I would like some advice on my next video card. AGP type and I would like to spend around $200 bucks.

I have been staring at the Oblivion box for too long.

Tough call on that, as AGP cards are getting rarer and rarer.

At the store I work at, an ASUS EN7600GS goes for about $199.99 + tax.

A VERY popular card with players as of late (not so much for Oblivion or the like, but more so the WoW crowd) has been the Sapphire X1600 Pro 256MB and 512MB varieties. They usually go for about $169.99 and $189.99 respectively.

Hope this helps!

How can I tell how many watts my power supply is?

Looks like my power supply is a 300 watt'er. The videocards I was looking at needed 500 watt minimum.... It may be time for a new pc.... I guess I need to go price powersupplies now :(

Your in the same shoes I am in Bise. I am working off a P4 2.4ghz and old video card (3+ years)....I have BF2 still in the box from last year lol never got it installed passed the message your video card sucks!

Thinking about buying a xbox360 instead and saying the hell with PC gaming.

Actually, I went and bought myself a supplementary power supply from ThermalTake.

http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Power/PurePower/w0130/w0130.asp

It's a 250 Watt (300 Watt max load) power supply that fits in your 5.25" bay. It's sole purpose is to power higher end video cards.

I have a 480W Antec NeoPower in my system, and don't really want to replace it.

I also plan on getting an ATI R600 when funds allow. The card sounds like it just might kick the 8800GTX's tail, though that'll remain to be seen.

I paid $64.99 for my supplemental power supply.

Also too, check out Antec's Wattage calculator for finding out approx. how much Wattage you need.

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/powercalc.jsp

Binnie, if you would have told me that there is a calculator to determine how much wattage for my vid card I wouldn't have believed it... I think I have seen everything now :)

Thanks though !

Hehe, no problem! I only discovered this the other day.

Considering I have the P180 and the NeoPower 480, not to mention I sell this stuff day in and out, you'd think I'd know about it sooner. :p

Well after talking with the wife, I am going to get a new PC....I can spend about 2000 bucks on it. I also will be getting my two older kids (11,9) lap tops as Santa presents.... is Dell still a good company or is it Gateway now?

Actually one of the notebooks I've been putting forth has been Lenovo (formally of IBM).

They're going crazy trying to get Acer's market share and IBM is footing all the bills for any Lenovo work. One of the BIG advantages of buying Lenovo is that they are usually serviced locally. Even here, in St. John's, Newfoundland Labrador, Canada, I can drive up to a tech shop and have my notebook serviced by a technician. Usual turn around with other companies is anywhere from a week to a month, with LG being the exception at 3 days (Air couriered up and back, but you pay for it with the price of the notebook).

Dell also offers a good warranty, on site even, but I've seen a LOT of Dell's come into our shop lately. I dunno if it's coincidence or not, but it also depends on what you are buying. If you're buying the Dell XPS series, then for the money you spend, you're getting a good product. If it's their cheaper series of laptops that you are buying, you might be in trouble.

I guess it depends on what you are looking to spend on a notebook as well. If you don't mind getting only 2 to 3 hours battery life, and you live in the continental USA, then maybe an AMD Turion Acer notebook might work for you. Their warranty isn't on site and might not be local, but you can generally get a REALLY powerful system for fairly cheap. You can sometimes get cheaper again by going Refurb.

A Refurb is a notebook that wasn't working when it was sold and was sent back to be fixed while a new laptop was given to the customer. This usually happens within 30 days of purchase. After being fixed, it can no longer be sold as a "new" notebook. The hardware is fine, and they still offer the full warranty from the date of sale.

I sold a gentleman a pretty sweet refurb Acer just this past week. He knew it was a refurb (I told him, it's labled that way anyways), and was cool with it. For $1199.99 + tax Canadian, he was able to get an AMD Turion 64 X2, with 2GB RAM, a 160GB SATA HD, a dual layer DVD+/-RW, an ATI X1600 Pro 256MB video card, all the wireless and wired network connections (including bluetooth and gigabit LAN) and it had Windows XP Media Centre (meaning that, because he bought the notebook between Oct 28, 2006 and Mar 2007, he gets a free upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium, the edition all gamers are gonna want pretty much).

Definately pays to shop around, especially now where a lot of stores are looking to get rid of their stock for the new year. If you go to a local store (like the one I work in) they can generally be more flexible on getting you in the model you want, with you even being able to look for refurbished notebooks at their supplier level. At least, that's how we do things at my store.

Big thing with notebooks is GET EXTENDED WARRANTY!!! We sell Prestige warranty, and it's good for anywhere in continental North America. It goes on top of your current warranty (so if you buy 1 year, you have 2 years, if you buy 2 years, you have 3 years, etc). Why might you ask? Because to replace a screen in a notebook after warranty is approximately $500 to $600, and that's just the screen.

As far as your system goes, for $2000, are you looking for just a tower or are you looking for a complete system? Also, how hardcore are you looking to go with your hardware? If you're looking to get the most bang for your buck without going crazy, you can build quite a nice system for those dollars.

The only things I really recommend, regardless of what way you go:

1) Get a fairly decent sized power supply. 600W plus if you can (1000W if you plan on SLI or CrossFire two DirectX 10 cards in the near future). You might not need it now, but judging where quad core and the new DirectX 10 cards are going, you'll probably need it soon.

2) Get a decent case with lots of air flow. Processors are getting cooler now, but graphics cards are putting out MAJOR heat!! If you want a nice case with LOTS of airflow, but don't want to break the bank I might suggest the Antec Nine Hundred. It just came out, it's not insanely priced (We sell it retail for $149.99 + tax Cdn), it's a dream to work on and it's downright sexy to boot! Check it out at www.antec.com (http://www.antec.com/) .

3) Stick with 2GB RAM kits. Avoid the 1GB RAM kits if you can (the 2 X 512MB stick kits). With Vista supporting up to 8GB of RAM, you'll want to try and keep your RAM numbers as high as possible. 2GB for now, with more slots to get you to 4GB. at least until the 2GB sticks come out (4GB kits).

4) Buy Windows Xp Media Centre, not Home or Pro. As mentioned earlier, with Media Centre, you'll be entitled to a free upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium. There are five types of Vista (two of which are business only) with Windows Xp Home giving you a free upgrade to Windows Vista Home Basic (It's just that, a basic, watered down version of Vista) and Windows Xp Pro giving you Windows Vista Professional Enterprise, a suite more designed for the boardroom than the livingroom.

Hopefully I can help you get the most out of your dollars. Let me know what you're looking for.

Thanks for all that info... I'm going to start digging around and use your rec's. I think I could get by with just the PC for now but I definately want a a flat/thin monitor in the near future.....my wife has one and I am jealous of it :)

Hehe, yeah, I know what you're saying. I'm using a 19" CRT right now, and believe me, working with the stuff day in/day out is driving me NUTS! :D

I would look at the recommendations made abovie (Antec case, maybe an Enermax Power Suppy, it's expensive but SOLID). Go Core 2 Duo for your processor. Go with the 6300 if you want to do it on a budget, but if you can afford it a 6600 would be much better due to it being a true Conroe core (4 MB shared L2 cache vs. the 6300/6400 Allandale core with 2MB of shared L2 cache).

If you're looking to SLI or CrossFire, buy the board now. If not, I'd recommend going with a board with no less than an Intel 965 chipset.

For your video cards, do NOT go crazy on price. The only DirectX 10 compatible cards on the market right now are the 8800 series by NVidia and they are TRES expensive, not a good move right now if you are on a budget.

For one single powerful card that you can afford to dispose of in about 8 months time, I'd go with a nice X1900GT. It's got some punch, but at about $250, you're not losing too much cash when you trade up. If you are going crossfire with a crossfire board, get the applicable crossfire card. If you are going SLI, then maybe a couple of 7600 GS's would suffice. At about $150 a piece, you won't spend too much cash and should get some nice performance.

As far as hard drives go, it depends on two things: price and speed. I am personally using a Western Digital 250 GB SATA 2 hard drive with a 16MB cache. It does just fine by me. If you're storing a LOT of info, maybe a 500GB or 750GB from Seagate might suffice, but they come at a price. If speed is what you want, a 150GB Western Digital Raptor (10,000RPM) hard drive might be ok, but again they are costly.

Just an idea (in Canadian dollars):

Antec Nine Hundred - $149.99
Enermax 620W Liberty Power Supply - $209.99
Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 processor - $399.99
ASUS P5B Motherboard - $189.99
Geil DDR2 667 2GB RAM kit - $319.99
Microsoft Windows Media Centre OEM - $169.99
Western Digital 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 2 16MB Cache - $129.99
Sapphire Radeon X1900GT 256MB PCI-E Video Card - $269.99
LG GSA-H22N 18X/18X DVD+/-RW Black Drive - $49.99

Total: $1889.91 + tax

This is just to give you an idea. ;)

That is about 1700 US dollars.... hmmm

Maybe a nice TV Tuner from Hauppauge?

There's also the Logitech G-15 gaming keyboard and the Logitech G-5 gaming mouse, both VERY nice additions to any system. I use them both. :)

I'm an nVidia fan and if you peruse newegg.com you can find allot of good cards for that range. Several months ago I snagged a 6800GT with 256MB of RAM for like $100 b/c of rebates and such I'm happy. I haven't played a game yet that I couldn't get decent FPS on high settings. I got my gf a 6600GT recently for around $100 as well and though she doesn't game as much as I do she has almost the same performance I do.

I used to be a fan of the NVidia cards, but lately I've been finding a LOT of people complaining of shoddy drivers, especially with regard to how they work with the older cards.

When you see a system with two 7900GTX's in SLi and it won't run EQ2 at all, it makes you want to cry hehe.

That being said, when they work, they work great, but NVidia also tends to cost more on the performance side.

ATI tend to give you better performance for the dollar, though this could change with the release of the R600 in January.

I would avoid going with a 6 series NVidia card right now, not because it's a bad card (I have a 6600GT as a backup for my current card) but because it's discontinued. Some companies out there (like PNY) offer warranty on the card only while it's a current model. Once the model is discontinued, so is the warranty.

Warranty is one of the many things that people don't check into, and just because it's the same chip die, it doesn't necessarily mean the same warranty. ASUS Vid cards come standard with 3 years parts/labour and that warranty is solid. Sapphire has 2 years. MSI has 2 years Parts, 1 Year labour. Definately check these things out.

Okay I just got back from the local store and here is what they offered. I brought Binu's recs with me hehe.

-Intel Core 2 Duo 36300 Conroe 1.86 GHz 1066FSB , 2MB cache $249.99
-Asus P5B-E Socket 775MB, DDR2, SATA, RAID, GLAN $209.99
-1Gig DDR-533Mhz (x2) $129.99
-Western Digital 400GB 7200RPM with 16Cache WD4000KS $249.99
-Black ATX Mid Tower Case with 420 Watt Power 337-PLW-BK (this was a cheap case) $49.99
-ThermalTake 680watt Power Supply Plus EPS w/PFC W0049 $179.99
-eVGA 7900GS KO PCI-e Video Card 256MB(256), 20 pixel pipe $259.99
-Alps 1.44 3.5'' Floppy $19.99
-AOpen CDRW+DVD-Rom Combo Drive $49.99
-Samsung DVDRW/CDRW Lightscribe Drive w/Nero OEM $79.99
- Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition $169.99

This plus $75 bucks for labor = $1854.88

I didn't buy it and won't before getting some of you guys to look it over.... Good? Bad? Ugly?

I used to be a fan of the NVidia cards, but lately I've been finding a LOT of people complaining of shoddy drivers, especially with regard to how they work with the older cards.



LOL I hear the same things about ATI. But I'm not Canadian I like to buy American therefore my money goes local before it goes to you cannucks :p

Checking warranty and restrictions is always a good thing but I've never had an issue with an nVidia card....ever. The computer part to fail the most often for me has always always been a PSU or a HDD.

That's a nice system Bise, more than I'd spend though. I'm jealous :( On second gander....take that part list and compare it at Tigerdirect/Newegg some of that seems a bit much.


Ditch the Floppy I haven't used one in 5 years or more and unless you have a specific need it's just not worth $20.

Okay I just got back from the local store and here is what they offered. I brought Binu's recs with me hehe.

-Intel Core 2 Duo 36300 Conroe 1.86 GHz 1066FSB , 2MB cache $249.99
-Asus P5B-E Socket 775MB, DDR2, SATA, RAID, GLAN $209.99
-1Gig DDR-533Mhz (x2) $129.99
-Western Digital 400GB 7200RPM with 16Cache WD4000KS $249.99
-Black ATX Mid Tower Case with 420 Watt Power 337-PLW-BK (this was a cheap case) $49.99
-ThermalTake 680watt Power Supply Plus EPS w/PFC W0049 $179.99
-eVGA 7900GS KO PCI-e Video Card 256MB(256), 20 pixel pipe $259.99
-Alps 1.44 3.5'' Floppy $19.99
-AOpen CDRW+DVD-Rom Combo Drive $49.99
-Samsung DVDRW/CDRW Lightscribe Drive w/Nero OEM $79.99
- Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition $169.99

This plus $75 bucks for labor = $1854.88

I didn't buy it and won't before getting some of you guys to look it over.... Good? Bad? Ugly?

Everything seems to check out, the only thing I'd look at would be:
-1Gig DDR-533Mhz (x2) $129.99 - Make sure this has a lifetime warranty on the pieces. Most RAM, Dual Channel or otherwise usually does, but it pays to ask. If this is a generic type of RAM, see if they can match it up for your manufacturer wise. If you can get Dual Channel to engage, you'll get a 30% boost to system performance. Ask them to try and set this up for you.

-AOpen CDRW+DVD-Rom Combo Drive $49.99 - This is actually kinda expensive for a combo drive, especially an AOpen. With the Lightscribe Drive (which also seems kinda pricey considering we usually sell the LG DVD+-RW Lightscribe drives for $59.99 OEM but that's still not bad) you really don't need the second optical drive, as the DVD burner is capable of burning or playing both DVD's and CD's. If you like to burn the occasional disc, it should be all that you need. Save $50 and put it into your case.

-eVGA 7900GS KO PCI-e Video Card 256MB(256), 20 pixel pipe $259.99 - EVGA make good cards. I can honestly say I've never had any come back to the store. They are one of the companies I have no problem buying cards off of. Good call here.

-Black ATX Mid Tower Case with 420 Watt Power 337-PLW-BK (this was a cheap case) $49.99 - Check out this case. With the processor you're going with (the Intel Core 2 Duo 6300, a great processor) you don't need much cooling for it. Your video card on the other hand looks like it could have it's clock tweaked. If this is the case, then you want to make sure that the case has proper ventilation. If you are not planning on doing any overclocking, try to ensure that there is at least one fan in the front pulling air in and one in the back pushing air out. If at all possible, try to make sure that the fans are 12cm fans as these are the largest fans available (exception is the 20cm in the Ninehundred case). Bigger fan = less spinning to push maximum air = less noise. The more quiet the case, the happier you'll be. ;) If it's absolutely necessary, no smaller than 8cm fans. If the fans are smaller than that, get a different case.

LOL I hear the same things about ATI. But I'm not Canadian I like to buy American therefore my money goes local before it goes to you cannucks :p

Checking warranty and restrictions is always a good thing but I've never had an issue with an nVidia card....ever. The computer part to fail the most often for me has always always been a PSU or a HDD.

That's a nice system Bise, more than I'd spend though. I'm jealous :( On second gander....take that part list and compare it at Tigerdirect/Newegg some of that seems a bit much.


Ditch the Floppy I haven't used one in 5 years or more and unless you have a specific need it's just not worth $20.

But dude! ATI isn't owned by Canadians anymore! AMD owns them now :p

I went with the case you rec'd. :)

You won't be sorry. ;)

Great thread chocked full of information!

Don't hesitate to ask! Hehe, I get to see all of this stuff on a daily basis, so I find out first hand what works and what doesn't.

Two of my personal favorite references are:

www.tomshardware.com (http://www.tomshardware.com) Good Ol' Tom is the man!

www.maximumpc.com (http://www.maximumpc.com) I have a regular subscription and enjoy watching their comparisons.

-Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe , 4MB cache $404.00
-Asus P5B-E Socket 775MB, DDR2, SATA, RAID, GLAN $209.99
-1Gig DDR-533Mhz (x2) $129.99
-Western Digital 320GB 7200RPM with 16MB Cache WD3200KS $122.99
-Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case $130.00
-ThermalTake 680watt Power Supply Plus EPS w/PFC W0049 $179.99
-eVGA 7900GS KO PCI-e Video Card 256MB(256), 20 pixel pipe $259.99
-Alps 1.44 3.5'' Floppy $19.99
-Lite-on CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo $31.00
-Lite-on 16x Dual Layer DVD-/+ RW $50.00
- Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition $169.99

This plus $75 bucks for labor = about 20 bucks more or something like that.

I also bought two laptops so I don't have the exact price....

The bolded stuff are changes....basically I went down from 400 to 320 on hard drive and bumped up my Conroe with the money.

Anyway it should be ready this week. The guys at the shop said they have been dying to put a PC together with the Antec case so they gave it to me cheap :)

That's some good prices there! Good job on getting that out of them!!! :)

Now I need a new cool monitor. I definately want one of the thin, picture-like screens. 19'' would be perfect but I could live with a 17''.

Please spatter me with suggestions.... price range would be around $300 bucks.

:) gotta love having your birthday and Christmas in December :)

I think the model I'd recommend is a Samsung 19" wide, a 940w I think. Should go for between $250 and $300. Has a three year warranty on it and should have both VGA input (the old style Monitor plug) and the DVI input (new, digital Monitor plug). MAKE SURE THEY INCLUDE BOTH CABLES IN THE BOX! Every monitor I've sold comes with them, but some places have been caught taking the DVI cables out of the boxes, and then selling them to the customer for $30 to $60. Get them to open the box before you buy!

If you can't get Samsung, LG is another good name. Heck, even Acer has been putting out some nice monitors, though you want to ensure it has both DVI and VGA (most of the cheap ones have VGA only).

Why is DVI important? Because it gives you a MUCH better signal and your new video card supports it.

Believe it or not, the two types I don't recommend are Philips and Viewsonic. I've sold plenty of both, after hearing all kinds of good things about them, only to have problems. With Philips it's dead pixels. Every third monitor I was selling had a dead pixel, and until the monitor has 6 or 7 dead pixels within a 2 inch radius, then the manufacturer will NOT take it back. It wouldn't hurt to get the seller to plug in the monitor and look at it to ensure there are infact no dead pixels. (A dead pixel is a small, pin point sized bright dot on your screen. The best way to look for these is to bring up a black screen, the dead pixel will show up like a beacon in the night. They're VERY annoying!)

I found that the Viewsonics would simply stop working after awhile. I've sold 20+ of them in the last two months, ranging from 19" to 22" and I'd say about 3/4 of them had problems. Could it be a bad batch? Who knows, but lets just say I won't be buying Viewsonic anytime soon.

On top of all of this, some other things to remember:

Contrast Ratio: The higher the first number, the better the image. 500:1 is the MINIMUM you should accept. Anything 550:1 or better and you are golden. Generally Samsung and LG start at about 700:1.

Response time: This is generally measured in milli seconds (ms). You'll often see people asking this question and it's a good question to ask. The response time is how quickly a pixel changes color. Obviously the faster it does this, the better it is for games (especially FPS's). Keep in mind though, this is NOT an official standard. Different companies determine their response time differently. For example: Philips rates it's Response Time as how long it takes a pixel to change from black to white to black again. Acer might only measure how long it takes to change from black to white. See what I mean?

Ultimately, as long as it says 8ms or LOWER (lower number for response time, higher number for contrast ratio) you are ok.

Hope this helps! It's a lot of information, so if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask. ;)

Thanks for the info :)

What is a good site to buy one of these on line?

A quick google search has the prices varying a lot.

I'd actually buy from one of the big stores in your local area if you could. For one, you won't spend anything on postage. Secondly, you can check out the monitor before you buy it (see my previous post on dead pixels).

Anyone, heck even Walmart is now carrying LCD monitors. Go out and check around town. If you have no luck, you should be able to hit up NCIX, Newegg or Tiger Direct and get yourself a nice monitor. :)

Oh I forgot to tell you guys that I got my system in and it is a rockin' machine! Looks cool too :)

quite as a mouse and the blue lights are a nice surprise.

:)

Been playing Oblivion without problems :)

Thanks for all the advice :)

Glad to help! :)

Strange...

I needed a new graphics card myself (I have PCI Express solt), and found out that the 1950 ATI cards (I am an ATI fan) are currently the top model. I checked the XT version - and sadly its unaffordable for me, but what I find strange, is that the 1950 Pro Model, which has also a very good speed, only costs 40% of the 1950 XT model. I decided to try and buy it, and it works perfectly

Is that normal? Toms hardware page says that 1950Pro for Oblivion is 76 speed, 1950XT is 120 Speed (whatever the unit is). More than 60% of the speed for 40% of the price. Sounds good to me.

I upgraded from an X600, which has a speed of 16 on the same scale - I can see the difference :)

Lani

When it comes to video cards, you really don't need to go with the very best. More often than not, you are burning up your cash for only somewhat marginal performance gain.

Anywhere in the mid range to upper mid range will usually suffice for satisfactory game play.

That being said, if someone gave me an 8800GTX I wouldn't refuse. :devil