graphics cards - which one is best?

Hi all, I need some help :confused ...

I always read these forums for support with other stuff and I havent posted a thread yet on here so here it goes.

I'm buying a new system soon and I've narrowed down my graphics card choice to 3:

ATI Radeon HD 4670 512mb - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...GDDR3-GPU-750MHz-320-Cores-2x-Dual-Link-DVI-I

ATI Radeon HD 4670 1gb - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-...z-GDDR3-GPU-750MHz-320-Cores-2x-DL-DVI-I-HDTV

Nvidia GeForce 9600GT 512mb - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...3-GPU-750MHz-64-Cores-2x-Dual-Link-DVI-I-HDTV

I'm not too sure which one is best... they all have their plus points but im still not sure.

I'd appreciate some help, thanks!!

 

A point to take into consideration is what you are going to do with the PC if you are just going to use it for personal things and surfing the net you do not need a high power graphics card but if you are going to run heavy graphics the more powerful the better.

I have recently installed a GeForce GTX260 and it needs a good power supply to run it hard but gives top of the range performance.

If it's going to be just a general home PC then i would go with the Nvidia.

 

More onboard memory for a video card is always a good thing, since it sets mimimum resolutions standards the card can achieve. I personally like the Radeon series, but it is a taste.

Look at the latest software that needs a high spec video card, and let it help you choose.

 

Hey Bill not seen you for a while,welcome back (has the black eye got better yet?)

 

When I was looking at the ATI 4670 just recently (http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=178853) someone had replied to me:

However, I decided to go with a 1GB 4650 (sufficient enough to play all the current games we have on ultra high res, specifically Fallout 3 and ignored the 1GB comment) but whatever you get you need to check you have sufficient power from your power supply. I went with: http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...Cooling+SILENCER+470+?productId=31341&noVat=0

Both are working perfectly, took about 2 hours to get it all in and functional. Cabling was a little filddly: 2 DVD drives, S-ATA hard drive, etc. etc.

You may also require or want to consider comparable RAM as well.

 

I had the 9600GT and it was a good card I had the Zotac 9600GT 512MB Amp edition. A good little card for the money. Now I have the ATI Sappire Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5, if you have a good enough power supply then it's just in a differant legue, really it is. The best wat to describe it is with benchmarks I have done. Devil May Cry 4 has a benchmark on it and this is how they did:

Both cards same settings: 1440x900 res, full settings & full AA

9600GT: 40-42FPS over 4 tests

HD 4870: 75.98FPS over 4 tests (rock solid)

Although that is an average score the 4870 did stay at 75FPS most of the time, where as the 9600GT kept jumping about.

As you can tell that is nealy double the performance & alot more stable. I did a Furmark on them too, furmark is an openGL benchmark. Also might I add ATI cards hate it lol


The nVidiacard got 32FPS average and the ATI card got 58FPS average.

It's all down to money, PSU & what you wanna use it for.

For gaming the 4870 1GB gets my vote :-D

:major2-Bit-Geek:major