Which Graphics Card is Better ?

D

djpip

Guest
Hi,

I want to purchase a better Graphics Card. My current one is a 8500GT (PCI-E), which seems unbalenced against my Quad Core Q6600. Games are playable but only at Medium settings and Vista says ...

"Performence can be improved by changing visual settings" and "Drivers are interfering with Vista entering Sleep Mode". These all relate to my current graphics card.

I have about a maximum budget of £150.

The cards I like are the 8800GT, 8800GTX and there was the
ATI's Radeon HD 2900 XT


Are any of these any good ? Which is Better ? Should I go with ATI because of this driver issue that states "Drivers are interfering with Vista entering Sleep Mode" ?

Cheers,

DJ PIP
 
ATi

http://ati.amd.com/products/index.html

Because, reason my friend did already have check in my computer for while repair in my computer and my friends still work research on my computer have any problem with them then until my friends already found out that my Nvidia graphic card really very weak and my Nvidia 6150Le graphic card are very weak make TRS06 not successfully work for in TRS06 game and CMP so my friends was just suggest to me that my friend want me should buy new ATi graphic card in my CPU.....

So, that better ATi:)
 
Start here.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,1987.html

Have a serious look at this card:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148503

nVidia have just released OpenGL 3 video drivers, and now have the Physx engine running on the gpu, which changes the game when doing comparisons, so I'd go nVidia at the moment.

Both companies have issues with drivers from time to time but nVidia is a little larger and should have more resources to sort them out. TRS2009 is almost certainly being created on machines with nVidia cards due to their developer support so con be expected to take advantage of nVidia card features.

Cheerio John
 
Not really a bargain at
  • £145.98ex vat
  • £171.53
Can almost buy an entire computer for it nowadays. But I bet it will do something very nice for the performance of the simulator. I wish I had that amount of money to spend on just a graphics card. Alas maybe I will win the lottery next month.
 
dnutter said:
ATi

http://ati.amd.com/products/index.html

Because, reason my friend did already have check in my computer for while repair in my computer and my friends still work research on my computer have any problem with them then until my friends already found out that my Nvidia graphic card really very weak and my Nvidia 6150Le graphic card are very weak make TRS06 not successfully work for in TRS06 game and CMP so my friends was just suggest to me that my friend want me should buy new ATi graphic card in my CPU.....

So, that better ATi:)
Click to expand...

Yes, but he's not talking about buying YOUR Nvidia graphic card.......
 
Personally, I would recommend the ATi cards, but there is nothing wrong with the nVidia cards either. If you go ATi, a HD3870 would do nicely, but if you can afford to buy a cheap, but good quality, HD4870, I'd suggest that one.

The nVidia 8800 GT and GTX are good cards, but the 9800 cards are way better. I would recommend one of those, if you can afford one. If you can't, the 8800 GTX would be the next best choice.

Chris
 
Swapping over from nVidia to ATI may pose problems, as remnants of the old drivers may interfere with the new ones. Therefore I would recommend the nVidia 8800GT, as it is the card I am using and is excellent for trainz.
 
Zwabberaar said:
Not really a bargain at
  • £145.98ex vat
  • £171.53
Can almost buy an entire computer for it nowadays. But I bet it will do something very nice for the performance of the simulator. I wish I had that amount of money to spend on just a graphics card. Alas maybe I will win the lottery next month.
Click to expand...

When considered as part of the total cost to get a machine to give a given level of performance in Trainz it is probably the cheapest way to go. There are hardware benchmarking threads around that compare different configurations. Perhaps you could run the TC or TRS2006 benchmark on your £171 computer and let us know how it performs.

By the way some layouts are cpu bound, some are video card bound, but most bottleneck on the video card.

I do understand basket weaving is a less expensive hobby which you might find more amenable to your pocket.

Cheerio John
 
psycho_aussie said:
The nVidia 8800 GT and GTX are good cards, but the 9800 cards are way better. I would recommend one of those, if you can afford one. If you can't, the 8800 GTX would be the next best choice.

Chris
Click to expand...

Hi Chris,

Beg to differ a little here, the 9800GT is actually no better then the 9600GT, the only difference is the number of pixels per clock cycle it can do. Also, the 9800GTX/GTX+ is actually slower then the 8800GTX/Ultra, but the 9800GX2 on the other hand is a different story.

If I had the money I would buy one of them.
 
johnwhelan said:
When considered as part of the total cost to get a machine to give a given level of performance in Trainz it is probably the cheapest way to go. There are hardware benchmarking threads around that compare different configurations. Perhaps you could run the TC or TRS2006 benchmark on your £171 computer and let us know how it performs.

By the way some layouts are cpu bound, some are video card bound, but most bottleneck on the video card.

I do understand basket weaving is a less expensive hobby which you might find more amenable to your pocket.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

Oh dear, another far too serious member.
 
I like the 9600 because the number "9600" is higher than the number "8800", so it stands to reason it must be more powerful! The 9800 must be the tippy-toppiest of all!:o
 
John,

Driver support for OpenGL 3.0 and Physx is only valuable if you have applications that use OpenGL 3.0 and/or Physx. OpenGL 3.0 isn't quite what everyone hoped it would be so don't expect a huge rush there. Physx, on the other hand could be really good. Unfortunately it would call for a near total rewrite of the Trainz physics engine and cause some compatibility issues with ATI.

Now, to weigh in on the real question. I have a long bias toward Nvidia so I think that is the way to go. The 8800s are a better choice than any of the 9xxx cards.... If you are going to render OpenGL. ATI still has an edge on the DirectX side though the gap is narrowing.

Just don't wait for the next big thing cause you'll never get there. As far as GPUs are concerned Moore was a pessimist. Instead of 18 months is more like 9 to 12.
 
mawilson said:
John,

Driver support for OpenGL 3.0 and Physx is only valuable if you have applications that use OpenGL 3.0 and/or Physx. OpenGL 3.0 isn't quite what everyone hoped it would be so don't expect a huge rush there. Physx, on the other hand could be really good. Unfortunately it would call for a near total rewrite of the Trainz physics engine and cause some compatibility issues with ATI.

Now, to weigh in on the real question. I have a long bias toward Nvidia so I think that is the way to go. The 8800s are a better choice than any of the 9xxx cards.... If you are going to render OpenGL. ATI still has an edge on the DirectX side though the gap is narrowing.

Just don't wait for the next big thing cause you'll never get there. As far as GPUs are concerned Moore was a pessimist. Instead of 18 months is more like 9 to 12.
Click to expand...

nVidia has a tradition of helping game companies such as Auran optimise their code to get the bent performance out of their graphics cards. Microsoft wrote the DirectX spec to create a generic windows games driver for video cards. ATI basically took the DirectX spec and programmed it in silicon thus gaining a big cost / performance advantage over nVidia. If you intend to replace your video card every 9 months then possibly ATI has the price / performance /heat lead today. If you are thinking of making it stretch out for a year or two then rember that Auran have actually beeen playing with the game engine for TRS2009. Texture compression has been improving recently and both ATI and nVidia now have ways to support compressed textures directly in hardware, they are implemented slightly differently. Given that the coders will almost certainly be using help from nVidia to optimise the code it is not unreasonable to assume they may also implement the Physx side of things.

PhysX will make a difference to the Sims, Trainz may not implement it but other sims almost certainly will. I think there is now a list of more than 100 games that will be using PhysX by year end thus there will be pressure on Auran to implement it.

If you are looking at what is available today I agree with you but if you are looking to make the card last more than a few months then you have to crystal ball a little and make some reasonable predictions. Given those predictions and the difference in cost performance on the ATI / nVidia cards its enough to tilt the balance over to nVidia in my opinion.

I try not to have a bias one way or other.

Cheerio John
 
mawilson said:
Now, to weigh in on the real question. I have a long bias toward Nvidia so I think that is the way to go. The 8800s are a better choice than any of the 9xxx cards....

Gidday Mr mawilson,
Sorry, but slightly disagee with the above.....
A few months ago I upgrade from Nvidia's 8800 GTX to the 9800 GX2. (had also tried the 8800 GT & the 8600 GT).
Very happy with the Nvidia 9800 GX2 as it clearly give me 'better frame rates' than the older 8800 GT & GTX. (At the time I couldn't get my hands on a 8800 Ultra so couldn't compare).
From what I've been told (& read) the new ATI 4870 X2 (2048) card looks to be a really good leap forward. (Haven't done any client installs/upgrades yet, so haven't had a chance to look at one).
Hope to be able to benchmark one against the 9800 GX2 over the coming months to compare them...
All we now need is another price war between Nvidia & ATI-(AMD). - My two shillings worth...
Cheers, Mac.
Click to expand...
 
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