[Computers] Please help me figure out which video card to buy

Out of the ones you are looking at I would get the XFX version. It has a very good processing power and It will be compatible with your system. You'll still have to upgrade driver's though but should not be problem.



Couple links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8qJO3Q6c3c&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oreXuy1P1sM&feature=related

 

Probably this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150360
One of them is out-of-stock, and the other two are the same price. This one is a bit faster and has a free game. The other one mentions a double lifetime warranty, but I think this is true for all XFX cards (might be wrong). I think all those cards are pretty much the same, just different clock speeds, maybe different fans to make it run cooler/quieter, and different display interfaces (DVI, HDMI, etc.).


As for video card compatibility....I may be wrong, but the few times I've swapped out graphics cards, I don't generally look at a lot of things. Just the interface (e.g., PCI Express, which pretty much everything uses nowadays, so no point in worrying about it much anymore), power requirements, and maybe the physical size of the card. Never really had any problems when I worry about just those things, although maybe I just got lucky in case I neglected to look at something important.

Glancing at a few of the cards, it seems like they recommend at least a 500W power supply. Your computer just meets that minimum requirement, but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to upgrade the power supply.

Are you aware that there will be some new, DX11 cards coming out in the next few months? Unless things changed (haven't really kept up with the news).

 

How about a NVIDIA Quadro Plex
I'm not sure if it's Vista compatible though

 

I actually have the same video card (4850), so I was about to comment about it requiring 450W. I don't generally know a lot about these requirements unfortunately, especially since I generally avoid coming close to hitting them.

What exactly are you looking to get from the video card? As I said, I have the same video card, and I actually can play most games at pretty high quality (e.g., Fallout 3 maxed out IIRC). I think Crysis is probably the only game I tried that made it struggle, and it actually didn't do too bad (for the demo, think I got 15-20 FPS with everything maxed and during a firefight). Some of the slowdowns I have with games may not even be related to the graphics card (only have 2GB of RAM, and my CPU is getting kind of old too). Have you actually tested your card with some games and come away disappointed?

From one review I saw, it seemed like the 4870 would get maybe 5-11 FPS higher, depending on the game and setup. Don't know if that is worth it to you. I can point you to some reviews if you want to check out specifics (can find exact games you want to play with similar settings you want to use). Seems like the big difference is that the 4870 uses GDDR5 instead of GDDR3 (basically, faster/better RAM AFAIK).

Haven't really looked into it, but maybe the new cards will consume less power. Not sure what sort of direction they're going in terms of technological advances.

edit: Actually, the Witcher has some issues too, but I think it is just because it is horribly unoptimized.

 

Your computer has an X58 motherboard and will support any PCIe videocard since the specs list that it has a PCIe x16 expansion slot. So yes, any ATI 4800 series videocard is compatible with your PC.

The 4890 is currently the fastest single GPU videocard from ATI's lineup and is competitive with the more expensive GTX 285 from nvidia. So at around $200, it is a fantastic card.

500W should be enough for a single 4890 videocard upgrade. Do you know the brand and model of your power supply?

Also, what size is your monitor?

 

It probably is.

I haven't tried Gears of War, but that probably is a bit more demanding that most games. Oblivion surprises me a bit since I played it on a 7900 GT without much problem (think everything was maxed or close to it). Granted, there was definitely slowdown, but that's mostly due to it being a Bethesda game. I haven't had a chance to try it out with my current card, but as I said, Fallout 3 ran pretty well (still some slowdown at times though, but not too bad). The 512MB of RAM probably is a limiting factor when it comes to some of the texture mods though. Don't know if they were the same ones I tried (I had some slowdown at the time, but I also only had 256MB).

Of course, my comments are based on my preferences. I actually generally don't mind 25-30 FPS, and between Bethesda's games and now the Witcher, I'm getting used to random slowdowns. My monitor also doesn't support a resolution as high as yours, so that probably explains some of these discrepancies as well.

 

I think your power supply can handle the upgrade. If you don't mind lowering the anti-aliasing or even lowering the resolution of your games in order to maintain smooth gameplay, then you should just stick w/ the 4850. But if it does bother you that you can't make full use of your X58 system and 24" monitor, I would encourage the upgrade. If I were in your shoes, I'd upgrade.

Have you updated your graphics driver?

Catalyst v9.8 http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=vista64/common-vista64

 

Just get another 4850 and run it in crossfire. That link says you have an available pci-e 16x slot on your mb. It'll only run you $100 and should give you what you are looking for at those higher resolutions. If your power supply won't cut it, you can always add once of these.
http://www.provantage.com/visiontek-900222~7VSTV061.htm

You end up spending $200 but you know your system can handle the power draw.

 

Rhe cimputer you have already has a 500W power supply which will be fine as long as you do not add another hard drive or cd-rom drive, or external devices that suck up power. Any usb flash drives and peripherils should be alright. Good luck.

 

Have you checked out any potential tweaks for Gears online? If it still bothers you, you might want to check online. I checked a few sites after I saw this thread, and noticed that some slowdown could be fixed with some tweaks. Think there might have been something about it not efficiently pulling data from disk...

I did that a bit with Oblivion too, although it was more so to improve the graphics (at not extra cost for some reason) than to help with performance. I would think that a patch or newer mods would have fixed that stuff though.

Glad to hear everything's working out for you.

 

nice work