take care
hmmm, well I dont' like to overclock a video card it just doesn't feel right! Now I'm supprise interms of technology ATI's HD4890 is higher then Nvidia and at the same time a its a bit cheaper...! Its sooo Hard to decide.....
