Which Budget/Midrange GFx Card?

[Wigwam]

I am planning on building a new C2D system by the end of this month. As I am by no means an avid gamer I want something to take me nicely into Vista and tide me over until the midrange DX10 market matures.
I want a quiet machine so it has to be a passively cooled GFx. I was planning to spend about £125 on the Gigabyte Silent 8600GTS but figure I could save some cash and consider others:

Gigabyte Radeon X1650 Pro (£82)
Asus 2400 Pro [in understand these are complete crap?] (£41)
Gigabyte 7600GS 256mb (£51), 512MB (£55)
XFX 7600GS 256 (£56)
Asus/Gigabyte 8500GT 256 (£55)
Asus 8500GT 512 (£66)
Gigabyte 7600GT (£97)
MSI 8600GT (£76)
Asus 8600GT (£97!)


I like the principle of owning a newer breed of card (8xxx) series on the assumption there is some new technology and they are DX10 but I understand they stack up very poorly compared with previous gen DX9 cards.
Very confused!

Thanks alot

 

[MarcVenice]

I think 7600gt, it outperforms the 1650pro by a fair bit. I don't know how it stacks up to the 8600gt though, but I doubt that the 8600gt is faster. And you understand right, budget dx10 cards suck ! Gamers should actually boycot them.

 

[Wigwam]

according to Anand's review the 8600GT was slightly faster than the 7600GT.
On that basis I guess the MSI 8600GT might be the way to go....

 

[Amart]

Anandtech:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2975&p=6
"GeForce 7 Series hardware.....also performs similarly to G84 based parts, outperforming the newcomer in some games and tying or trailing in others"

Legion Hardware
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=637&p=6

"As you can see, while the performance in games such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Company of Heroes has drastically improved, the frame rates are quite average. Clearly playing these games in all their glory is going to be difficult with a GeForce 8600 GT series graphics card. The majority of the games we tested, including Lost Planet, Prey, Far Cry, X3 : Reunion and F.E.A.R, still put the 8600 GT behind the much older 7600 GT in terms of performance".

However, according to the HardOCP review there are stronger models at the pricerange - the 8600 GTS cards.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/....html?art=MTMyNCwxMiws

Personally I don't like the new technology at all. The older cards support DX9 natively - which translates into reliability and reduced power consumption.
You won't be using any of these cards with DX10 for awhile now - the frame drop will be too large while the visual quality benefit minimal compared to DX9.

If you don't have the money for 8800 GTS, go for the best GF7 card you can buy within your budget. Any of the GF7 cards that beat the 7600GT will crush the GF8 at that price.

Look for:
- Sales and free shipment on 7600GT from reliable stores.
- 7800 GS
- 7900 GS with 256mb - should be at the same price range.
- 7950 GT with 256mb - was actually in the price range in the US - check if the uncharacteristically low prices on these show up in the UK as well.

Memory tends to be the same, but look for the GDDR3 cards as they are latest, and look at the number of pipelines (reviews usually include such specs). Make sure you note the difference between GS, GT and GTS.

As for ATI - I didn't actively research so can't say about their DX9' gens' price/performance. Only thing I know is that my clanmates refuse to get near them - reporting various driver/computability issues.

My clan leader (from the US) and the leader of another clan I know (from Sweden) both picked 7600GT in their most recent C2D upgrades - claiming that this will be sufficient for their systems to run the competative games on decent settings while waiting for DX10 to mature.

I don't know about Vista drivers, as it's a bad OS for gaming, and I won't be forced to switch to it for awhile - and then the situation will be different from all aspects.

 

[nerp]

Just got an x1950 and don't regret it at all. Was glad to rid myself of NVIDIA's awful Vista drivers. ATI is way ahead in that department.

For $135, I've got a card that's faster than an 8600GT in dx9 games. ATI has come a long way.