Video Card !!!!

[Qamar]

is this a good video card, and would it be worth $79.99 + tax ??

http://www.shopmania.com.au/shop~online-graphic-cards~buy-asus-geforce-8400gs-512mb-ddr2-silent~p-2848152.html

[[Gandalf]]

Is that in Canadian dollars or Australian?

I'd say no, rather go for an 8600GT at least.

[Qamar]

canadian.. lol i just pulled this link off a random site. but its the same video card. not sure for the specs.. title is the same, picture and heat sink look the same.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00783637&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=ca〈=en&product=3262025

this is my computer. bought it a while ago.. it has a 1.86 dual core on xp and the 7500LE video just broke... i don't do a ton of gaming... COD2, halo trial, Price of Persia, half life ... few games that i play barely. watch movies as well but i really don't want to spend a ton of money since i'm broke right now.. haha.

oh and for some reason before it broke and before that, it felt really slow... specs crap ?

Edit: The guy at the store (some random one) said it was a really good one, and i know for a fact no its not.. haha.. but what could i play with it with pretty good not amazing graphics ?

[Vermette]

I wouldn't recommend it

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/09/nvidia-g84-g86-bad

edit: This is a little controversial. Depending who you talk to it's just the mobile chipsets, it's just *some* of the mobile chipsets, or it's *every* nVidia 83-8600 series chip from day 1.

[[Gandalf]]

What could you play with what? An 8600GT? Pretty much anything on decent/low settings, including Crysis. Though this also highly depends on your CPU and such, but if the CPU you're talking about is a core 2 duo, then you should be fine for pretty much anything.

[Qamar]

i see... well i want to get the a good video card without spending over $100 and still be able to play those video games as i said before. my old compsci teacher said that XP doesn't run Dual cores... it'll accept it.. but only run 1 core... is that true ?

[TheFerret]

That is not true, xp will run dual core easily, I think I've seen it go up to 8 or so...

[Vermette]

XP Home only supports a single physical processor, while it supports multiple logical processors, which covers multi-core and HyperThreading. Pro supports either.

[Qamar]

i have windows xp media centre edition 2002 ?

[gianni]

If you want the best bang for you buck I'd grab any recent ATI card. They offer more/better features at much lower price points.

For virtually the same price, you can get a much better card: Radeon HD 4650 or Radeon HD 4670.

[Zeroth]

Actually, best buy is Nvidia. Their stuff actually has complete drivers. Plus, their drivers are the best supported in Linux. (I know, you use Windows, but still).

[ecookman]

Zeroth is right


I have read that Nvidia cards are better than what is being discussed and perform better in SLI

but it really depends on who you talk to personally i think they are better based on opinions I have heard and looking at some frame rate scores

for Nvidia cards that support DX10 look for models newer than the 8700 series

happy hunting

[gianni]

nVidia may have a better top of the line card. However, based on performance/features for price, an ATI card is a much more sensible decision.

[andrew.]

Don't get that card, spend a bit more and get at least an 8600GT. I personally don't like ATI, but gianni says ATI cards have good price/performance ratios. If I was buying a card cheap, I would probably go for an nVidia 9600GT or something like that.

[Euphoracle]

gianni @ Fri Dec 12, 2008 3:02 pm wrote:

nVidia may have a better top of the line card. However, based on performance/features for price, an ATI card is a much more sensible decision.

Listen to this man. Right now, ATI are walking all over nVidia in the mid-range to not-the-very-high-end gaming division. ATI is your BEST bet for price vs performance cards right now. If you want the absolute best card, nVidia holds that title. If you want a card that will make you happy for a good number of years to come, the 4870 is what you want. If you want a card to do today well, and tomorrow adequitly, the 4850 is what you want. If you want to pay too much money, go for the nVidia 8800+'s or the 9800+s.

If you're not into gaming at all, the lower models will be fine. If you are into gaming and you want to see pretty on your monitor, you will have to pay some money. You get what you pay for. If you go cheap on parts, you will be less than pleased when they don't work as well as you wish they did