Video Card Upgrade from X1950 XTX -- opinions?

Hi everyone.

I currently have the setup shown in the signature and was looking to upgrade the video card so I can finally take advantage of DX10 and play GTA4 at higher speeds than I can currently.

I just can't, for the life of me, figure out what of today's cards is equivalent. As in, would I get more performance out of my X1950 XTX 512MB than a $100 Radeon 4670? or a GT 240?

What line (GT* 250, 260; Radeon 4xxx, 5xxx, etc) of cards for each manufacturer would I have to start at to get equivalent or better performance?

I ask this because when comparing vertex pipelines and other technical information, modern cards seem to frequently fall beneath my card. Does this really affect real world performance?

Anyone previously own an ATI Radeon X1950XTX and did a modest upgrade? What do you think?

Thanks,
Jesse

 

This could be exactly what you are after!

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/54675-graphics-card-ranking.html

(it is kinda dated though)

More up to date one

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/65786/


Burrell

 

toms hardware is a good site to compare between many different cards and benchmarks
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/graphics-cards,1.html

if you are looking for suggestions on exactly which card to get, then a price range would help.

 

Thank you, but I'm very well acquainted with Tom's charts. The problem is that my card is too old to be on the same charts with current-gen stuff, and there's no way to remove all the SLI setups. The rankings from overclock.net were perfect, though.

Thank you both!

 

I had an AGP version of the Radeon X1950GT and I was really VERY happy with it at the time. When I upgraded, I decided it was time to upgrade everything and got a new MB, new CPU, new RAM, new video card. The card I chose was an NVidia 9600GT and I loved that card! In todays market, I still think the 9600GT has an excellent bang-for-buck ratio. It will play just about every game out there on medium settings (you may have to turn off things like shadows and ambient lighting and serious details like that). I remember playing the UT3 demo and the Crysis demo using their built-in automatic settings, and both played perfectly. The 256bit version of the 9600GT is available at Newegg for +/- $100. If you're prudent, you should find one with free shipping, a bundled game, and/or a rebate. Click this link for all the 9600GTs at Newegg. If you get one, be sure it's a 256bit version; do NOT get the 128bit version!!! For about twice the price of the 9600GT, you can get a GTX260. This is the card I'm currently running, and it plays just about everything high settings. Some games have 'ultra high' or 'enthusiast' settings, and it handles most of these too. Click this link for the GTX260s available at Newegg. The older ones have 192 shaders or "cores" so be sure to find one with 216.
:-D

 

Thanks! I'm interested in DX11 and the ATI 5xxx series seems to have the only kids on the block at the moment.

Here's a chart at Tom's that I found-- kinda what I was looking for, but the rankings above were perfect-- which was also helpful.

For anyone else looking for what I looked for, here's the most updated rankings (includes the latest cards as of today).

 

The 5750 1Gb 128-bit DDR5 cards run $130-$150. 5770 1Gb are around $170. 5770s have a few more stream processors and a slightly faster memory clock. Thinking about a 5770 myself to replace my 9800GTX+ OC.

Sam

 

i'm gonna wait till there's a real reason to upgrade, my 8800gt still cranks just fine on new games. When i hit a wall and can't play a new game, then i will get a new card. the ati 5xxx's are pretty nice tho and a good price.

 

Okay here are two summary tables on the main players:

nVidia

ATI

That can act as a quick reference of what each make and model are currently offering "objectively".