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The best graphic card

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Old 04-02-2008   #1
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The best graphic card

I will buy a new graphic card especially for gaming and the simple question is...
GeForce 9800GX2 OR Ati Radeon HD 3870 X2 ?
My motherboard is GA-X38-DS4 and its Supports CrossFire with Dual PCI-E 2.0 x16.
------------------------------------
Tha agorasw kainouria karta grafikwn eidika gia paignidi kai h erotisi mou einai...
GeForce 9800GX2 H Ati Radeon HD 3870 X2 ?
H mitrikh karta mou einai GA-X38-DS4 kai ypostirizei CrossFire me Dual PCI-E 2.0 x16.

Last edited by panais; 04-03-2008 at 04:07 AM.
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Old 04-02-2008   #2
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Re: The best graphic card

Go with the GeForce 9800GX2. Its by far the superior choice.

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Old 04-02-2008   #3
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Re: The best graphic card

I would agree with Tiltrotor, GeForce is the way to go.

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Old 04-03-2008   #4
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Re: The best graphic card

Panais, I would go with the Geforce 9800GX2 also. It is faster than the ATI. Just make sure that your power supply is at least 580 watts and that it has two 6-pin PCI-E plugs for the graphics card.

System Requirements
  • 1GB of system memory
  • CD or DVD-ROM driver
  • 100MB of available hard disk drive space for basic driver installation
  • Microsoft® Windows Vista™ or XP operating system
  • PCI Express®-compliant system motherboard with one vacant PCI Express® x16 slot
  • One vacant add-in card slot below the PCI Express® x16 slot. This graphics card physically occupies two slots
  • 580W PCI Express®-compliant system power supply with a combined 12V current rating of 40A or more*
  • One 8-pin and one 6-pin PCI Express® supplementary power connector -or- Two 6-pin PCI Express® supplementary power connectors
  • NOTE: For the power requirements of two GeForce® 9800 GX2-based graphics cards in an NVIDIA SLI® configuration, please visit Your Page Title
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Old 04-03-2008   #5
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Re: The best graphic card

Umm...I'm not sure it'll work with that MOBO, though. For some reason, I think the multi-GPU cards still use SLi or Crossfire. In that case, you couldn't use the 9800GX2.

Also, I'm going to slightly disagree with everyone. While the 9800GX2 is better, in a cost for performance comparison, I suspect the ATI comes out just a bit better.

In any case, before you buy the card, you probably want to check if there are mobo requirements for the x2 cards.

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Old 04-03-2008   #6
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Re: The best graphic card

Before you go out and spend gobs of moolah on a 9800 GX2, you might want to read the review on it at Tom 's hardware. In a nutshell: It sucks (relatively speaking) and isnt worth the money. It is another dual chip card like ATI's newest card and is basically two 8800GTS G92's on one board. The thing just barely tests above the 8800GTX/Ultra....in other words, it isn't a vast improvement over the current line and the cost doesn't justify. IMHO you would be better off waiting for the next generation of Nvidia cards. If you can't wait for a graphics card and don't want to spend too much, try the 8800 GTS series for now...that would be fine until the next Nvidia line that will be coming out this year.

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Old 04-03-2008   #7
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Re: The best graphic card

At least go with an 8800 GTX. So, the 9800 GX2 might be expensive and there might not be that much of an improvement in speed, but people will pay the extra money for the tiny bit of improvement they will get.
"Why buy one 9800GX2 for 600 bucks when you can buy 2 for 1200".
Sure, you can wait for the next gen geforce cards to come out, but who wants to wait?
Im not going to desagree with you bistro, but there just isnt any fun in waiting. Its all a persons opinion I guess. I remember getting a 7800 GS OC AGP card well after PCI-E was out and I loved it. I thought it was the ****. I guess what I am trying to say is sure, you can wait for a new card to come out, but when there are already cards available that will work just fine, then why wait?
How much more power will the next generation cards have? Will there be a big enough improvement to really notice?

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Old 04-06-2008   #8
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Re: The best graphic card

if you can not go with a 9800GX2 then simply why not go for the 9800GTX?
however if you do go for a 9800GX2 then don't forget you will most likely need a new power supply as they need a lot of power and use the new 6 & 8 pin plugs

here is the 1 1 i chose and i have no problems with it

Thermaltake W0133RB 1200W PSU

* Core 2 Quad Q6600
* Abit IN9 32 MAX Motherboard
* 4 GB OCZ 4GB PC2-5400 Vista Upgrade (2x2GB)
* BFG Geforce 9800 GX2 x 1
* Thermaltake W0133RB 1200W PSU
* 150GB Raptor HDD
* 500GB Caviar HDD
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Old 04-07-2008   #9
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Re: The best graphic card

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tiltrotor22
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.., but when there are already cards available that will work just fine, then why wait?
How much more power will the next generation cards have? Will there be a big enough improvement to really notice?
You've just about answered the issue as far as the 9800GX2 is concerned. It ISN"T a big enough improvement over the previous generation...not nearly enough to justify the cost. The next generation will be the G100 chip which was SUPPOSED to have already been out, but it's late. It is now expected to come out Q2 or Q3 this year. People were expecting that chip would be on the 9800GX2, but Nvidia didn't come through on that. Supposedly the G100 chip will be a far better chip than the G92. So why pay the big bucks for an "old" chuip when the newer, more powerful one is coming out within such a short period of time? I could understand buying NOW if the next chip was a year away, but this is not the case here. Conclusion from Tom's Hardware:
Quote:
Having said this, we do not recommend buying a GeForce 9800 GX2 for those who rarely change graphic cards and want to invest in a very high end card and keep it for a long time. There are times when a card like this should excel, like when games are played at high resolutions and with demanding settings, but the 9800 GX2 is barely better than a simple GeForce 8800 Ultra.

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Old 04-07-2008   #10
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Re: The best graphic card

I see what your saying, but if Nvidia is already late in releasing cards containing G100 chips, then how long could the wait be? They could say it will be released by a certain date, but can you trust them, you can be waiting another year if things dont go well for them? In the end its a gamble, but if someone needed a card right now, then id go with the 9800 GX2 just to have the fastest available at the moment.

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