Which nVidia graphics card?

esuhl

At the moment I have a fairly basic graphics card which is just about good enough with my 17" monitor. I'm about to get a 24" screen, though, so I guess I'll need a new graphics card too.

I don't really play many games, but I would like to be able to play Trackmania and a few other car racing games at high-res with all the graphical bells-and-whistles turned on. And ideally, I'd like an nVidia card as I understand they are more likely to work well under Linux.

The most important thing for me is to have really sharp, clear text, but I don't suppose a graphics card has much (any) effect on how clear the text will be...?

Anyway, I have found a range of specs/prices, but haven't the faintest idea what to go for. Does anyone know which of the following (or other cards) might be the best deal for me? (The speed is core/shader/memory speed in MHz and "SPs" means "stream processors".)

9500GT - 1024MB DDR2 - speed=550/1400/666 - 32SPs - £49.99
9600GT - 1024MB DDR2 - speed=650/1625/1800 - 64SPs - £61.93
9600GSO - 768MB DDR2 - speed=580/1450/1000 - 96SPs - £78.55
9800GT - 1024MB DDR3 - speed=600/1500/1800 - 112SPs - £83.36
GTS250 - 1024MB DDR3 - speed=738/1836/2200 - 112SPs - £92.93

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

-TangleFoot-

Theoretically any of those should be able to handle TrackMania without difficulty, but once you've switched to a larger monitor you'll probably find that the lower models lack sufficient oomph.

If I were you, I'd go for either the 9800GT or the GTS250.

jweb2k

Agreed, 9800GT but tbh, if you've got the £92 to spend, why not treat yourself

Bulk up your other computer parts too matey

-TangleFoot-

jweb2k wrote: »

Bulk up your other computer parts too matey

Good idea. What's in your PC at the moment? A PSU from a reputable manufacturer is a must-have.

esuhl

Cheers - I was thinking of treating myself to the GTS250. I wasn't sure if it would be total overkill, though!

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

What's in your PC at the moment? A PSU from a reputable manufacturer is a must-have.

The PSU is a Seasonic S12 600W, so hopefully that'll cope (even with my 4 hard drives)! Other than that, I've got an AMD 64 3700+ chip with 2GB RAM (which seemed a lot at the time!). Another 2GB will cost a fraction of what I paid for the first lot, so I might treat myself there too.

Anyway, thank you both again for your help :-)

JasX

Thats a pretty old single core processor, you could probably pick a generation or so higher Socket 939 dual core one for about £30-£40 new these days for a fairly good performance kick (am thinking a AMD 64 x2 4800+ or 5200+ ish). Would need a quick check your mobo is up to it and you'd need to be confident you could reseat a CPU heatsink properly. But going dual core would give you a fair bit over single core CPU performance.

...the other option of course is seeing how your existing GFX card copes with the larger monitor first, you might be surprised and not actually need to upgrade it just yet and could save the money now to spend on your next new machine....

Sublime_2

Buy the extra 2 GB memory. One of the easiest, and cheapest upgrades going. Then see if you need to upgrade your graphics card.

esuhl

Cheers for the advice. I'll probably get an extra 2GB RAM since it's so cheap, and I'm pretty sure it'll be worth upgrading my existing graphics card too. At the moment it just about does the minimum I need it to on a 17" screen - I don't think it'll be enough on a larger display.

I don't really want to upgrade the rest of the system yet, though. I always build my PCs from components and upgrade a few at a time, so the money spent on the graphics card now won't be wasted since I'll keep it if I upgrade the motherboard/chip and RAM later.

Oh, just one other thing: the new card takes an 8-pin PCI-E plug... but my PSU has two 6-pin PCI-E plugs and an 8-pin EPS 12V plug. From what I've read, the EPS plug is just for motherboards, and the 6-pin PCI-E plugs are rated at half the power (75W) of the 8-pin plugs. Since I have two 6-pin plugs and will only be using one... does that mean I should be okay to use a 6-pin to 8-pin adapter...? Or can I just plug the 6-pin plug into the 8-pin socket - apparently the other 2 pins are just extra ground terminals...?

-TangleFoot-

Try an adapter first; sticking a small plug into a large socket sounds a little too risky to me.

andy2004

Reading a forum eushl you should be able to use the 6pin connected to the 8pin card without the need for an adaptor, as you said the other 2 pins where for extra ground terminals from the other forum

All that the extra 2 pins are, are two ground connections. It basically tells the GFX card that the PSU and cables are rated to supply upto 150w down that cable.

esuhl

I've just double-checked the PSU and motherboard specs and bought the new graphics card, confident that it should all work! Thank you all for your help. :-)