Which card to buy?

[niky_d]

Hi!

I’m building a new comp and I want a decent graphic card so I’m interested in buying the Sapphire 2900 pro. I want to ask which one to buy, the 512mb gddr3 or the 1024 gddr4 version? The gddr4 version is supposed to need less power, but is there a big difference in performance for its higher price? Any suggestions?

Thx

niky_d

 

[Toxcity]

Are you sure you want to go with ATI?

Nvidia seem to be doing much better with the lastest games.

 

[Ham]

What size monitor is it going with?

 

[Toxcity]

What size monitor is it going with?

I doubt that any game with any monitor will actually use all of the ram on the 512mb board let alone 1GB.

There was a thread here somewhere, where we didn't believe games have yet to get past the 256Mb.

Open for discussion of course!

 

[Ham]

Every little helps. And that thread was when the most advanced game we had to test with was stalker, and that was just under IIRC. And oblivion uses more, theres a command which shows how much vid mem it was using and mine was sitting about 600mb iirc (all maxed with the Hi-rez lod pack @1650x1080).

Its just a good, bare basic rule to go on: Higher rez needs more memory. Bringing price and priceerformance into the matter is what makes you go for the lesser.

Imo at least

 

[Toxcity]

Every little helps. And that thread was when the most advanced game we had to test with was stalker, and that was just under IIRC. And oblivion uses more, theres a command which shows how much vid mem it was using and mine was sitting about 600mb iirc (all maxed with the Hi-rez lod pack @1650x1080).

Its just a good, bare basic rule to go on: Higher rez needs more memory. Bringing price and priceerformance into the matter is what makes you go for the lesser.

Imo at least

Nice, fair enough then!

But I stand by my idea of going for an Nvidia Chip rather than an ATI one.

 

[cube]

Nice, fair enough then!

But I stand by my idea of going for an Nvidia Chip rather than an ATI one.

Afraid not chum fact is Nvidia aren't doing that much better performance wise, and next round with the hd2950 and 8800gt Nvidia have already admitted defeat in the price / performance crown - I doubt there would be a huge difference in performance anyway in most games say with a 2900xt vs. 8800 gts or gtx.

 

[Toxcity]

Afraid not chum fact is Nvidia aren't doing that much better performance wise, and next round with the hd2950 and 8800gt Nvidia have already admitted defeat in the price / performance crown - I doubt there would be a huge difference in performance anyway in most games say with a 2900xt vs. 8800 gts or gtx.

But then you look at ATIs drivers.. I personally crindge.

 

[Mr. Smith]

It really depends on what res you are gaming at and how you prefer your settings.

I have to have max res/max settings or i'm not happy. At 1920x1600 my rig is already struggling with certain titles, bioshock was smooth as butter but world in conflict was murder...

No point buying the 2900 pro as the new line-up from both sides are coming soon... The '2950' as we have been calling it is infact the the 3850, much better than the current 2900.

HD 3900 XT - R680 - $499

HD 3900 Pro - R680 - $399

HD 3870 XT - RV670 - $299

HD 3850 Pro - RV670 - $249

 

[sbrehm72255]

8800GT's are out offically today and they seem to be doing rather well, they out perform the GTS cards in everything and come close to the GTX cards. The new ATi cards are "supposed" to out perform the 8800GT's, so I'd wait a few weeks to see just what the deal is with them. And if the prices are fairly close, simply go with the better performing card. A plus on the ATi cards is that they will support the new DX10.1 standard and the Nvidia cards don't, at least not yet, but there's nothing that takes advantage of the standard anyways, so I guess that doesn't come into play unless you plan on keeping the card for a few years.

 

[niky_d]

Hi!

Thx for your quick response to my question, but will the new ati 2950 (or 3850) pro also have a 512-bit memory interface or just the 256-bit as I heard and will they really be better than the 2900 pro which could easily be over-clocked above the xt version?

niky_d