Video Card Suggestion

[Henkka]

Since i'm banned from dp because of my brother, i'll start playing some other game(s) and i'm planning on buying a new video card.

http://www.netanttila.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=1444&catalogId=1444&shopId=19651&compartmentId=20154&categoryId=20652

Any of those any good? What is the best of them? Doesn't need to be so über good card. (Sorry about the finnish but i think you understand enough anyways)

[Eiii]

Head over to Newegg. I'd suggest a nVidia card, probably from the 6 series, but I don't know how powerful those are.

[XtremeBain]

Nice non-working link to a site that doesn't ship to Finland....

[Henkka]

Yeah, lol. Guess he didn't know i'm finnish.

[Eiii]

Should have guessed by the site you linked to, sorry.

But yeah, nVidia. 6-7 series.

[Henkka]

http://www.netanttila.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=380423&storeId=1444&catalogId=1444&shopId=19651&compartmentId=20154&categoryId=20652
http://www.netanttila.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=314146&storeId=1444&catalogId=1444&shopId=19651&compartmentId=20154&categoryId=20652

Those are the nvidia-cards on that site. What is the difference between them and are they any good?

[Eiii]

It doesn't look like there's a huge difference between those two cards, but not all the specs are listed.

[Henkka]

Are they any good? Could they run these war-games like cod and cs and those smoothly?

[IronFist]

Google: 119.90 € = 185.37739 U.S. dollars

That's a complete ripoff in comparison with Newegg; you can get 8800GT cards for that same price. I don't know if they even ship out there though, or what shipping would be.

The 8800GT is currently the nVidia mid-range sweet spot. You'd have to post your system specs though, because you may not be able to take full advantage of it.

I'd buy XFX/eVGA/BFGtech. Here's what I'd buy if I were inclined to do a new system build:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130357

If you want the 8600, you should try to find a better price. Make sure to look at tomshardware's VGA charts to make your decision.

edit: Definitely go google for benchmarks of the card(s) you're looking at. I find this to be the funnest part; I probably invest way too much time trying to get the best performance-to-price ratio.
Oh, yeah, my rationalization for the above brands is that they typically have lifetime warranties that *allow* overclocking.

[Henkka]

Yeah, these things are expensive in Finland. Luckily i have like 300€ to waste, so the money isn't exactly a problem. I just need a card that runs these games fairly smooth. Could the 8600 run these war-games like cod and cs and those well?

[IronFist]

Yeah, these things are expensive in Finland. Luckily i have like 300€ to waste, so the money isn't exactly a problem. I just need a card that runs these games fairly smooth. Could the 8600 run these war-games like cod and cs and those well?

You will have to dig around for Source engine benchmarks. Consider Doom 3 instead (note that nVidia has a slight advantage over ATI in opengl games, like Doom 3):
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-vga-charts/doom-3,561.html?p=1579%2C1590%2C1574%2C1595%2C1582%2C1616%2C1642%2C1615%2C1570%2C1580%2C1632%2C1568%2C1571%2C1586%2C1587%2C1560%2C1566%2C1629%2C1559%2C1603%2C1621%2C1606

I expected the 8600GT to not be too impressive, and it appears to offer roughly the same performance as my 6800 Ultra (an AGP card, one of the last great  AGP cards ever made!). I've played a lot of CSS on my 6800ultra at 1280x1024, and it's not much of a problem to max out AA/AF/other settings. The only thing you may leave disabled is HDR (actually, I don't remember if CSS has HDR, but I have tried it with Lost Coast and EP2), since it really pushes things a bit far.

Looking back over these cards, I recall the 7x00 series are pretty decent, as evidenced by the benchmarks. Try going for the 7600GT or 7800GT. The 8600GT is a pretty low-end card.

[JiGSaW]

Rofl.  Couldn't help but laugh at the fact that it says;  Cooling: Fan

GT8600's aren't anything.  They're garbage, get a GT7950 for gaming.

[jitspoe]

I've been quite happy with the Palit 8800 GT I won at CCGA Armageddon.  It even makes Crysis playable.

[Henkka]

Too tired to even read anymore. I'm off to bed. Thanks for all the info. I'll look at this more tomorrow.

[Br55HiT]

I recently bought this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3495761&Sku=P450-8672

I'm upgrading a stock Dell so I was limited to what I could get and it is priced very low.  I get an average in the 120's from the CS:S video stress test with all settings on high.  During gameplay it hovers around 100 so it's easily playable.  Good card for the money.

But since you say money isn't a factor.  If you computer can handle it get one of these http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3666958&CatId=2306.

[Eiii]

Dude, 9800? Go with an GTX 280 if money isn't an issue.

[y00tz]

The 9800 GX2 easily outperforms the GTX 280 in any game optimized for muilt-GPUs (see COD4) and nearly rivals the GTX 280 at everything else.

[ch40s]

8800GT OC on newegg, great deal, great performance.