Which video card?

[DizZa]

OK...

I am surprised that a card I bought almost two years ago is better than one available today. I thought technology always advanced. I will just step back for now, keep the 7600GT in mind and look at this again when I've sobered up...

Thanks to all for their input.

Yes but two year old upper midrange technology is and always will be faster than brand new ULTRA LOW END technology.

[waspiflab]

bin them both they are both crap

[JBaymore]

rootbeer,

You forget that old "free enterprise" moto of ....Caveat Emptor.  ;)

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck.......... it isn't always a duck.   8-)

best,

.................john

[luke]

How about this at only

[rootbeer]

I'm taking them both back this coming Thursday or Friday. I'll go from there...

[congo]

Get this one, it requires deeper pockets, but you'll forget all about that when you see it working.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125045

The review I saw on that page was bagging it in many ways, he's a lunatic, I have no issues at all with mine and mine is running a bios modded 70% overclock for several months now..... set and forget! Heat is not an issue with the huge cooler that comes on this card.

Here is a slightly cheaper one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 814134001R

You may want to check the card's dimensions to make sure your case will house it. Mini cases seem like a good idea until you actually want to do something with them.

You also seem obsessed with video memory as if that is a pre-requisite for the card's performance, it is not. Huge amounts of video ram (over 256mb) will benefit very large screens at very high resolutions, other than that there is little advantage I believe. I know you have a large monitor, so it would pay to research how much video ram you require at your intended gaming resolution. Resolutions of 1600 x 1200 or so should be fine with a 256mb card, over that, you would want to research it more carefully. (over that and unless you sit close to a 40" screen, it's ridiculously high res! )

[DizZa]

512mb cards can be SLOWER than there 256mb cousins. NEVER compare a card by video memory. Compare cards buy clock speeds, memory type, memory speed, pipelines....... ect...

[congo]

That's true, many manufacturer's dump lot's of substandard video ram on a video card because Americans (the largest market) erroneously believe that video memory amount is the deciding factor in video card performance, when the real performance factor is determined by GPU type/sub type and the quality of the video ram, not the amount of ram. Video card manufacturers do this to flog their junk chips to an unwary public, don't get caught!

The 7900GS I recommended above is basically a slightly crippled 7900GT for example, however, that card does not have the problems associated with the 7900GT series and it is an incredible overclocker, able to give up $100 more free value if you turn it up to the speeds of more able cards or in my case, turn it up in excess of those "better" cards. In fact, you'll notice that the clock speed on the Gigabyte card is factory overclocked already, in excess of 100mhz the card's normal GPU speed. Ample cooling for the overclocking is provided on these cards as supplied, and the gigabyte comes with a utility on the disk that will automatically max out the card's overclock potential, so it takes the guesswork and fear factor away for overclocking noobs.

I just took it one step further and locked those settings into the card's bios, that way I don't need to run any background process to achieve the overclock. That card is the best overclocking video card I have ever seen. It is also the fastest card I have ever seen, but.... I don't get out a lot so....