New graphics card - where to start?

[benk87]

Hi everyone, I'm looking to buy a new graphics card, as mine is ancient, and Trainz starts to judder a lot whilst im playing.

As I pretty much play trainz and not a lot else, would I be more suited to an Nvidia or ATI card, which models can you recommend? My budget is about £100GBP. My current card is a Radeon X1300!

Cheers in advance for your help

benk87

 

[ex-railwayman]

Hello Benk87, just a quick question. Is your graphics card incorporated into your motherboard at all, 'cos I have an ATI Radeon X1200 which is attached to mine, and I cannot change it without changing the motherboard as well, which will be a little expensive ??

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

 

[johnwhelan]

Best start off with finding out what your motherboard can accept. I suspect AGP in which case you are fairly limited, www.ebuyer.com lists an ATI 3650 but 3850 AGP video cards are also available. Try the scanner software at www.crucial.com to see which motherboard you have.

By the way most motherboards that have a buit in video card can have it disabled in the Bios.

Cheerio John

 

[john259]

Yes, start by discovering whether you system board takes AGP or PCI-E video boards.

Tom's Hardware Guide has a very useful review of video boards, including an extensive list of boards in descending order of computational power. Go for the most powerful you can afford and that your computer's power supply and case ventilation can cope with.

John

 

[aodgh0st]

i prefer nvidea, had both ati and nvidea, and back in the day, nvidea seemed to be a better card than the ati's i've had, thats why i switched back with the current cards i have now

 

[mjolnir]

Hello Benk87, just a quick question. Is your graphics card incorporated into your motherboard at all, 'cos I have an ATI Radeon X1200 which is attached to mine, and I cannot change it without changing the motherboard as well, which will be a little expensive ??

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

My experience is different. The machine on which I prefer to run Trainz also had an ATI chipset installed on the motherboard, but there is a way to disable the on-board chipset, so that one can install a different graphics card, whether a more sophisticated ATI card, or an Nvidia card.

ns

 

[benk87]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

My graphics card isn't built into the motherboard, and it's PCI-E, I replaced my motherboard a couple of months ago so I don't think compatibility is going to be a problem. I've used both Nvdia and ATI cards in the past and I can't make up my mind particularly as to which I prefer.

benk87

 

[Mr_D]

I am looking at an EVGA GeForce 9600 GT with 1gb ddr3 memory. Has anyone tried it on trains yet? All reviews are good for other games. The "Geek" at best buy recommended it. It has its own fan which should help with cooling. It has 900 mhz clock--1800 mhz effective. It has 57.6gb per second memory bandwidth and I would be using one card on the psie instead of two. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Captain_Collins]

I am looking at an EVGA GeForce 9600 GT with 1gb ddr3 memory. Has anyone tried it on trains yet? All reviews are good for other games. The "Geek" at best buy recommended it. It has its own fan which should help with cooling. It has 900 mhz clock--1800 mhz effective. It has 57.6gb per second memory bandwidth and I would be using one card on the psie instead of two. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

I know there is a comparison of video cards on tom's hardware, but I can't find it (again)

 

[john259]

Mr D,

AFAIK all modern powerful graphics cards have fans on them.

Captain,

See post #4

John

 

[AJ_Fox]

I prefer nvidia cards but that's just me. I think the most important thing as was mentioned above is whether your power suppy is up to the task. The minimum requirement should be on the box or in an advertisement. There can be a serious performance problem if the power supply is not sufficient.

Cheers

AJ

 

[Captain_Collins]

Mr D,

AFAIK all modern powerful graphics cards have fans on them.

Captain,

See post #4

John

Sorry! Forgot to re-read the entire thread. [gets slapped around the face with a mackerel]

As for the fans, some very low-end PCI (not pci-e) cards have no fans. And Laptop GPUs.

I prefer nvidia cards but that's just me. I think the most important thing as was mentioned above is whether your power suppy is up to the task. The minimum requirement should be on the box or in an advertisement. There can be a serious performance problem if the power supply is not sufficient.

Cheers

AJ

Also, make sure that your power supply has enough spare power connectors to support any extra power requirements for the graphics card. High-end graphics cards need extra 6-pin power connectors. There are cable adaptors which allow you to convert two 4-pin power connectors to one 6-pin connector, but that means you need the 4-pin power connectors free.

It is also preferable, if you need to do this, to make sure that the 4-pin power connectors come off of two different "rails" or cables on the power supply. Most power supply cables are connected in a chain, but there are multiple chains. It is important that the power draw on these rails is balanced otherwise the power supply will not be able to supply enough power down one rail whilst the spare power on the other rail goes to waste.

Sorry if you already knew any of this,

 

[ColPrice2002]

I'm not sure if the latest cards have this option, but my 6600GT has no fan - just heatpipe cooling.
It seems quite efficient, though it does improve if the cooling air from the fans (of the case) blows cross it - around 45C at theis moment.

Colin

 

[TheStoon]

There are some 8600GT's without fans, but I think thats about as far as it goes.. The faster cards just generate too much heat..

 

[Gerry_Williams]

Hi everyone, I'm looking to buy a new graphics card, as mine is ancient, and Trainz starts to judder a lot whilst im playing.

As I pretty much play trainz and not a lot else, would I be more suited to an Nvidia or ATI card, which models can you recommend? My budget is about £100GBP. My current card is a Radeon X1300!

Cheers in advance for your help

benk87

Hi,
I had the same problem with my graphics card - Radeon X1600PRO. and as I have only AGP I was going to put up with it until the spring when I am going to (when some expectations arrive!) buy a "state of the art computer" (whatever that may be then?).
I have always had ATI, and I will be going for 'Crossfire' in the spring. I have however bought a Sapphire Radeon HD3850 with 512DDR3 AGP and am astonished at the improvement. so AGP folk don't give up, save up?

Gerry

 

[mcguirel]

I am looking at an EVGA GeForce 9600 GT with 1gb ddr3 memory. Has anyone tried it on trains yet? All reviews are good for other games. The "Geek" at best buy recommended it. It has its own fan which should help with cooling. It has 900 mhz clock--1800 mhz effective. It has 57.6gb per second memory bandwidth and I would be using one card on the psie instead of two. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

I'd suggest the PNY 9800GT 1GB DDR3 PCI-Express over the 9600GT.

The PNY 9800GT 1GB DDR3 PCI-Express is defaulted at and Ntune 5 will overclock it pretty well if you have Nvidia Chipset on your motherboard.
Core Clock Speed - 600MHz Core Clock Speed
RAMDAC Clock Speed - Dual 400MHz RAMDACs
Video Memory Installed - 1024MB GDDR3 Video Memory
Video Memory Clock Speed - 900MHz Clock, 1800MHz Effective
Video Memory Bus - 256Bit
Video Memory Bandwidth - 57.6GB per second
Stream Processors - 112 Stream Processors
Shader Clock - 1500MHz Shader Clock

The 9800GT has 112 pipelines vesus 64 pipelines on the 9600GT. The GPU is a better design as well.

The downfall with the 9800GT and 9600GT, you need atleast 26Amp on 12v and 450 watts with you power supply specs. It is recommended to atleast have 600 watts and minimum of 50amps on the 12 volt rail. It sucks power and I tried a cheap power supply which met the requirements but was just not enough quality power. I went with ANTEC 650 watt power supply and SLI Ready.

Microcenter.Com ( http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0298441 ) has the PNY 9800GT 1GB DDR3 PCI-Express (with free Microsoft Frontlines Game for $129.00 after rebate - Good Thru December 2008). Their price on the 9600GT is higher. Great Price people if you are looking for a new PCI-E Nvidia Graphics Card. Actually lowest I could find on the 9800GT this month and I check allot of online dealers. I'm fortunate to have a MicroCenter near me and believe me they put the old CompUsa's to shame in my opinion store wise.

NewEgg.com ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130363 ) has the EVGA 9600GT 1GB DDR3 PCI-E for $124.99 after rebate. On other sites like Tiger Direct, CompUsa, and others this card is no longer available leading me to believe this card is discontinued. For $5 more, you get the best Series 9 Nvidia GPU, a really good free game, increased shader processors and increased shader clock which improves performance.

If your power supply is not a good power supply with atleast 36Amp on 12 volts with 550 watts and you do not want to buy a new decent quality power supply, I'd got with the a different Nvidia Series Card (suggest 9400 or 9500) as it requires less Amps and Voltage.

 

[edion2]

Oh by the way . . .

TIGER DIRECT just dropped the price on the EVGA Nvidia 280 cards by $100, across the board !! I ordered one.

I didn't check but the 260's might be in for similar price drop.

If you're interested . . .

 

[tads1]

Hi,I paid 108 pounds for a 9800GT,its sort of bottom of the high end card market (if that makes sense)Frontlines fuels of War rocks at 1600x1200 maxed out.A very capable card without busting the bank balance,good value for money vs performance.

 

[Zorronov]

I recently upgraded my graphics cards from 2 nvidea 7800gt's (SLI rig) to 2 8800gt's. When they arrived I thought I would just pop them in and head on down the track. :hehe: I had a 600W power supply in my computer so I thought there would be no problem. After reading the installation instructions I discovered that wasn't good enough. The newer cards require a lot of current, a minimum of 26 Amps on the +12 volt rail. I suppose it's to run those big cooling fans and such. Anyway, since I've been doing some extra work for extra cash lately, I decided to treat myself, and got a Corsair 1000W power supply with Dual +12 volt rails that put out a combined minimum current of 80 Amps. Yeah, baby! I also added 2 more gigs of ram to the motherboard. It's been running cool, quiet, and fast, without a hiccup. I've been running Trainz 2006 with TrainzTuner turned up to 5316 meters with acceptable framerates (worst = midteens). Oddly enough, the increased draw distance in Trainz 2009 isn't working for me. It's unstable. Well, perhaps with SP1...

Cheers,
Fred

P.S. You may ask why I went with the 2 8800gt's instead of 1 9800...it's cheaper. Hmmm...let's see 2 X 8800 = 17600...:hehe: ...just kidding.