HD 4830 is also a good card too and a bit better overal then the 9800GT for the same price range if you change your mind. You'll probably need 500w PSU minimun.
Yup, 40nm yields have been bad, but I don't expect them to cancel the product. It gives them a leg up on Nvidia who won't be on 40nm until 2H'09.
For around $100 I would go with the ATI HD 4850. The 9800 GT is pretty much the same as the 8800 GT which was released years ago. If you're not running high resolutions, you don't need the 1 gig. I'm on a 256meg 8800GT w/1080p monitor and the games I play run fine.
To me, if you are running Vista, 2GB of RAM is not going to cut it. The reason for your lagging could be lack of RAM, and of course a better video card would help a lot. RAMs and decent video cards can be had for very decent price. I'd recommend newegg.com to start your research.
You should check your card since it might be lifetime warranty only if you still want to use that card. ATI/AMD and Nvidia are both pretty even. You can't really go wrong with either Nvidia or ATI/AMD but you might want to check to see who's got the better drivers support. A bad drivers will drive you insane.
His problem was definitely to do with his onboard video card and nothing really to do with RAM. But you're right about how cheap the memory are nowaday. But if he's on a budget, upgrade the video card most of all. Onboard video card is a joke.
get the 9800gt or even an 8800gt if you are on a budget. I'm running dual 8800's GTX in SLI (640mb versions). They've gotten the job done for 2 years now. Oh ya, be advised some of these cards are beastly in terms of size. I've always gone EVGA nVidia cards since my Voodoo gpu. I've never had one die on me. I don't think I've owned a motherboard that had onboard video in quite a few years. On board video is so crappy, you're crazy to not purchase a gpu.
Which card delivers high performance with low heat? My old card (which is dead) seemed to heat up the case pretty good.
Now adays dude, unless you are running liquid cooling they ALL will get hot. And I mean VERY HOT. That's why good airflow through your case is very important. That can clean it out (no dust bunnies)...scooooshing I think DD claimed it as. My case has (2) 120mm fans in the front, a 200mm fan on top, a 120mm on the back, 120mm on the side door, and the Power Supply has a 120mm on it. Just make sure you have good AC in your computer room. After some gaming most any rig will heat up the surrounding air. GPU's get hot. If you had the $$$$ and knowledge, Liquid Cooling is pretty nice.
I run a beautiful 24" display from HP, the LP2475w at high resolutions (highly recommend it! It's an H-IPS panel, with stunning color. no problem with the games I play, either. no ghosting, etc. Love it!), so that's why I went with the 1GB version of the 9800GT. You made a good point. Having said that, I'll be looking at getting an upgrade in about a year. Cards just keep getting better!
I have 3 120mm on the case and a 120mm on the PSU but since my needs are low for performance I guess I prefer to trade that off as less heat. I think I am gonna get the 9600GT, seems to be much nicer than what I had before.
Good little read on that card. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-9600-gt,1780.html Should get the job done. Sounds like you have good airflow.
Yes. I kept my old PC far longer than I should have, putting in the best AGP card I could find, and they simply don't cut it for graphic intensive games. Not the games of today. I saw a BIG difference when I switched.
depends on what cards you ar comparing. But yes. PCI-E is way better than AGP over all. It allows for much more info to be transfered. PCI 132 MB/s AGP 8X 2,100 MB/s PCI Express 1x 250 [500]* MB/s PCI Express 2x 500 [1000]* MB/s PCI Express 4x 1000 [2000]* MB/s PCI Express 8x 2000 [4000]* MB/s PCI Express 16x 4000 [8000]* MB/s
I got a GTS250 to replace my old card. I didn't realize it was a double size when I bought it but hopefully that helps a bit with cooling instead of hurt.
Guys, So last night I did a lot of research then went ahead and ordered. Current Specs: Dell Vostro 400 Duo Core 2.6GHZ 2GB DDR2 160GB HD ATI Radeon 2400 HD (128MB) -- came with computer Ordered: ($75) 8800GT [eVGA 512Mb SuperClocked GDDR3 dual-DVI SLI] -Core Speed: 650 Mhz -Memory Speed: 1900 Mhz -Memory Bus: 256-bit -Shader Clock: 1625 Mhz ($26) 1GB DDR2 RAM x 2 So after everything arrives this week, my new set up should be Dell Vostro 400 Duo Core 2.6GHZ 4GB DDR2 160GB HD 8800GT [eVGA 512Mb SuperClocked GDDR3 dual-DVI SLI] What do you guys think?
