Help w/buying graphic card (1 Viewer)

[hayashi]

With the coming release of NWN2 (and looking forward to buy Oblivion, finally) it seems I have no choice but to upgrade my now obsolete 5 years old system.

I do realise that there will be a brand new line of GFX cards coming out when DX10 is released, as well as major price drops, but I'm one of those poor consumerists (sadly) who can hardly wait. Besides, it is unlikely that I will be buying Vista right when it comes out and I doubt there will be many games especially designed for DX10 in the first year.

I'm looking at the following cards currently:
Nvidia 7900GTX
Radeon X1900XT
Radeon 1900XTX

The difference in performances isn't much compared to their price range, but when combined with SLI/CF there is quite decent gap. I'm not exactly sure if I will end up going SLI/CF in the future either but you never know. :/

Alternatively, should I just wait for the DX10 cards and buy a 7900GT rather than cashing out $500~600?

Any comments and/or advices are greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.
- Confused

 

[AsyLum]

lol @ female, changing face of computers indeed.

I was in a similar dilemma, and was strongly advised to save my money till the next batch hit up The 500-600 now could quite possibly go down to 200-300 in a few, so *shrugs*

 

[dandel26]

dude seriously hang on for 2-3 months, the changes are going to be enormous. PCI express 2's comming out pretty soon + DX10

 

[hayashi]

lol @ female, changing face of computers indeed.

Sadly I hardly have any female chums who are interested in video games/PCs besides talking about Dollywood.

Thanks for the inputs! I'll just get a cheap GFX card for the time being then.

 

[jake2.0]

Would all this apply to notebooks aswell? Cause my current one is on its last legs

 

[jake2.0]

As in buy a new notebook. I mean if i get one now, the current GPUs wont supprt directX10 right?

 

[DeathB4Life]

the specs on 2 of the new nvidia 8 series was released a few days ago. theyre looking rather sexy but would cost you a fair bit. even if theyre not worth getting they should drag down the price of the 7 series which should be fine for gaming for the next two or so years before dx9 becomes outdated.

ill be getting a new comp after the HSC so ill also be looking around at the prices. according to an article on megagames the 8 series is being released early next month and some time next year ATIs next line of GPUs are being released. ill be waiting till then for price drops and proper comparisons to be made.

also with quad cores coming out soon (as useless as they may be) the prices on cpus might drop a little.

 

[WhiteDeth]

The 7900GT is more than enough to run Oblivion at high settings (speaking from experience here). Hell, the 6800 Ultra would be good enough to run it on mid-high settings.

My laptop has a 7900GS, and it runs Oblivion at the highest settings with no problems. I wont be upgrading it or buying a new laptop anytime soon either, there's no need to. DX10 GPU's will only be important when an operating system that supports DX10 and games that support it come out. At the moment, not only is Vista a good distance away, but games releasing for it would only take longer.

Im taking dibs at a timeframe of a year or so.

 

[z600]

Out of my experience with graphic cards...Nvdia tend to have a edge over ATI interms with performence (but i havent tried out any of the new ATI cards, so dont take my word for it). However Nvidia runs at at a higher temp and sometimes the software pisses you off.

 

[Collin]

I would strongly advise you to wait for the G80/R600. The main reason to wait for DX10 right now is NOT the fact that it is DX10-compliant, but simply that you will be getting a much better performance/price product. And of course, since you probably won't be upgrading again for a decent amount of time, atleast you'll have yourself a fully DX10-compliant video card.

Currently on the release schedule is the nVidia G80 - two models announced:
8800GTX and 8800GTS. Word has it the 8800GTX performs around the same as the 7900GTX SLi, and the 8800GTS around 7900GT SLi. Release is expected to be around mid-November. Hopefully that won't be a freakin' paper launch, but who knows.

Features include higher clocks, Shader Model 4, 768MB GDDR3 (~640MB for GTS), 128 unified shaders.. and one of the best new features: OpenEXR HDR + AA FP16 support. That was one main reason which held me off the 7950GX2 (or any of the G7x cards).. no OpenEXR HDR + AA support. It will be nice to test out 16xAA too.

ATi has their R600 in the works.. scheduled for Christmas but may be delayed (AMD acquisition, engineering issues.. whatever). The flagship model is expected to perform similarly to a X1950XTX CF setup.

If you REALLY can't wait, then the best bang/buck cards out right now are:
- 7950GT 256MB (easily OCs to GTX speeds.. only slightly more expensive than 7900GT right now.
- 7900GT 256MB (get them as low as $330; a volt mod will give you the ability to OC it close to GTX speeds).
- X1900XT (~$400 right now.. simply unbeatable when it comes to bang/buck)
- Gainward 7900GS 512MB (these cards boast a superior cooler, 1.4ns Samsung memory and they OC to GTX speeds. In other words, you can get yourself an SLi system which performs between a 7950GX2 and 7900GTX rig. The only reason why they won't perform aswell as a GTX when OCed to 650/1600 is they'd gimped by 4 pipes.)
- X1900PRO - ATi fixed up some important CF issues with these newer R580+ chips.. and AT's benchmarks speak for themselves. Very strong contender in the mid-market.

The 7900GT is more than enough to run Oblivion at high settings (speaking from experience here). Hell, the 6800 Ultra would be good enough to run it on mid-high settings.

My laptop has a 7900GS, and it runs Oblivion at the highest settings with no problems. I wont be upgrading it or buying a new laptop anytime soon either, there's no need to. DX10 GPU's will only be important when an operating system that supports DX10 and games that support it come out. At the moment, not only is Vista a good distance away, but games releasing for it would only take longer.

Im taking dibs at a timeframe of a year or so.

Oblivion is one of the most graphically demanding games out right now. You must be:
a) joking.
b) done the volt mod and OCed the GT to GTX speeds.
c) have a different definition of 'reasonable performance' to myself.

Go take a look at Anandtech's Oblivion Performance guide. The conclusion was this is possibly the first game ever to require SLi/CF to run at high specs with good performances. You won't have a problem in dungeons and towns, but once you hit the open land with battles aswell as the Oblivion gates, your frames will dip down to the shits.

Perhaps we're on the wrong spectrum here when it comes to 'running it at high settings'. I would personally define that as 12*10, most settings maxed with HDR. Pretty much all single card solutions out right now besides the 7950GX2 run at these settings pretty poorly at certain areas of the game. As for the 6800Ultra comments, I can tell you now my X800XT-PE doesn't do so good at those settings at say, the Oblivion gates. And I'd advise you to take a look at AT's benchmarks for Gate. The 6800Ultra isn't there but the similarly performing 7600GT is. If you're telling me that 14.7fps is 'no problem'.. then I guess we'll just conclude our definition of reasonable performances are quite different.