Looking for Help with Video Cards for New Build

Not a graphics issue, but for some reason both of my Asus boards seemed to dislike my IDE Hard drives, you might want to get a SATA drive as well, just incase

To be honest if you want to stick with nVidia you can't go far wrong with the 9800GTX+ (I'm getting one in a month or so) the XFX is only £130 or so from Scan [ http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=853557 ]

 

Damn your stuff is expensive, The cheapest 9800 GTX+ I have seen was an EVGA and it was 199.99 plus tax American, which is roughly same price Canadian, maybe a small difference. You guys are getting jiffed hard.

 

The 9800gtx+ does perform on a par with the hd4850. I would still go with the 4850 if I were you. It is slightly cheaper. The hd 4870's fan isn't bad I think if you want to get a more expensive card. And to be honest when your gaming, your not going to notice the gfx card fan noise!

 

yep we certainly get shafted in the uk for prices, first you get taxed on your earnings then when you buy somthing you get taxed again so from one lot of earnings you pay tax twice and i dont even want to get started on fuel prices or i wll go into a rant for hours

 

XD the uk sucks for prices, i wish everything was as cheap as it is in the US. i payed £425 for my ps3 on launch! thats roughly $850 i think, and alot of people in the us were complaining that the PS3 costs $600 which is around £300. its only recently that in the uk the ps3 has dropped in price to £300. i know its unrelated but hey, it winds me up!

 

You're all forgetting the important question, how big is your screen?

 

My monitor is a 19" LG LCD with maximum 1280 x 1024 resolution. It's fairly new and I don't plan to replace it.

Additionally, I've done a bit more research on the mentioned video cards. I've developed the matrix below to compare parameters of each card. I'm thinking the BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC2 or BFG GeForce 9800 GTX would be a good purchase but I still have some questions.
I look forward to hearing everybody's thoughts.

--------------------------Core Clock---Memory Clock--Shader Clock--Bandwidth---Cost--Comments
BFG GeForce 9800 GTX-----675 MHz-----2200 MHz------1688 MHz----70.4 GB/sec--$243-Obviously you're paying for the additional bandwidth
BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC2--675 MHz-----1950 MHz------1675 MHz----62.4 GB/sec--$196-This seems like the best value
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC--675 Mhz-----1940 Mhz------1674 MHz----62.1 BG/sec--$226-Who would buy this when you can by the OC2? why?
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850---625 Mhz-----993 Mhz-----------?--------------?-------$226-If the core and memory clocks are any indication, this one is overpriced and a poor performer.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870---750 Mhz-----900 Mhz-----------?--------------?-------$347-Obviously the increased speed is hard on the wallet.

What do you gain for the higher clock speeds? Higher gaming detail, shadows, visual effect, anti-aliasing?
What does the higher bandwidth offer? support for larger screens, higher resolutions?

Thanks,
Phil

 

The HD 4850 is definitely NOT a poor performer. You cannot compare ATI clock speeds directly with Nvidia clock speeds. The memory is 993 Mhz but effectively 1986Mhz. The $226 Hd 4850 will in almost all cases outperform the $243 9800GTX and use less power. Nvidia released the 9800GTX+ in response to the HD 4850.

 

Heres a review from Bit tech:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/08/19/sapphire-ati-radeon-hd-4850-toxic/1

Its the toxic edition but also has the standard 4850 in the graphs. It seems to beat the 9800gtx in every benchmark.

 

Thanks for the advice.
Tigerdirect offers the Sapphire 4850. It is different than the one reviewed... at least in appearance. Is it safe to assume that the performance and cooling will be comparable to the Sapphire 4850 TOXIC?

On a side note, many graphics cards are discharging hot air out the rear of the case. If I purchase a graphics card with heat rejection internal to the case, do I need to invest in additional case fans to move cool air in and hot air out?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Phil

 

CanadaPhil to be fair you worry about every thing too dam much

 

The Sapphire TOXIC has a Zalman cooler and is slightly overclocked straight out of the box so it is a little faster than the standard 4850. But then its dead easy to overclock gfx cards yourself so the premium for pre-overclocked cards isn't really worth it. I've got a couple of hd 3850s which is stock 668Mhz core running at 825Mhz without any issues.

As for the hot air thing. Its really not something you should stress yourself over!

 

you should definatly get a HD4850 though, it really is a solid performer.

also ive just seen this card on ebuyer http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148468

to me the cooler looks a little lightweight (not copper) but im wandering how much better than stock cooling this would be?