Advice for Non-Gamer (8600 GT or 9500 GT, etc.)?

[Frenchman]

I'm looking to build a new system soon mainly for office, web and multimedia. The occasional game (Flight Sim, etc.) may be of interest, otherwise, gaming is not in the picture.

I've been looking at the 8600 GT and 9500 GT Nvdia products. Given my needs, is one any better? I'm interested in building a quiet system, so that would be a factor to consider. I assume the 9550 GT is a newer generation card. Any advantages to that? They both seem similarly priced.

Thanks for your ideas!

 

[taltamir]

you say non gamer, and then you list games. specifying an EXTREMELY intensive one (microsoft flight sim is intense on the graphic cards, and one of the most intence on the CPU, quad core CPU recommended)... the computer doesn't care if you play one game or a million, and how often you play, the moment you play just one game you will need a certain amount of power for it to work well and look nice.

My recommendation, either buy a 20$ 3450 / nvidia equivalent card and NEVER play a single game on the PC (aka get a console). Or get a somewhat decent video card, like an 8800GT (100$), a 4850 (150$) or higher.

 

[cmdrdredd]

From what I have read if I understand it correctly, the 9500gt is faster if you get the 512MB version with the faster memory. Otherwise the 8600gt will be faster by a small bit. I do agree with taltamir in a way. MS Flight Sim is a very intense game as far as taxing your system and GPU goes. The thing is, you didn't specify what flight sim you meant. If it's an older version or a different flight sim altogether then...

 

[Frenchman]

Point well taken regarding the system requirements of MS FS (current version). Not being an avid gamer, I didn't realize this was particularly hardware intensive.

What advice would you provide assuming I wasn't planning on doing any gaming (including MS FS)?

Thanks!

 

[Qbah]

No gaming - go for a HD3450. It has passive cooling. Costs like 20$.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Qbah
No gaming - go for a HD3450. It has passive cooling. Costs like 20$.

can't argue with that. If you play MS Flight sim...be prepared to spend $200+ on a card.