No Idea Which Video Card!

[gaz_the_chav]

I am having a real problem deciding which graphics card to buy. I am considering getting this:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?nov-76gs&P=4

Is it worth it? It cost £60 which is £120. If it is not worth the money please give me some advice on what else to buy! I have no idea what makes a good graphics card lol.

Considering that I live in england, if you are to help me please look at these sites as they have good british deals or anything else in GBP.

http://www.microdirect.com
http://www.novatech.co.uk
http://www.aria.co.uk

Thanks Alot!

-gaz

[bartvandenberg]

I was goin to explain in detail but.. found this instead. saves me from having to go through it all and probably complicating everything for you.

I will apologize since the article is a bit older. but. the same principles still apply.

Note: as much as i would love to say i wrote this, i did not, and it is a direct quote from a cnet.com article.

1. Memory isn't everything
Here's the deal. You need a video card that has a decent amount of memory to play games at high-resolution with quality graphics settings enabled. Good video cards usually have lots of memory because all of that GPU horsepower will go to waste if you don't have enough memory space.

However, the video card manufacturers know that novice buyers look at memory size as one of the main comparison points between different cards, and that's why it's very common to see cards with cheap GPUs sporting 256MB or even 512MB of memory, which is sort of like dropping a 110-horsepower engine into the body of a muscle car. The underpowered card might have some of the right numbers on the spec sheet, but its poor performance will show once the gaming starts.

2. It's all about the GPU
Memory is important, but the real heart of the video card is the graphics processing unit. When you're browsing through video card names, the most important thing to look for is the GPU type, since that little chip is responsible for all of the video card's 3D performance. Today's best GPUs come from Nvidia and ATI, but it's not enough just to buy a video card with a "Nvidia GeForce" or "ATI Radeon" GPU. You also have to pay attention to the model number since Nvidia and ATI label all their cards from the sub-$100, entry-level cards to the AU$800 high-end monsters with the same GeForce and Radeon brand names. Higher model numbers are better, but you should also pay attention to additional modifiers at the end, such as GT, GS, GTX, XT, and XTX, since they often reveal important shader and clock-speed information. Study a few video card reviews or game performance guides to get familiar with the current models to see how they compare.

3. Pipelines, shaders, and clock speeds
You could look at a GPU's clock speed and the pixel pipeline count to get a rough idea of the card's performance level in the early days of 3D acceleration. Today's GPUs have evolved to do much more than brute-force pixel processing. Lighting and other effects that used to take several pipeline "passes" can now run though a shader program to get the same results with fewer passes and less wasted work. GPUs now have specialised processing units dedicated to crunch through complex vertex and pixel-shader programs. Shader units might become an important specification to watch in future video cards as games become more shader-intensive. ATI has recently started reporting the number of shader units it has assigned to each pixel pipeline in its Radeon X1900 XTX line.

For the time being, you can still judge current GPUs by the number of pixel pipelines they have. GPU manufacturers also report vertex pipelines, but we haven't seen any games that bottleneck at the vertex-processing level yet. Entry-level cards usually have four pixel pipelines. Midrange cards have 8 or 12 pipelines, and high-end cards have 16 or more pipelines. Higher clock speeds are always better, but if you're choosing between pipelines or clock speeds, it's usually better to select more pipes over more MHz. Having eight pipelines running at 400MHz is much better than having four pipelines running at 500MHz.

4. Windows Vista and Direct3D 10
Microsoft plans on shipping its newest Windows operating system, Windows Vista, in early 2007. The new OS will feature DirectX 10, an updated collection of functions that software applications can use to access various system resources, including the 3D graphics card. The new version of DirectX incorporates a new version of Direct3D designed to streamline the graphics pipeline by reducing CPU overhead and moving more work to the GPU. Windows Vista will still work with current DirectX 9 video cards, but you'll need a DirectX 10 video card to run DX10-enabled games at the best settings.

We expect Nvidia and ATI to ship their first DX10 cards in the second half of this year, but you don't need to rush out and get one if you're afraid of game-compatibility problems. Game developers understand that it will be several years before the DX10 installation base surpasses the DX9 installation base. All games, including Vista exclusives Halo 3 and Shadowrun, will be DX9 and DX10 compatible for several years after Vista's arrival.

5. It's (almost) always a good time to buy
The fierce competition between Nvidia and ATI has rewarded us with a fast 3D technology development cycle. The GPU manufacturers release a new line of chips every 12 to 18 months, which results in a steady stream of increasingly powerful cards with more and more features. Manufacturers also tweak designs to increase clock speeds and add new features to refresh product lines several months after the initial architecture rollout. Since many new features are forward-looking, such as H.264 high-definition video acceleration and advanced Shader Model support, it might be a year or two before the actual content becomes widely available.

It's always a good time to buy if you don't have to get the best card available. Video card prices fall quickly since new product introductions constantly push older or slightly less powerful hardware into more affordable price ranges. The worst-case scenario is buying a high-end card right before Nvidia or ATI release a new line of GPUs, but even then, you still end up with a very powerful card that will have no problem running the games you want to play for a very long time.

all in all, what i personally want to add is that what they say about pipelines is a bit thing. More pipelines, the better. but.. keep in mind, ddr2 ram found on the 7600gs you selected is not nearly as good as the ddr3 on the 7600gt.

in fact, a 7600gs with 512mb ddr2 will still be MUCH slower than a 7600gt with 256ddr3.

but anywho. hope i helped a bit.

[monoflap]

To get right to the point. I see no reason to buy a dx 9 card. Especially since there will the $170 8600's really soon.

[bartvandenberg]

To get right to the point. I see no reason to buy a dx 9 card. Especially since there will the $170 8600's really soon.

actually.. not really soon, but..... now!!

but yes.. i def agree. even a 8500 is available for $109.99 Cad.

on the note of the 8600 and 8500. it blows me away that they would cripple the cards with 128 bit interface instead of a 256. am i the only one that finds this just plain stupid...?

[Silenced_Coyote]

It is stupid, but they needed to do something to it so the performance "fits" the price tag. These cards are supposed to replace the current 7 series mid-range cards. Which means performance should be pretty close. Don't think of the word "replace" like an upgrade from the old. Well, I guess it is an upgrade because you get DX10...