What is the current consumer's sweet spot for video cards (make/model/price)? Last I looked, a ~$180 Radeon thingy would bring enough power for all but the hardcorest of computer nerds.
Yeah, I borrowed Halo from photiq, and I'm thinking about Halo 2, Half-Life, and Half-Life 2 again. ;p
the ATI vs. Nvidia is flaring up again. Lots of gamers swearing by Nvidia, which is probably where I will go next. My ATI x700Pro runs most games with no problem, I can't max out HL2 but I run it real purty. I have some issues with City of Heroes/villians, but that's because of the company not really programing for the ATI chipset.New Egg is the place to go, one thing you need to know is if you have a PCI Express slot (check your hardware manager) or if you only have AGP.
I still swear by the $100-$200 range, even for most gamers.
If you're talking high-end gaming, and you want to have a kick-ass video card that you shouldn't want to replace for a while, aim for around $200, make sure that you get a minimum of 256 mb, and make sure you have at least 2G of ram (more often than not, I find that ram is as vital if not moreso than a sweet video card, especially for online gaming).
Last I looked, a ~$180 Radeon thingy would bring enough power for all but the hardcorest of computer nerds.
Oblivion is the current game that's separating the wheat from the hardware chaff. They threw two teamed Nvidia 7900GTXs at it ($475 ea. at NewEgg, $950 worth of computer hardware) and the game still wanted more.
For current breed FPS's your requirements are less stringent, but I imagine that the next set of sequels would be just as, if not more demanding.
Personally, I'm starting to contemplate a new machine (less for games, and more because I want to repurpose my current PC as an HDTV PVR, and would build a new PCIe/SLI desktop to replace it) and the best I can rationalize for myself with the budget I have in mind is a ~$170 Nvidia 7600GT. Maybe buy a second 7600GT in a year when the price has dropped and team it then.
At this point, if you're considering a video upgrade, and if your PC uses AGP instead of PCI Express, I'd really recommend contemplating saving a little more and just doing a wholesale PC upgrade to a motherboard and processor that supports PCI-E. Door is closing on that technology; but if your budget is tight, you can probably do ok with an AGP flavor of an Nvidia 6600GT or ATI X1600.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-06-11 08:48 pm (UTC)I still swear by the $100-$200 range, even for most gamers.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 09:37 pm (UTC)I know what I'm ordering after I move.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 03:11 am (UTC)For current breed FPS's your requirements are less stringent, but I imagine that the next set of sequels would be just as, if not more demanding.
Personally, I'm starting to contemplate a new machine (less for games, and more because I want to repurpose my current PC as an HDTV PVR, and would build a new PCIe/SLI desktop to replace it) and the best I can rationalize for myself with the budget I have in mind is a ~$170 Nvidia 7600GT. Maybe buy a second 7600GT in a year when the price has dropped and team it then.
At this point, if you're considering a video upgrade, and if your PC uses AGP instead of PCI Express, I'd really recommend contemplating saving a little more and just doing a wholesale PC upgrade to a motherboard and processor that supports PCI-E. Door is closing on that technology; but if your budget is tight, you can probably do ok with an AGP flavor of an Nvidia 6600GT or ATI X1600.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-13 11:24 pm (UTC)