VIDEO CARDS FOR 139.00 Range Comparison

[Walmart Security]

Well,

As you know I look for the best bang for your buck.  I like makeing that kinda refrence on here becouse not everyone has the money to buy the latest and greatest equipment. Sometime's its not allways the best value for your money. I look for the biggest jump at the cheepest cost. Well allot of the time its a no brainer, But In my research I have found some video cards with some great deals that can make your system take that leep to an advance level of resolution and preformance. Well enough with the intro lets hit it!


The 9600gt 512 in at $148.99 from 3btech.net

This card is very compareable to the others, but its not a 9800gt or a 8800 gts. In fact Toms Hardware showed some intresting stats but where this card lacked is in  higher resolutiuion's above 1280x768 and wide screen modes may not suit well when compared to the 8800gs or 8800gt

The GeForce 8800GS Superclocked 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card (Mail In Rebate $30.00 Expires 05 31 2008) $141.99  Newegg.com
Well  I seem to support this card. What i liked about it is that the overclock ablity and that the stats i found showed it overpowering the 8800 gt and comming close to the 8800 GTS OC and with the mail in rebate (111.99) its a no brainer. I personally own this card and will be running this in SLI (PIC's soon to come). I can say that this runs well in 1440X900 and still has alot more to go.


The GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card (Mail In Rebate $30.00 Expires 05 31 2008) $179.00 Xtreme Gear
This is a solid card all around this one from xtreme Gear had an intresting heat sink painted with a hot chick. I can't say anything bad about this card all tests put it smack dead on top or in the middle every time across the resolution spread. The only down fall is that it was the most expensive of them all, But with this card there are some advantages. It appeard that there were allot made so in the future it will be easy to pick up another one and if your looking to run in SLI. I would put money on it that this would be a sweet card and easy to get

GeForce 8600GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card (Mail In Rebate $30.00 Expires 05 31 2008) $106.99 Newegg.com
Well If your looking to chuck your 7600gt or less and looking to get into DX10 runing 2 of these maybe the golden ticket. toms hardware showed 2 of these in SLI running like a 8800gt and comming close to the gts. Lets face it this is a cheep card and it's a next step up from the 7 series excluding the 7800 and the 7900 series (if your not looking to run DX10). This card is all over and easy to pick up i saw 50 of them at MICRO CENTER and BEST BUY even had them including walmart.



GUY's i'm looking for your good opinion's compareing them to the card's related in the poll. We all know that the 9800gt oc and the 8800 ultra's out preform the cards listed above.


Thanks,


Walmart Security

 

[Walmart Security]

FYI,

Here are the technical vital stats of the cards.


Chipset Manufacturer NVIDIA 
GPU GeForce 8800GS 
Core clock 650MHz 
Stream Processors 96 
Memory
Memory Clock 1900MHz 
Memory Size 384MB 
Memory Interface 192-bit 
Memory Type GDDR3 
3D API
DirectX DirectX 10 
OpenGL OpenGL 2.0 
Ports
DVI 2 
TV-Out HDTV / S-Video Out 
VIVO No 
General
Tuner None 
RAMDAC 400 MHz 
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600 


GPU GeForce 8800GT 
Core clock 600MHz 
Stream Processors 112 
Memory
Memory Clock 1800MHz 
Memory Size 512MB 
Memory Interface 256-bit 
Memory Type GDDR3 
3D API
DirectX DirectX 10 
OpenGL OpenGL 2.0 
Ports
DVI 2 
TV-Out HDTV / S-Video Out 
VIVO No 
General
Tuner None 
RAMDAC 400 MHz 
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600 

GPU GeForce 8600GTS 
Core clock 700MHz 
Stream Processors 32 
Memory
Memory Clock 2100MHz 
Memory Size 256MB 
Memory Interface 128-bit 
Memory Type GDDR3 
3D API
DirectX DirectX 10 
OpenGL OpenGL 2.0 
Ports
DVI 2 
TV-Out HDTV / S-Video Out 
VIVO No 
General
Tuner None 
RAMDAC 400 MHz 
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600 

PLease note that the memory shader clock on the 8600 is pretty high.
Not to shabby for a cheep card.

GPU GeForce 9600GT 
Core clock 700MHz 
Stream Processors 64 
Memory
Memory Clock 2000MHz 
Memory Size 512MB 
Memory Interface 256-bit 
Memory Type GDDR3 
3D API
DirectX DirectX 10 
OpenGL OpenGL 2.0 
Ports
DVI 2 
TV-Out HDTV / S-Video Out 
VIVO No 
General
Tuner None 
RAMDAC 400 MHz 
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600 


Just to point out that higher the shader clock and the streaming processors make a big diffrence in preformance.

The 3 things we need to look at are the
 memory shader clock
 interface
 Streaming processors

To me it looks like a 9600gt is nothing more than a tweeked 8600gt. double the streaming proccessors and double the interface and bam....9600gt. My opinion is get into a 8800gt or gs if ya can.

Walmart Security

[MR|337]

I did a card swap with noobinhood. He had two 8800GT 512 and I had an 8800 Ultra. I honestly cant tell between the two running 1680x1024. I do like using sli though.

[Luggage]

I think the 8800GT 512MB is the best deal here.  The card has enough stream processors and memory to give you strong performance with any current game and with a SLI mobo can be upgraded meaningfully with the addition of another card.  Expect prices on 8800GT to continue falling as the 9000 series is fully rolled out so upgrade should be quite cheap in near future.  Also, these overclock very nicely to 700/2,000 MHz.  I think the 9600 (only real competitor) would struggle in the future due to low # of stream processors.  Wrt other options, IMHO makes no sense to get a 256MB video card anymore if you are a gamer.

[Walmart Security]

yeah!  I would agree with ya. I like to make these post for people that may be in this position to help direct them.

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