New VGA...nv8500
 

Hi guys!

Unfortunately my old 6800ultra crashed and I need to get a new VGA.
Since I intent to seriously upgrade my system only after SoW is out (I do not play any other game besides some chess, mahjong...lol), I was thinking of this card: MSI NX8500GT-TD256EH/D2 256MB PCI-E RETAIL

Is anyone using it?
Anyone knows if it's a decent card for 1946?
Any known issues with it?

Thank you!

The 8500GT is allot slower than your 6800Ultra. It has more video decoding capabilities but in terms of game performance you'll be loosing allot. It should work alright...but it'll be a downgrade.

The 8500 is a slow card...even my 8600GTS OC2 from BFG which is factory overclocked is only marginally faster than my old 6600GT. Even if all you play is IL-2...if you get that 8500...you'll be back to Excellent mode. At least get the 8600GTS if you can.

I'd say almost definitely no unless you know what you're getting yourself into. I'd say aim for something like a 8800GT which they still sell and I found one for just over $100 CAD.

Unfortunately...and I ran into this when video card shopping...the difference between the high end 8800 series and the mid range was staggering. The 8600 and 8500 were only a tiny bit better than the 7600 and 6600. They had waaay more features for video decoding and had DX10 capability but not the performance to use it.

Hm, it's difficult to find a nice card, and in the midrange that seems to be getting worse, lots of nice cards, at nice prices, and no very clear ranking system.

I tend to use a couple of sites when I'm comparing cards. I hope it's okay to post links:

A review site which has a rate nifty compare two cards page (this is the front page, you have to click card database, then pick a comparison, then you can use the dropdown selection to pick cards to compare). They have data on a lot of cards:

http://www.gpureview.com/

The monthly gpu chart at the end of Tom's Hardware's best graphics card feature. You need to go to the front page and renew your bookmarks for this every month:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rd,2033-7.html

I'm sure someone will have posted these here before somewhere, but I don't know where, and it seems the original poster might not.

If money right now is tight and you don't play on a high res I'd go for a 9600GT. You can find them at the egg for $70 after rebate:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130393

It would beat both the 85/8600 cards and won't break the bank.

As for ranking the various cards from top to bottom:
88/9800GT
9600GT
6800 Ultra
8600
8500

Flyingbullseye

Thank you ALL!

You gave me all that I needed to understand how's the status in vga's at this moment.

After all this, I think I'll go for this one: http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...30&cat2_no=136 , or this one: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=2785

Those choices should satisfy your needs just fine in the short term.

Little question: The newer cards are for pci/e slot... Is your old 6800Ultra for pci/e or for AGP???

PCI Express :-)

Can you say 9800GT (which is a relabelled 8800GT)....

Well, I end up with this one: http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...d_no=1540#menu

Hopefully it'll be available in the shops (I'll know tomorrow) and will let you know of my impressions.

BTW, which are the suggested drivers (always talking about 1946) for this nv9800gt?