Need advice on new card

[tornadog]

I am looking for a decent card in the 150-200 range that can run Vista in all glory and also the occasional game in high quality settings at 1280 x 1024 max resolution. I am looking at the x1900xt 256MB, x1950 pro and 7900gt. Which one would you guys recommend.

[RDFmx3]

I am looking for a decent card in the 150-200 range that can run Vista in all glory and also the occasional game in high quality settings at 1280 x 1024 max resolution. I am looking at the x1900xt 256MB, x1950 pro and 7900gt. Which one would you guys recommend.

To be truthful, any card in that price ranged is going to have trouble running games at high setting's and that resolution. I know the X1950PRO is a good card, but I'm not sure you can get it for 200 buck's, if you can cool!

I'm not saying they wont run games with those setting's, but they wont run smooth, or at least to me they wont. I'll give up a little on the graphic's setting to have a smoother running game but to some people it really doesn't matter that much and I don't know which you are. When I said graphic's setting's I wasn't talking about the resolution, that's where I play at as well.

[tornadog]

when it comes to graphics settings, I like to keep everything in the driver as default and turn up the stuff in-game...I can definitely live with medium or low shadows and other obscure settings that I barely notice...The x1950 pro looks attractive except I hear its pretty noisy and also runs very hot, is that right? The 256 mb version is available right now for 199 online

[mullet]

GIGABYTE GV-RX195P256D-RH Radeon X1950PRO 256MB
Cooled with Zalman VF700-ALCU 2 ball VGA cooler 189.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814125052

[RDFmx3]

when it comes to graphics settings, I like to keep everything in the driver as default and turn up the stuff in-game...I can definitely live with medium or low shadows and other obscure settings that I barely notice...The x1950 pro looks attractive except I hear its pretty noisy and also runs very hot, is that right? The 256 mb version is available right now for 199 online

My relative ( technoid) just tried out a Visiontech X1950Pro card, he and I both have 6800GT's. He seemed to think it was a little louder but it also has a different sound to it, because of the cooling fan used. He thought the sound was more expectable, but still it was a little louder to him. Not every brand uses the same cooler on it though, so that's something to keep in mind as well.

As for how hot it run's he couldn't say because it doesn't seem to have a sensor on it that reads the temp. That might be a BIOS thing on the card that will be corrected in the future but I can't say for sure. He did seem to think that the fan run's 100% all the time, but new driver's could change that also, or maybe not!

His number's with it were really impressive, as long as the CPU didn't limit it.
hope that's helps a little for ya.

[XDanger]

If its too loud just turn down the fan...
40% runs my x1900gt just fine when not overclocking, never hits 60c.

[tornadog]

I think its a toss up between the powercolor 1950 and the HIS 1950 right now, both 199 on the Egg

[Uberpwnage]

I the X1900XT 256MB is faster then the X1950 Pro, heres the Connect3d (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814142085) for $214.99.

[mcolbourn]

I would also pick the x1950 pro. For that price range its the best card.

[Bowen]

I am looking for a decent card in the 150-200 range that can run Vista in all glory and also the occasional game in high quality settings at 1280 x 1024 max resolution. I am looking at the x1900xt 256MB, x1950 pro and 7900gt. Which one would you guys recommend.

There is also the new GeForce 8600 GTS which is in that pricerange. I don't think it's out yet but it's about to be released, very soon. Here's a pic of the 8600 GT and the 8600 GTS: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=87445&page=2

I doubt you can afford it given the pricerange you gave, if you could throw another $100, for $300, you could buy the GeForce 8800 GTS 320 and it's slightly faster than the Radeon X1950XTX!! That would give you a massive performance increase and let you see Vista in all it's glory! Then again, if you're looking at the X1900XT for around a 150 through $200 price range, that's pretty good! Just remember though, you get what you pay for and the faster and better the performance of the card, the longer it will be able to run the games you want.

When I go to upgrade, I of course try to get the fastest parts I can, but the most important parts are, the PSU, mobo and video card. CPU's are so powerful these days, you could for example, buy a 2 year old CPU, like say mine for example, the X2 4400+ and it would easily last you for 2 more years with Vista and provided you bought a fast video card, it would work fine. I'm about to upgrade to a E6600 C2D CPU with 2 to 4GB of RAM but I'm getting a eVGA GeForce 8800 GTX, and use eVGA's Step Up program, which allows you to upgrade to whatever faster vid card you want to, you just have to send your card in and pay for shipping and the difference of whatever card you plan on getting....which is the 8900 GTX in my case. That said, I could totally keep my current X2 4400+ setup as long as I bought a good vid card, 8800 GTX in my case and I'd be fine until my next upgrade in 2009.

So, if you can at all afford something like a 8800 GTX, then by all means, buy it. You won't regret it. If you can't because of finances (believe me, I understand) then buy then buy as fast as you can get. The Radeon X1900 XT is an excellent card. If it were not for our income tax return, I wouldn't be able to upgrade anything. The worst case though scenario for me though is that I couldn't upgrade and would have to stick with my 7800 GTX 512 for two more years. Now currently I can run any game our there now with relative ease save a couple games like Rainbow Six: Vegas and Call of Duty 2, which I have to lower my resolution from my normal 1680x1050 to 1280x900. If I had to, I'd still be able to run most games at my LCD's native res. If you buy the best video card, it could sustain you for 4 years and still run most games at the res that did when your card was new.