Video card buying advice

[AStar617]

Plz take a look at this auction...

Text

I have a slot-modded Dell SC420 so I need to stick with ATI cards... will be upgrading from a 9100 PCI (yea you read that right lol) so I was only really looking at x700/x800s for price/performance... but just making sure that there's no "gotchas" with that price (other than the obvious "it's on eBay, beware" piece). I don't think the UPC removal is much to worry about.

In short, is $72 shipped for an x800 non-pro (12-pipeline) 128mb ddr1 PCI-e card a good deal?

 

[daveymark]

if you can only do ATI card, your options are limited. otherwise I'd say go with the 6600gt for another 20

what makes it so you can only go with ATI?

 

[AStar617]

Originally posted by: daveymark
if you can only do ATI card, your options are limited. otherwise I'd say go with the 6600gt for another 20

what makes it so you can only go with ATI?

As stated in the OP, I have a Dell PowerEdge SC420. It is intended as an entry level server, so they put a physical barrier in the 8x PCIe slot to prevent you from putting in a graphics card (and effectively cannibalizing their Dimension 8400 sales). This can be dremeled out fairly easily and a card configured... but in community testing, Nvidia cards like the 6600s were much less stable, giving memory parity errors, blue screens, etc. The ATI cards did not yield such unpredictable results, so it is widely accepted that ATI is the way to go with a slot-modded SC420.

 

[CKXP]

Originally posted by: AStar617
Plz take a look at this auction...

Text

I have a slot-modded Dell SC420 so I need to stick with ATI cards... will be upgrading from a 9100 PCI (yea you read that right lol) so I was only really looking at x700/x800s for price/performance... but just making sure that there's no "gotchas" with that price (other than the obvious "it's on eBay, beware" piece). I don't think the UPC removal is much to worry about.

In short, is $72 shipped for an x800 non-pro (12-pipeline) 128mb ddr1 PCI-e card a good deal?

yes it's a good deal, but with e-bay there's always a risk involved. the seller has a good feedback rating especially in the last 12 months. i took that risk and bought a new 7800gt for $239 one month ago, and couldn't be happier with that decision.