Help with my video card choice

[agegsg]

Hey, I'm sure this type of topic was posted bunch of times but I've been reading up on mix reviews about the Geforce 8600 GT. Is it worth it? or should I go with Geforce 7950/7900?

I like to play a lot of games and such and I've been running on Radeon X1600 for the past years. I finally got the money to build my own computer and I've been reading up on it so any help would be great.

Also on a side note, is it normal for the 7900/7950 to be a bit more than the Geforce 8600 GT?

 

[Stumps]

what do you use the PC for?

If you play a lot of games or run windows XP you would be better off going for a 7950GT

 

[agegsg]

I use the PC for various things such as the basic documents related stuff and I do play a lot of games. I run Windows XP. Hmm, but isn't it a bit more costly than the 8600?

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: agegsg
I use the PC for various things such as the basic documents related stuff and I do play a lot of games. I run Windows XP. Hmm, but isn't it a bit more costly than the 8600?

I can't say what the US prices for the 7950GT are but here in Australia it's not hard to find the 7950 for less than a 8600GTS.

the 7950GT is also considerably faster than the 8600 series cards and the key feature of the 8600 series, it's DX10 support, is not availible in Windows XP.

 

[agegsg]

Thanks for the insight. Also I was wondering the whole deal with the 256Mb vs the 512 Mb. Is it worth getting the 512Mb?

And last (sorry), opinions of SLI?

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: agegsg
Thanks for the insight. Also I was wondering the whole deal with the 256Mb vs the 512 Mb. Is it worth getting the 512Mb?

And last (sorry), opinions of SLI?

if you can afford it, sure go for 512Mb it helps at higher resolutions, but 256mb is usually fine for most games. as for SLI, well it's pretty much a waste of money IMHO.
Some people can justify it but I prefer just to buy a faster video card than two inferior ones.

 

[agegsg]

I was wondering about the 256Mb vs 512Mb because i was wondering whether it had any significant difference in gameplay when the resolution is around the 1280 x 1024 setting since I was informed that having the 512Mb would be a lot better than the 256Mb.

 

[mikepaco]

I think 256 would be fine.