graphics cards

[browolf]

is there much difference between a radeon x850xt and radeon x1950pro?

my 850 was £220 at the time of purchase but the 1950 is only about £140

[Ch3rub]

in general X1950Pro is based on much newer core which does support Shader Model 3.0 instead of SM 2.0 supported by your X850XT

 

in real life you will have little or no increase in performance when running DX9 games after changing to X1950Pro

 

Nvidia just released 8600 series and there is a 8800GTS 320MB for just a bit more than £140 as well (which is the best performance/value card at the moment). Ati will release new X2900 series this May. If you want, wait a while for Ati but I would personally go for 8800GTS 320GB which is amazing piece of hardware for this money.

 

Oh... all of them support DX10, do not buy anything less then that - eg. Nvidia 7000 series and Ati X1000 series.

[browolf]

ah right i see. thanks for that. the 320mb 8800s are about 170 + vat on scan

atm my 850xt is RMA'ed. running on a borrowed pci-e geforce 5750 but it runs wow surprisingly ok.

[Halfmad]

I had WoW running great on a little D600 I borrowed from work when my main PC blew it's PSU up! 32Mb Radeon card, although capital cities were a little laggy.. :-D

[Jake]

The x1950s are pretty decent cards, currently I am running a 768mb 8800Gtx, but prior to that I had an x1950 and was quite happy with it

[Ch3rub]

you may want to check overclockers.co.uk

they re-brand some products and offer at really good price

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-054-OK&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=877

 

forgot to mention in 1st post

the biggest difference in ref to SM2/3.0 is that X850 can only do bloom and X1950 can give you HDR lighting (used by most new games)

[localzuk]

The x1950s are pretty decent cards, currently I am running a 768mb 8800Gtx, but prior to that I had an x1950 and was quite happy with it

 

I think someone here has too much money spare!!

[Ch3rub]

I am always saying it's not about how much you're getting but the way you spend it

[eduabncs]

Well my new PC came with a Nvidia7950GX2. WoW looks really good at the highest display settings and their is no lag in the frame rates. I havent found anything to really push it yet except FSX and even that I only have to drop the settings down a notch!

[browolf]

Sent it back got a new one. Works great now. got wow in high res. I notice it tends to jerk a bit when the frame rate drops. 1GB ram not enough now?

[Geoff]

Aim for 2Gb

[browolf]

I can do that its only dual channel pc3200 bout 40ish quid for a gb.

[craiglay]

I just got a 8800GTS 320Mb and its rather good. All the games I have tried so far run with the gfx settings maxed out. I have a Q6600 and 2gb ram to go with it mind...

 

Craig