7950GT or 8600 GTS

[Indus]

Which of these 2 cards is better? I'm looking to buy a video card for my system and be future proof.

Putting it in this rig:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
4x 1GB DDR2 PC800 SDRAM
XP 32-bit Pro SP2

Any other options? I want to stay with nvidia.

 

[Red Storm]

Any particular reason why you only want nvidia? AMD's 3850 is priced at the same level as the 8600GTS but performs much better.

 

[happy medium]

8800gt is the best card right now price/performance for Nvidea. Try to jump on that Dell deal for 208.00$

http://accessories.us.dell.com...p&cs=2234&sku=A1348853

 

[bryanW1995]

if you're married to nvidia then either try for that dell deal that will hopefully get you a card by january or wait for 8800gt 256 to come out. if you need something now then you would be crazy to NOT buy 3850 for $179.

being a fan of a particular brand is not always a bad thing, but it should be tempered with reason. for example, I would prefer to buy amd cpus, but they currently suck so I bought an e6750, plan to buy a Q9450 in january, and probably a nehalem in 09 or whenever intel decides to bring them out. Nvidia currently sucks at the $179 true "midrange" price point so it would be a very poor decision to stick with last year's technology at that price imho.

check out this guide:

http://www.tomshardware.com/20...ard/page6.html#summary

3850 is about equal to 2900 pro, so you're looking at 4-5 levels BETTER than either 7950gt or 8600gts. Tom's is far from perfect, but most experts would agree that 1.) x1950xtx destroys 7950gt and 8600gts, and 2.) 256mb 3850 is significantly better than x1950xtx. That's not future-proofing if you buy the nvidia card at that price, that's throwing money away.

 

[Syntax Error]

"Futureproof" is a concept that does not work in this world of ever-shifting and changing computer components.

The above recommendations are good, you can spend a little now and enjoy it a little, as those cards are generally poor performers (especially the 8600, with 128-bit bus. Have fun trying game a high resolution on that) for today's games.

Spend a bit more for the HD3850, brand loyalty will ge you nowhere. Go where the performance is at, and with the HD3850 being the nearest competitor to Nvidia's 8600GTS at the approximate price range, the AMD equivalent destroys the 8600.

 

[Denithor]

Or if you want to see a direct comparison, check these out.

HD3850 destroys x1950xtx and 7950gt
HD3850 demolishes 8600GTS

There really isn't any reason to buy the older generation cards anymore. The HD3850 also consumes less power than the other cards so you will even be paid back over time by using this card versus the others.

EDIT: If you are absolutely set on nVidia, wait a month or two for the launch of the 256MB 8800GT and for prices to become reasonable. That card looks to be priced at the same point as the 3850 and at resolutions of 1280x1024 and below it will probably be just as good as the 512MB version.

 

[taltamir]

3850, 3870, 8800GT. The only cards on the market worth buying at the moment.

The dell deal is over. You missed it, but dell is still one of the cheaper places to buy.

 

[Indus]

Thanks guys.. I managed to jump in on that dell deal beforeit expired.

Thanks for the inputs!