can anyone post some suggestions?

GTX260 or HD4890.

what are you running now? and where the hell is my tshirt hooker!!!

x1950 lulz

did you ever give me your address?

gtx 260, or 275 if you spend a few extra bucks and want a pretty relative upgrade

People still put the 260gtx and 4890 on the same level of playing field? The 4890 is unarguably the better card between the two by a good margin, and you can get it for less. Sure, it runs slightly hotter, but as long as your case has proper airflow, it's never an issue.

Dan, my vote goes towards the 4890 for your price range.

^ HD4890 OC. Equivalent of a 275 for 75-100 less. I had used nvidia for years before this card, works like a charm in every game I've tried.

4890 is unarguably the better

Physx? There are patches (http://www.overclock.net/ati/591872-how-run-physx-windows-7-ati.html) to get Physx working on ATI cards now (edit: nevermind, still need a secondary nvidia card and do a bunch of shit to get it working as a dedicated physx card), but Nvidia tries its hardest to make Nvidia-exclusive features. I didn't have a very fun time trying to get Physx and AA working in Batman Arkham Asylum on my 4890.

I've been AMD/ATI loyal for a long time, but the best ~$200 card from each brand are GTX260 and HD4890. If you want performance for less, get ATI. If you prefer Nvidia's driver-exclusive shit, always go Nvidia. ez

when Nvidia matches the 5970 (and they will), the choice will come down to whichever brand you like better and a few $10 bills
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/6195/genesisnintendont130605.jpg

thanks for the info

People still put the 260gtx and 4890 on the same level of playing field? The 4890 is unarguably the better card between the two by a good margin, and you can get it for less. Sure, it runs slightly hotter, but as long as your case has proper airflow, it's never an issue.

Dan, my vote goes towards the 4890 for your price range.

he has a small mid tower. so i don't think running a hotter card in a case with bad airflow is a good idea.

he could buy my unopened antec 1200 if he wants.

I love my 260. That's all I cant throw into this.

Dan, what case do you have?

Too bad the 4870 toxic isn't still available.. that would have been a quick /thread

Based on my experience:

nVidia: A little pricey but very high quality with good drivers and things like CUDA(Which is taking off, either CUDA or something very similar is going to be the next step forward in processing). Excellent cross-platform and OpenGL support.

ATi: Powerful and cheap, but horrid horrid horrid drivers, non-existent cross-platform support, and very bad openGL support.

If you don't use OpenGL very much and don't go cross-platform, and don't mind dealing with crap drivers, go with ATI, you'll save money. Otherwise, nVidia is better, IMO.

just some piece of shit aspire case, it was cheap, i need a new one of those too, probably before i get my video card even, so there is room for it.

Based on my experience:

nVidia: A little pricey but very high quality with good drivers and things like CUDA(Which is taking off, either CUDA or something very similar is going to be the next step forward in processing). Excellent cross-platform and OpenGL support.

ATi: Powerful and cheap, but horrid horrid horrid drivers, non-existent cross-platform support, and very bad openGL support.

If you don't use OpenGL very much and don't go cross-platform, and don't mind dealing with crap drivers, go with ATI, you'll save money. Otherwise, nVidia is better, IMO.

I don't claim to be a computer expert but what do nvidia drivers do that ATI drivers can't do?

my first computer i had a 9800pro ATI
then i got a 7800GT nvidia
then 7950GTX nvidia
and then HD4870 ATI

each one has been a significant improvement but haven't noticed anything i couldn't do with ATI that i could do with NVIDIA. If anything i like the ATI CCC more than the nvidia one.

I get great fps in every game i play with the occasional hiccup in the higher end single player games or demanding mmo's.

just some piece of shit aspire case, it was cheap, i need a new one of those too, probably before i get my video card even, so there is room for it.


IF you need a case dan i have this unopened

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043&cm_re=Antec_1200-_-11-129-043-_-Product

i've had about the same success with nvidia and ATI drivers.

when i had my 8800 GTX i kept having the notorious "nvdklmm.dll has stopped responding and must be restarted" (or whatever that stupid dll was named)

as for my 4870, its been rock solid so far on windows 7. but I never played much with these drivers outside of that.

i've been solid to nvidia for pretty much all of time until i got the 4870 for $100 from a friend of mine.

but, for the most part, there's nothing that nvidia can do that ATI can't, and vice-versa.

Most driver issues for ATI are a result of current drivers conflicting with old drivers that are still installed on the system. This has only really been a big issue with Win XP and older OS's, whereas it hasn't been much of an issue with Vista nor Win7. It's also nothing a simple driver cleaning program can't resolve. In reality, it's always been best to remove old, unused drivers for a piece of hardware before installing new drivers, but of course many don't nor is it entirely necessary.

People will have a little nvidia fanboyism in them that will say their card is better, the frames for their select games (as opposed to those another person may play) are better for nvidia cards than ati, yadda yadda. Like Alex, I've used different lines of nivida/ati cards, and I have suggested/installed many of both to friends. The simple matter is, ati currently has some of the better price/performance ratio'd cards available. Following benchmarks and reviews from credible sources will reiterate that.

Random sidenote, but I find it very funny how so many people are big proponents of ATI for having a better price/performance ratio than nVidia, then how so many people refuse to buy AMD even though it has a much better price/performance ratio than Intel.

Dan, what case do you have?

Too bad the 4870 toxic isn't still available.. that would have been a quick /thread

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=4870+toxic&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=14079830666969387391&ei=uyE8S_mVJpLUsgPD5qC9BA&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAcQ8wIwAA#ps-sellers
found it

edit:

Availability: On Order
Est. Ship: Call for Availability

raped nvm

Random sidenote, but I find it very funny how so many people are big proponents of ATI for having a better price/performance ratio than nVidia, then how so many people refuse to buy AMD even though it has a much better price/performance ratio than Intel.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6606/quadz.png

Core i7 beats the hell out of anything AMD has though... more expensive than AMD's top cpus, but if you're paying $600 on a video card, why not.

And I wasn't disagreeing rehpyc, just saying that those are the ATI/Nvidia options at $200. And Physx is a must for some people. Still gonna buy ATI/AMD when I upgrade though.

Well, Intel's c2d line had the clear steal of the market when it was first released. As of right now, AMD is best if you're buying based on price/performance whereas you have to pay a premium for the i7 if you're going for power and longevity. At the same time, the Intel chips do have the better overclocking potential as well.

In the video card market, ATI currently has both the better price/performance ratio and top performing cards (5970 as the top dog). I think it's in March that Nvidia will release the GT300 series, which will obviously provide a new king in performance.. for a nice premium.

Great time to buy a new video card, you can buy a powerhouse for $200 and it doesn't look like there will be another Crysis that only runs on the best video cards to be released in 5 years for quite a while.

Random sidenote, but I find it very funny how so many people are big proponents of ATI for having a better price/performance ratio than nVidia, then how so many people refuse to buy AMD even though it has a much better price/performance ratio than Intel.

well, in my case

when you win a $350 core i7 motherboard in a contest (gigabyte ex58-extreme).

its actually cheaper to go i7 when all i needed was a CPU/ram.
http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/screenshot/918135.png
not to mention fun (overclocking :smile:)

that said, if i was buying right now, i'd probably buy an i5 setup, since they are cheaper but have close performance to i7 except in memory bandwidth hungry programs

I usually want close to the best performance i can get out of the CPU though, and GPU's are hit and miss on best performance based on whatever game you are playing most of the time.