geforce

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Original post by CProgrammer Now im gonna get a new computer in about half a year so im looking for some relatively cheap but high performance graphics card.

6 months is a long time for graphics industry. What is expensive right now might be a cheap card by then. What is "high performance" may not be as high relative to the latest cards anymore.

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Anybody familiar with geforce cards and has a good suggestion.

If you've already chosen that it has to be a GeForce, then what is there to ask?

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It will need pixel and vertex shader 3.0 at least.

Just out of curiousity, will you really need those?

Now, to answer your question: GeForce 7600 is a good choice for under $200.

Hi Pouya,

yes ive chosen geforce but that still leaves reason to ask.
Im not really up to date whether it needs to be FX or GT 5 or 6 or 7 etc..
I do need shader 3.0 for a university project. Ive been working on it in the university until now.

Thanks for the suggestion and the swift reply.

-CProgrammer

I would imagine that any choice you make will be largely decided based on what kind of deal you'll be getting when you buy it. For example, I got an ATi x1800xl for $160 USD right after christmastime last year.

Does your current computer have PCI-Express? Almost all new graphics cards support only PCI Express, so if your current computer doesn't have PCI Express, you'd be better off getting a new graphics card at the same time as you get a new computer.

If you have PCI Express, I'd suggest a GeForce 7600 GT for about $150-$200.

Go to toms hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/

They always have huge bar graphs comparing all the current cards. When you're ready to buy use the bar graph and your price range to pick the card you want.

Well thats what I do anyways :)

gl.

if you're looking for cheap(seeing as how you're going to upgrade in the near future) I'd just get something like a 6200, no need going so high atm if you're just gonna get rid of it in 6 months.

Hey nagromo,

thats interesting. How can I check whether I have PCI-Express.
If it helps I currently have a geforce 4 TI and the computer is about 5-6 years old.

Thanks for the warning.

-CProgrammer

I don't think PCI express even existed 5 years ago. If you know what kind of mobo you have, you can probably check the documentation online.

Also, I don't think any boards with AGP have PCI express, and vice versa. So that's a clear indicator.

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Original post by CProgrammer Hey nagromo, thats interesting. How can I check whether I have PCI-Express. If it helps I currently have a geforce 4 TI and the computer is about 5-6 years old. Thanks for the warning. -CProgrammer

If you open up your computer, there should be some labelling to distinguish your various pci-e/pci/agp slots. But if you're running with a fourth generation geforce...you're probably out of luck because I don't think nvidia manufactured and pci-e cards until the sixth generation.

Ok i guess then i dont have PCI-E. Luckily i just saw that most cards in my interest range exist for AGP.
Is AGP the only alternative to PCI-E for graphics cards. I mean is AGP a safe bett.

-CProgrammer

Yes. PCI-E is about to replace AGP which replaced PCI (which odly enough is still in mobo's instead of AGP) which replaced ISA and so on.

NVIDIA released the GeForce 7800 GS, which is probably the last card ever to support AGP. It's a bit more expensive than your range, but it can still be considered somewhat high-end and maybe you can stave off getting a whole new box for another year.

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Original post by CProgrammer Ok i guess then i dont have PCI-E. Luckily i just saw that most cards in my interest range exist for AGP. Is AGP the only alternative to PCI-E for graphics cards. I mean is AGP a safe bett. -CProgrammer

5 or 6 years ago, they also used to have PCI graphics cards, so you'll have to find out whether you have PCI or AGP.

Try this: right click your desktop and choose Properties->Settings->Advanced and click on the tab for your graphics card (mine is titled GeForce Go 6800, yours would be GeForce 4 TI 4400 or something like that). Under Graphics card information, look for a line that says Bus: ___. I don't know how much their drivers have changed recently; this may or may not work for you.

If you have PCI, you can't get a graphics card with shaders 3.0; you'll have to upgrade your motherboard, too.

If you have AGP, you could get a low-end card that cheaply supports shaders 3.0 at low performance, then you could get a new graphics card when you upgrade your system.

You could also get a good AGP card now and when you upgrade your system, you could just get a motherboard that supports AGP. I wouldn't recommend this, though; this would limit your choices as you build your system, it would be very hard to upgrade the system, and AGP parts are becoming less common as time goes on; by the time you want to upgrade, you could be out of luck or forced to go with an expensive part or a motherboard made by an unreliable manufacturer. You can't get AGP with AMD's new AM2 chips, and there's only 2 choices that support AGP with Intel's new Core 2 processors, both from unknown manufacturers (PC Chips and ECS) that may not be reliable.

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If you have PCI, you can't get a graphics card with shaders 3.0; you'll have to upgrade your motherboard, too.

Not true, you can get a 3dfuzion geforce 6200 in a non-express pci format. I picked one up for a friend a couple of weeks ago, it nothing spectacular but it definately does 3.0 shaders. It's about $50 canadian so it's pretty cheap.