Video cards?

[jon50559]

I'm looking for a video card upgrade, and was wondering if anybody here has good recommendations for me

I need a fast card for a great price (who doesn't) and I'd prefer an nVidia!


So far I was looking at these:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004KM49WO/ (This one probably not, too expensive imo)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-125-383

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130625

 

[Thothie]

I'd say the NewEgg Gigabyte, hands down... Although I suspect you've already made your purchase, given the post date. >_>

Gigabyte isn't great, but it beats EVGA - especially *that* EVGA... Sadly, of the two companies I really liked, one is gone, and the other kinda bailed out on nVidia.

You know... I've a 560GTX, and I suddenly can't remember what brand it is... (Checks...) Oh yeah, Zotac... Nothing really good or bad to say about them, thus far. But I would say you really want at least 256-bit pipes on these newer cards. It has that, and think it ran me ~$180 on sale at Microcenter... Though I used it to replace a defective PNY card purchased about a week before. I don't like to hold DOA's against the manufacturer though, so long as they are rare.

Think it's this one.

It's way more than I need... But shouldn't read too much into that, as the 8800GT OC BFG that I had before, was also way more than I needed. I'm really not entirely sure why I bothered, but it does glide on everything at the highest detail levels without getting hot - while the previous card nearly did so, and got a little warm in the process. But as I run most of my games in XP, I don't suffer from the Win7 emulations nor take advantage of the DX10/11 effects and their performance impact.

 

[jon50559]

I went and bought http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162089

So far absolutely amazing things to say about this card, handles 1080p on every game like it's nothing.

Only possible con i can think of is that it's pretty f*cking big, and takes a lot of power (but that's to be expected for a card this speed)

 

[Thothie]

Yeah, all the 560's are "Manly" cards. :\ Make sure the PSU you've got is rated at least 50 amps on the 12v rail you've connected.

But yes, they also tend to flat own pwn everything with extreme prejudice.

On the Zotac, at least (may vary with brand of bios build), some of the visuals and color corrections are cleaner than the older 8800 I noticed, and the backwards compatibility of the Zotac is nearly as good as the BFG (no cutting corners in the BIOS like EVGA tends to do). I do notice it does strange things with CGA/EGA/MCGA palette management - but that's better than most EVGA cards, that can't handle those video modes at all, and it even goes so far as to clean up the emulation a bit with some smooth scaling. This sort of legacy support isn't the sort of thing most folks have to worry about, but I also think it's a good sign that the company isn't cutting corners, and is actually improving the default build of the card, rather than building a new, cheaper card, around the same GPU.