Buying a graphics card...

crono. i chose a 600w power supply but i never came up. that 420 was just the case included one :razz:

considering the distance from my head to the monitor a 50inch monitor would be ridiculous. and im happy with 2 TB of hard drive space! :razz:

i dont want a AMD 64 3700, i want my FX-60!!!!

also crono that oc you out lined is amazing for that price, might just get a job and save up... never realised you could get a pc like that for that price. (still ludicrisouly expensive but not impossibly...)

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Bullet Control: $5000 for a bullet.
"I would blow your f**king head off! ...if I could afford it. I'm gonna get another job, start saving some money... then you a dead man!"

My point is hardware wise: you're not going to use that CPU. Especially if it's running on Windows.

You wouldn't be using the video much either ... nor the ram. However, the ram would be used, just not efficiently. You can set it however you want it. Windows will recognize 4GB (It should, anyway) all other current operating systems do. It's SUPPOSE to use virtual memory based on how much physical memory is available. But, I think it goes off of "frequency of use" instead. Which can work ... but it's time scale is wrong.

Anyway, seriously, don't buy an FX-60 chip. It's a waste of money. You wont use it.

I should also point out that ... that machine is ludicrously expensive, you should never spend more than MAYBE $800 on a computer. MAYBE.

You think It'll recognize 2TB of hdd space? Honestly? I think you'd be a little disappointed. I know, XP doesn't recognize more than ... what? 150GB without SP1.

I'd say, to make it more affordable, only get 1 500 GB HDD, 1 Video Card (especially because there's going to be SLI upgrade cards some time in the future, here ... such as physics) The ram also doesn't have to be that high. But that would still help more than any of these other things. (That would knock that whole thing down to $1577.42, I'd personally suggest getting an even cheaper CPU. I chose that one because A: it was expensive and B: it has a 1MB L2 cache.) I probably should have pointed out the warranties. The ram has lifetime, almost all the other parts have 3-5 years.

And I don't know about you, but I think having peripheral vision on your screen would be awesome. (a 50" wide-screen would encompass that) At least for a FPS or something like that. For everyday use it'd probably kill your eyes.

I guess, I got my point across though. :biggrin:

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

BF2 is going great, ive set it to the absolute max settings, with anti aliasing, and it normaly hangs around 45-55 fps.

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Also been looking to upgrade, but I would have to upgrade EVERYTHING! It bites. However, this is what I've got my eye on.. an intel mobo with ATI crossfire support. yes baby. oh yes.

2x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102657

considering the combined price of the two cards VS performance, you get way more bang for your buck than one of those $400 cards.. plus, with ati crossfire, both cards don't need to be identical.. so you can upgrade 1 at a time! woo. looking forward to my tax return..

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

BF2 is going great, ive set it to the absolute max settings, with anti aliasing, and it normaly hangs around 45-55 fps.

Have you tried the ULTRA high settings yet?

@ Bewbies: You have 2 cards? I never knew that was possible.

<div class="abouttext">Message submitted 41 minutes after original post:</b></div>
Hehe, I set it to ULTRAHIGH (Wicked!). Makes quite a diffrence, and the FPS hang at 35, which I think is fine.

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I got a 6600 to in one of my rigs........ the 6600 is a good gfx card :biggrin: but remember to buy a GT version and DDR3 :smile:

yesh, you can use two video cards either by using nvidia'a SLI system, or ati's CROSSFIRE system. ..and i'm just pointing out what i may procure in the near future. i don't quite have it yet.

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

The EN version apparently is better than the GT, due to PCI-E and faster clock/memory. And yeah, im damb impressed so far - for being quite cheap.

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You can also get four video cards:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/slizone_quadsli_sg.html

Its two GPU's per card with two cards in total sli'ed together. Insane power, insanely expensive.

Hehe, just purchased HL2, and on max settings, 1024x768 resolution, reflect all, and 8x anti aliasing, it runs on average at 70-80fps.

w00t =D

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I run 1248x1024 with max settings, with about 100+ fps in most places :razz:

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
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Oh shut up! :smile:

Ye' spoilt northern basterds!

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I run 1248x1024 with max settings, with about 100+ fps in most places :razz:

First I'm happy it works so well, Toast King. Have fun with your new card (I remember when I upgraded to a 9800 pro, good feeling).

But a little more off-topic: Why is everybody running on 1280x1024... Isn't that a distorted resolution like 640x400? Every resolution is 4:3 normally. 1024x768, 800x600, 640x480... The correct resolution for 1280 (never heared of 1248) should be 1280x960 (and not 1280x1024). In theory it must run slightly slower and gives a distorted picture...

This is the kind of little detail that always bothers me but never enough to actually post a question about it ^:)

Most LCD screens have 5:4 ratio rather than the 4:3 ratio CRT monitors have.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

I never run anything higher than 1024x768, because otherwise it gives it a pretty large performance drop. I love the sinc every frame thingy, makes it look smooth - pity BF2 doesnt have that feature =[

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Actually I find playing at a high resolution give less "jaggies", so less AA is need to make it look good. For example, BF2: 1024x768 with 2x AA looks the same as 1280x1024 with no AA. And I get more FPS with the 1280 config.

Whats getting me worried is the "Out of the loop" feeling I am experiencing recently.

I just looked in on pricewatch and noticed a whole s**tload of cards I never heard of. From the ATI X1900 to the GeForce 7900xts.

I favor ati cards but never heard of the new line. I noticed a moderately priced X1600 AGP with 512 DDR3 ram... Is that a name brand number of an offbeat refurbish of the older 9800 series?

I plan on upgrading my 9800 this year, but am so mixed up now with this new line of cards.

I might just wait till next year and build a whole new machine with a PCI slot.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Hmm, I dont trust ATI's very much, becuase my brother has had 2 (New ones) and they ALL gave trouble - overheating, poor compatibilty, bugs, shader glitches, etc.

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Hmm, I dont trust ATI's very much, becuase my brother has had 2 (New ones) and they ALL gave trouble - overheating, poor compatibilty, bugs, shader glitches, etc.

Usually I wait every generation of cards for one to "crystallize" as the mainstream standard. Usually it happens in a few months time span around a new, popular engine (Unreal 3). I don't care about the brand. One card of a brand can be excellent. The follow up can be crap or overly expensive. I had a 3DFX Voodoo 2 (I think 3DFX was the Voodoo company name), a Nvidia GeForce 2 MX and an ATI Radeon 9800 pro. All three bought for mainstream stability and acceptable prices. All three different brands. I never regretted.

I never had any problems with my ATi cards (except the one i bought refurbished... never again). I had a TNT-2, then a Radeon 64meg VIVO, an 8500LE, a 9800Pro, and now an XFX6800. Overall I've had ATi more, and I think they're really great cards. It really comes down to pricing and personal preference in my mind.

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___My Site___ | www.leveldesign.nl

ATI got a deserved bad reputation a few years back. Their compatibility was horrible.

Since then, they have more than lived up to my expectations of a quality card builder.

They have made great strides since those long ago days.

In fact, I have had better service from ATI than GeForce in the past few years. I was a dedicated GeForce fan for ages.

My last little card that was not either was my VooDoo Banshee. It was a fantastic card for its day.

VooDoo was God once.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

After I had the Geforce 2, I liked Nvidia alot. Gefore 2 was a very good and cheap card.

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Hahaha! Im using the INTERNET!

Speaking of cheap... anyone noticed that while every part of the computer is getting cheaper 3D graphics cards are getting more and more expensive every year? The 3 cards I ever bought were always priced much higher than the previous while being equally powerful for it's time. The first one was 80 ? or so, than 150, the next 230. Today paying 300 bucks for a state of the art graphics card isn't all that unusual and 6 months later a game comes out that barely runs on it.

It's a different situation now.

Look at what they're doing in games.

In the day's of Banshee and GeForce 2 (~1997-2001ish) There really were no advancements. Things needed to run faster, so you could increase the polycount. Now, there's other things in play. Shaders play a very large part, and they way they're implemented is what makes them such a pain in the ass. (There's physical hardware shader registers in the GPU outside the ALU)

Another thing is, we demand more speed, so cards can no longer keep textures in system memory, they have to be kept on the card. So, that requires more card memory.

All of these things determine what you're talking about. BUT, also, the stuff coming out is still relatively new. It hasn't been out for over a year, for example. So, considering it's only $100 (USD) more than the previous generation at the END of its life, that's pretty good. Also, it will continue to go down. The problem is, games will demand more.

This is a transitional period. So, hardware isn't going to last as long as it used to. And, honestly, that's the consumer's fault in a lot of respects, since they demand much more then is currently applicable. How do you expect to get incredibly beautiful environments if you're unwilling to upgrade the hardware.

Also, just to note, games are FAR more scalable now than they were. Every game on the market right now (except BF2) runs on older cards ... like GF4 era stuff. Well, I might add. (Even GF3, I have a friend who runs CoD2, FEAR, everything just fine. It just doesn't look spectacular!)

Come to think of it, when the GF3 series was building up steam, those bastards cost like $400 USD ... that was in 2001/2002.

It depends on whom you buy the card from anyway.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

IMO, as far as hardware upgrades go, you get the biggest bang for your buck if you upgrade the video anyway. Assuming 2 things:

1) you already have enough of the other hardware that upgrading it won't improve much of anything. (Most people already have 1 gig or more ram and a respectable processor)

2) your motherboard can handle the new card. (some people think any new card will run on any old board)

Anyway, If I have to plunk 400 bucks on something, it will definitely be a video card. If my machine needs 400 dollars worth of some other part, I will just build a new machine from scratch.

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The best things in life, aren't things.