Tech Help with choosing new 3d card...(Plus a couple of other questions) (Read 109 times)

PTizzle

#1 January 22, 2008, 03:40:00 pm
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Hey all,

Was just hoping for some help choosing a new 3d card. My budget is $250 AUD ($220 US) to $300 AUD ($260 US).

My basic specs are as follows, if you need more details do ask:

Intel Core 2 CPU 2.4ghz
2 gigs of ram
2 x 250gig Hard Drives (forget the brand)


And my card (which came with the computer, and doesn't hold up most of the time):

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS (512mb)

I'm assuming I can replace it (it might be a built in, but I can figure something out) fairly easily, so that's alright, just needing suggestions on a good card for around that price range.


Also looking for a new, high speed HD for important files that I access a lot - more space the better, obviously. I dunno about budget, but cheaper is good (just toss up a few suggestions).

One of my hard drives is corrupted as hell also - I can't get my computer to recognise it properly most of the time, let alone format it. How would I go about formatting it in this position?

And is there anything my PC is missing for high end gaming? I haven't been in the hardware game for ages, so I'm probably behind.

If I need to order them online (as I'm in Australia) then that's no sweat, just point me in the general direction.
Last Edit: January 22, 2008, 03:46:23 pm by PTizzle
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Verne

#2 January 22, 2008, 06:02:00 pm
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Geforce 8800 GT 512 MB.

If you can't find any in your price range and area go for the Radeon HD3870 512 MB.
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goat

#3 January 23, 2008, 05:42:04 am
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Geforce 8800 GT 256 MB

$205-$215 USD

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1305520548+106791921+1067932704+1068309611&name=256MB

512mb is needed for crysis in very high settings, or a fairly recent game being run in extremely high resolution with FSAA and ASF maxed out. The bottleneck isn't there otherwise, and it won't improve performance outside those situations. If you needed 512 MB, you'd be getting the GTX or Ultra anyways. It isn't worth the extra $40-$50 that they are above the 256mb versions of the 8800 GT.

And I suggest the gigabyte version, as they overclock the core to 700 MHz (over 600 MHz stock), but XFX and EVGA are also very high quality, and their cores are overclocked to 650 MHz (of the models I've seen).
Last Edit: January 23, 2008, 05:59:12 am by goat
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PTizzle

#4 February 04, 2008, 10:40:36 am
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Thanks guys. For some reason I was intent on getting another 512 - I'll check those two out.
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goat

#5 February 04, 2008, 12:59:12 pm
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The difference from 256mb and 512mb is noticable only at very high resolutions with max everything.

This article explains where 512mb comes into play http://www.pureoverclock.com/article33.html
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