Hi. I have an old X800GTO, 256MB graphics card.

I don't game on high resolutions, 1024x768 is the maximum with my old CRT. The games I mainly play now are things like STALKER, and UT3. I know these newer cards like the 8800GTX Ultra or soon to be released 9800GTX are supposed to be pretty much top whack as far as gaming cards go but since I don't game at huge resolutions would it make much of a difference to the performance of those games if I did get a 9800GTX compared to say the 8800GTS 512mb (from what I've been lead to believe anyway the 9800GTX is just a rehash of the 8800GTS 512mb anyway).

I could obviously also get one of the newer ATi cards but I have recently upgraded to an SLI motherboard so I feel to give me the SLI option for the future if ever that time comes I should get an Nivida card.

Anyway thanks.

There's no point in getting a 9800GTX to run games at 1024x768. You'd be ridiculously CPU-limited at that resolution.

The cheap, fast 9600GT is a better choice. Then, with the money saved, you could buy yourself a larger monitor that would use the 9600GT to its full potential. :)

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smeee,have you thought of purchasing a LCD monitor for gaming... a lot of crt's use a lot of energy...and a lot of the LCD's use less energy & are supposed to be energy efficent..just a suggestion but keep the CRT as a backup.

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Thanks for the responses.

There's no point in getting a 9800GTX to run games at 1024x768. You'd be ridiculously CPU-limited at that resolution.

I don't quite follow you there, why would it be cpu limited at a lowish resolution? I thought cranking the resolution up was the thing that caused bottlenecks and performance drops?

wgaxp, yes I have thought of it, but I'm currently in the mindset that the technology needs to improve before I even bother with them. If I got a relatively good graphics card I could only afford a cheap LCD monitor anyway, and to be suited to my gaming I'd probably wind up with TN panel, but they seem to have poor viewing angles, and the whole thing about the possibilities of a panel lottery put me right off buying too.

"I don't game on high resolutions, 1024x768 "
neither do i, nvidia have made a card for the minted £400.

check the resolutions the card plays best on
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/nvidi...

versus 9600gt at nominal res

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Nvidi...

turn eye candy to med & play with your wallet intact.

(new psu as it needs a 6&8 pin pcie psu connection.)

is it me or has the pc market suddenly using 'enthusiast' and 'gamer' adjectives to flog uber priced games orientated pcs lately?
an xbox only costs £200

Well, in that case then, sod the gtx I'll just get a 9600GT.
Looks like I'll be forking out 100 quid for one but its better
than forking out 200 for something like the 8800GTS I guess
considering I won't see much if any improvement at that
resolution.

Hmm, judging from the US prices on newegg I make out that
it should be more like £70 or £80 rather than £100+. I hate
this country.

Okay I just bought a bfg 9600gt oc from scan.co.uk for
around £118 (I'm a member at avforums so i got free
delivery). Better than nothing I guess. Anyway thanks for all
the help.

I hate
this country.

rofl

you got a good deal m8.
air ticket to USA would have set you back a bit.

cant wait for sleazy jet to make a stupid £99 return offer im 1st in the queue.

£30 diff between e6850 on new egg vs overclockers.co

whoo ta for the scan hint , e6750 is cheap ,i needed a replacement.
:)

So that BFG 9600gt is not a bad choice.

It certainly seems to be pretty good. Its a single slot card which was nice since that means the pci-x 2x slot on my mobo isn't covered up by the cooling.

It fits in my relatively smallish case nicely too, I was worried about that but its a lovely card. I'm really pleased with it.

I've so far only played Unreal Tournament 3 and Bioshock using it, and I get top notch performance with the highest quality settings on both those games. I don't have many other games to test though unfortunately. Well, I do have shadow of chernobyl but I can't be bothered to install that at the moment.

Actually, I say I have UT3, but now I don't. I bought that at release and have been seriously underwhelmed by it, plus it was crashing on me randomly which turned out to be a common problem people have with the game and x-fi cards (I recently upgraded to an x-fi prelude), so I've now uninstalled it and am considering selling it, but, meh, the card powered it great in any case.

Then again UT3 seems to scale well on older hardware and still comes off looking fairly decent. Fact is, even with every cranked up to high it didn't really look a whole lot different to what I was playing it on the X800 GTO. I wasn't particularly impressed by that at all... Actually the blurring effect on the outside of maps like avalanche was considerably worse using the 9600GT because it blinded me when I was playing so I couldn't see in the distance where as it didn't occur at all on the X800.

... I think Epic Games should be renamed to Epic Fail.