im going to spend anywhere between around £50-120 on a new gfx card for my pc im not sure what to get or spend on a new graphics card, most people will proberly think i should be getting a 9800 pro, 6600gt or something right at the top of my budeget or above... im not sure what kinda like entry level gfx card i should be getting i play a few games quite often... but the budget for my pc is £400 and i have alread spent about 350 without the gfx card... should i be paying more for a gfx card than a processor, about the same or less? my guess is to spend about £80 but most people try to purswade me to pay the extra £40 (which i dont have ) for a better gfx card will it be worth it in the long run? ( since i will proberly keeping my pc for atleast 2 years ) can anyone suggest some model numbers and a few links? and suggestions on to what i should be buying? thanks for reading lol
These days you can usually pick up a Radeon 9800 pro for around £100 through forums, ebay etc. If you didnt want to pay quite that much, Retek (keep the guy in the bargain bin section happy ) do refurbished 9700 pros (think 9800pro, but slightly slower) cheap. Either of those should be adequate to play pretty much everything at at least good framerates and settings.
i know the guy he always posts stuff about reltek... im going to try pick one up for about £110 including p&p im not sure im im going with an nforce4 mobo though so i might have to go pci-e some people on ebay are out to trick you
Well just about the only thing PCI-Express that'll keep up with a 98/9700pro for about that price is a 6600gt, but that'll be pushing your budget. Quite a lot of people on ebay are out to get you, especially in this area (gfx cards). If you do try it, just keep an eye out for sellers with low feedback, as these days loads of people sell positive feedback. Be careful, and you'll be ok. Avoid foreigners too.... Anyway, if you do go nforce4, try ebay id say
Don't get nforce4, use the money you save to purhcase a better video card. Trust me, it's /not/ worth it.
Well it's a little more future-proof, esp in Skt939. However next year is likely to be bringing a lot of new things which may or may not work with the current best mobos (inc ATI Xpress200 and possibly K8T890 with nForce4). One thing to factor in is that you will be paying quite a lot more for these latest PCIe mobos and gfx cards yet current perf will be little better, if better at all. Things that are pretty likely to show up in 2005 for AMD64 are dual cores, integrated DDR2 memory controller, SSE3, more L2 cache, widespread 64bit support (OS & apps) and possibly even 65nm too. Maybe Intel will have the P-M derived desktop solution ready by then too? As said the gfx card is THE most important thing when it comes to gaming, it isn't wise to skimp on this. Going any lower than the £70-80 for 9700/9800 will really hit your perf hard, not worth it even for a casual gamer IMHO.
