New Display Card?

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Loop...

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Hi all, I have rediscovered my love for PC gaming after an haitus of two or so years. I must say i think Iv'e become a bit of n00b again.

I would like some advice on what to get.

I have R1000 - R1300 to spend and dont mind bying something secondhand. Which card would give me the best performance for that money now?

I can get a powercolor radeon HD3850 for R1160 new.


PC: AMD Athlon64 X2 4200, 2GB Ram,
 
The HD4670 would be a better buy than the HD3850. Around the same price or even less from prophecy.co.za, but they are closed for the holidays.

You could try get a second hand Nvidia 9600GT for that price, it would be slightly better.
 
Propehcy had the 3870 for 1.3k I think, brand new with warranty :D

It would be slightly better than the GT at higher res :p
 
yea, the 8800gt and 9600gt are pretty outdated and not worth buying.

i'd rather go for a hd3850 or a hd4670 if i were you, both cards support dx10 :)
 
thriel said:
yea, the 8800gt and 9600gt are pretty outdated and not worth buying.

i'd rather go for a hd3850 or a hd4670 if i were you, both cards support dx10 :)
Click to expand...

LOLOL.

All those cards you mention support DX10. The 3850 and 4670 support DX10.1.

Also in order of performance out of the cards you mention it would go:

8800gt, then 9600gt then the 3850 and 4670 which perform about the same if it's the 512mb3850 you're talking about.

Anyway to answer the op, try look for a 9600GT or 3870 in your price range. Don't go lower than the 3850 or 4670.

I'd take the 3870 if I were you.
 
he wont get an 3870 for the money he wants to spend.

the hd3850 will do fine, it plays every single game that is out at the moment and 99% of them at high settings, the card is a good choice for R1300, especialy with the new drivers.
 
Thanks to all my esteemed comrades for your thoughts and options you have mentioned, I think you all have given me good options for further investigations, will investigate further.

Although I might go for the HD3850 becuase I can also get it for 999ex vat from sahara as someone has mentioned.


thriel said:
he wont get an 3870 for the money he wants to spend.

the hd3850 will do fine, it plays every single game that is out at the moment and 99% of them at high settings, the card is a good choice for R1300, especialy with the new drivers.
Click to expand...

EDIT: Hey guys are these good deals second hand?

MSI 8800GTS 320mb OC Edition @ R1000
Asus 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 @ R1300

Also when are the new graphics cards from Nvidia and ATI being realesed? becuase I can wait two or three months if the prices are going to drop when new cards get released.
 
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I have gotten better prices for secondhand 8800 before. 1200 for 256mb 8800gt is too much IMO. You need more memory for today's games. 1300 for a secondhand 8800gts 640 is also too much, I'd never pay that. If you want second hand then you need to spend time and jump when you see a good deal. If something has been there for more than a week it's probably overpriced.

I would consider a fair deal now to be 8800gt 512 for R1000-1200 as a ballpark. Don't even look at 9800, the performance difference is nominal.


And thriel what are you talking about? 8800gt is better than 3870 and fully supports dx10.
 
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um, get the HD4670, simply because:
it's architecture is better then the HD3xx0 series
it performs at between the hd3850 and hd3870
it's supported by ati stream
it's able to run most games with decent settings, but most of all, it's a great card for media

also try stay away from 256mb cards, the newer games demand a massive draw distance which eats up graphics memory... so even gaming at low res won't help.
 
Okay thanx bru, I think I'll go for the HD3850 or 4670 like Ekhaatvensters suggested and spare the hassle.

D a n k i e.
 
scotty777 said:
um, get the HD4670, simply because:
it's architecture is better then the HD3xx0 series
it performs at between the hd3850 and hd3870
it's supported by ati stream
it's able to run most games with decent settings, but most of all, it's a great card for media

also try stay away from 256mb cards, the newer games demand a massive draw distance which eats up graphics memory... so even gaming at low res won't help.
Click to expand...

Great. I dont know about that, okay so minimun 512mb then? I'll ask sahara if they have that caed yet? usually saves me a hundred or two buying from them.
Plus if its a better card for media that important to me too.

And uhm are you sure that HD4670 is better? if the price is the same ill get it>

EDIT: Shoutout to Ekhaatvensters, its only R1033.18 (inc VAT) from Prophecy
 
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Loop your best bet is to spend some time looking at benchmarks on like tomshardware and those sorts of places to get an idea. 4670 is a great budget card yes. Minimum 512mb.
 
thriel said:
he wont get an 3870 for the money he wants to spend.

the hd3850 will do fine, it plays every single game that is out at the moment and 99% of them at high settings, the card is a good choice for R1300, especialy with the new drivers.
Click to expand...

http://www.prophecy.co.za/force3d-hd3870-512mb-p-29583.html

Ive narrowed it down to these three from prophecy

HD3870 512mb R1299.60
HD3850 512mb R1176.14
HD4670 512mb R1033.18

not sure which one.
 
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3850<4670<3870
but 4670 has better driver/cf support and lower temps, smaller profile than 3870.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15559

So the price point makes it a real bargain. But you can see clearly in the benchmarks shown in this review, spending that bit extra to get a second hand 4850 say or 8800 will make a BIG difference. There is a whole leap of performance for only a few hundred rands more.
 
Also i have to say looking at the reviews I'm surprised to see how well the 9600gt outperforms the 4670. A new leadtek 9600 will cost 1400, I would consider that to be a better bet.
 
The thing is I see all these variants of the 8800 that i dont know what the hell is going on. or what price i should be paying
 
Ok here's the deal with the 8800 series - the first batch of 8800's were on the G80 chipset and were called GTS for some reason. There were two variants - 320 and 640 running on a dual slot, then you had the GTX and GTX Ultra. Then halfway through the cycle they upgraded the chipset to G92 which was single slot and called them GT, which come in 512/256 flavours, as well as a G92 GTS 512 which will outperform a GTX.

So the really confusing bit is that the naming is completely backwards - a 512 GT will easily outperform a 640 GTS, just look at a few benchmarks to get an idea. There is a later overclocked version of the 640 which is better than the GT. But the GT series rendered the GTS lineup obsolete basically overnight.
 
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