New Video card

My technician sent me an email today. He is trying to make up a new system for me that works within a limited budget. A friend reminded me that Vista will be out soon and I would hate to have to start upgrading immediately because of compatibility problems with DirectX 11. Right now I am playing on Guild Wars with a Radeon 9550. Here is My tech's email

I’m trying to do a reasonable quote up, but am having trouble finding out what video cards work well with GW Nightfall. The following cards are readily available so if you could give me an idea of what 2 cards would be best for your quote? The least expensive is at the top, getting more expensive as you go down the list. Pick out say one from the first 4 and one from the last 3. What I want to do is start with a moderate ‘dream system’, and work from there into your budget.
eVGA GF7300GS 256MB DDR2 PCI-E VGA/DVI/HDTV/SLI
eVGA GF7300GT 256MB DDR2 PCI-E VGA/DVI/HDTV-7/SLI
eVGA GF7600GS 256MB DDR2 PCI-E VGA/DVI/HDTV/SLI
eVGA GF7600GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E VGA/DVI/HDTV/SLI
eVGA GF7900GS 256MB DDR3 PCI-E 2xDVI/HDTV-7/SLI
eVGA GF7900GS 256MB DDR3 PCI-E 2xDVI/HDTV-7/SLI/HDCP
eVGA GF7900GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E 2xDVI/HDTV-7/SLI
Any ideas?

I have the 7900GT KO from eVGA and it is AWESOME. I run 75 fps on max settings with just one card.

BUT!!! With Vista coming out, and also DX10 (not 11) you may want to wait for the lower 8x00 series to release or even the new ATI cards.

i purchased the 7300 GT with the APG 8X bus interface, and it totally kicks ass! I can run about 75 fps normally with it!

All of them can play GW reasonably at a decently high-resolution with all the graphic settings cranked up to max with AA. Personally I'd prefer at least something in the 79xx series at least if you want to be slightly ahead of the game and play some of the more recent games at playable settings.

I've been using 7600gt for 7 months now and I'm really happy with it. I don't really play any other games than GW but at least in it I can keep max gfx setting with AA and 1280x1024 resolution. The FPS changes rapidly depending on the environment. I think 7600gt is enough since processor can become a bottleneck, at least my 2,5ghz athlon 64 is.

BTW, 7600gt too has 2xDVI

Frankly, skip the 7300s if you're a gamer. If you must go settle for a 7300 get the GT, it much more power than the GS. It'll be maybe 33% quicker? But these cards are low end and barely adequate for gaming, they are designed to be super cheap so casual computer users can play the sims once in a while without having to make a big investment. These are not a performance upgrade from your Radeon 9550.

You'll be happy with a 7600. The 7600 GT is ~50% quicker than the 7600 GS, so it's well worth the money. These are good cards.

Of course ideally you'd go for a 7900. The GS is fine. You'll be able to play at higher resolutions, higher settings, and will be by far the most 'future proof'. I urge you to save for this, even though you won't regret a 7600GT.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2833 has the technical specs and if you look around the site you can see how those cards perform in other games so you can feel more confident you've made the right choice for what you want.

As others have said DX10 is part of Vista and is a huge change internally from DX9. DX10 requires both Vista and a DX10 capable video card. Currently only the nVidia 8800 is on the market and it is really expensive. But in the nearish future (May 07?) they'll have affordable versions out to replace the 7300 and 7600. You may want to hold off for those cards. They should give the about the same performance as the cards they replace in DX9 games like GW, but will be DX10 compatible and more future proof. Of course there is a chance those cards won't ship by those rumoured dates and you'll be waiting until next Christmas to get the 'best' card because something better is always coming out in the future.

Quadruple-postage o_O

Anyway...All of those work just fine with Guild Wars; the 7900GT, which I have, is spectacular and will suffice for me until cheaper DX10 cards come out when I upgrade to Vista.

Note, as far as I know, Vista will be ported to DX9 but will lose a lot of cool graphical features, so you might be alright with one of these even upgrading to Vista. Don't quote me on this, however, because I can't say for sure it's true.

Vista will come out BEFORE the release of DX10, not simultaneously. Therefore it must run on DX9, which also means that it will run on these cards.

To check out what you might need to upgrade in your comp before upgrading to Vista, click here.

Until there are games that ill use DX 10 I wouldn't bother with a card that has that capabilities. Just go with any DX 9 card available now , then upgrade when the games arrive that use DX 10.

Mega Mouse

Just out of curiosity, what CPU and chipset is your techie friend using for your rig? Obviously something SLI....but.....

Not sure..he is looking at what he can get for me...hopefully not too expensive as i have zip income. I will try to find out. Right now i think he is looking at the available combinations that will be adequate to do the job for me.

If you have seen the games that are being developed on DX10, you will see the need for a DX10 card when they hit shelves. Look around for Screenies of Crysis and Hellgate: London so you know what I'm talking about. Their shots are AMAZING.

Sorry for the quad post, I kept getting internal server errors and can't see how to delete them. I sent a PM to the mod after seeing what I'd done asking to delete, but I guess (s)he didn't care.

Vista Vista has already gone final months ago and corporations were given access to the business edition already. Us regular customers will need to wait until Jan 30th. All versions have DX10 as a core feature.

However the fancy Aero glass interface in Vista with translucent window frames requires only a DX9 card with new drivers. If you have old cards you have to run in classic mode (think XP's UI), which IMHO many people with lower end machines will do anyway for improved desktop performance.

Technically DX10 doesn't really bring you anything DX9 didn't already have the potential for, other than the geometry shader and 'all or nothing support' (all dx10 features must be supported to be called a DX10 card). Its main advantage is a much CPU lower overhead for rendering unique objects, so expect much more 'clutter' in future games instead of the sparse areas in current games. The exact same level running on a DX10 renderer will always run at a higher frame rate than the DX9 version (provided the video card isn't the limited factor).

But DX10 support in games is a few months away and only a handful will support it. Eventually everything will, but IMHO we'll still be seeing DX9 only games for at least a couple years.

Well, earlier today I went out shopping and grabbed a 7900GS 512MB, along with a Antec 900 gaming case and a Hiper TypeR 580W PSU.

I'll tell you this, that 7900GS is easily the best bang for the buck. I paid £130 for mine and it's beating 7900GT's hands down with only a very slight OC. In Guild Wars it's pulling in between 90-140fps, BF2 it's at 80fps with max settings, X3: Reunion at 80fps and the list goes on.

If you're looking for something to tide you over until DX10 cards come down in price then look no further than the 7900GS.

Hmm...I've always been an Nvidia guy...and I just paid $580 for an EVGA 8800GTX. But I have to admit, X1950XT is looking very attractive right now. True, the GPU isn't DX10 compliant, but at $250 you can't go wrong with this Sapphire card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102067

Very fast, and quality of the video is outstanding.

Crossfire Edition cards are still ridiculously expensive, tho Around $375 - $400 for a X1950CE from Sapphire, HIS, or ATI.

For a dual card set up, Nvidia offers better bang for the buck methinks...

But for a single card set up, I'd lean toward a single X1950XT or X1950XTX. That is, if I was trying to stay under $300.