New GFX card advice

cocoluvsmummy

Hi, i am looking to buy a new GFX card ( well my 16 yr old son is) and we have narrowed it down to a 8800GT, 512mg. But then comes the problem, there are millions out there, money is an issue so as cheap as possible, but is it worth spending a tad more to get the "sonic" type.. from looking they seem to have a better fan.. or is that just different makes that make it seem that way.
Any way, here are few few we have looked at.. opinions please

(BTW hope these links work.. and apologise for long links but have no idea how to do those "clicky" things)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-071-OK&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1008

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=719706

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=719705

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5243599/Play-Value-Geforce-8800GT-512MB-PCI-Express-2-0-Graphics-Card/Product.html

Thanks in advance for any help/ advice

Aliktren

from that list I'd go with the overclockers board

Anthillmob

One thing to consider is how good your PC Power supply unit is. A lot of newer GFX cards require a 6pin power supply independent of the motherboard, and can need PSUs upwards of 550w ouput.
What are your current PC specs?

superscaper

Aliktren wrote: »

from that list I'd go with the overclockers board

Although with caution. There have been a couple of threads about problems with Overclockers and that they're being investigated for credit card fraud. E.g. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=423230

gsf600y

I'd like to add to the above, that I've been using Overclockers.co.uk for years, and have had zero problems, and faultless service.
Whenever I've had to return items due to manufacturing faults, their returns system has been great.
They've a big loyal following if you take a read through their forums - also, if you make a post in the graphics card forum on their website, you'll get A LOT of good advice.

superscaper

gsf600y wrote: »

I'd like to add to the above, that I've been using Overclockers.co.uk for years, and have had zero problems, and faultless service.
Whenever I've had to return items due to manufacturing faults, their returns system has been great.
They've a big loyal following if you take a read through their forums - also, if you make a post in the graphics card forum on their website, you'll get A LOT of good advice.

I used to use them as well. Well until they suddenly started insisting I lived in Ireland and so couldn't deliver to me.

Was a couple of years ago and haven't used them because I find scan.co.uk more competitive for price (especially taking postage into account). But there does seem to be recently a worryingly increasing number of dodgy sounding things going on over there.

opportunity_cost

cocoluvsmummy, if you're on a budget, I'd go for a Radeon 3850 256MB card instead. Tom's Hardware and many other people rate the Radeon 3850 as the best value for money graphics card out there at the moment. Your son may have to lower the screen resolution or settings a notch or two with certain games but his gameplay experience will hardly be affected by that. It can be had for as little as £85.

BigBouncyBall

don't think too much about the different types of 8800GT - they're all essentially the same. Uber serious gamers will tell you they get another few frames per second from the right one, but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Just go for the cheapest one IMO

cocoluvsmummy

Thank you all for your advice. I will most probably go with overclockers because they are near me and i can go in in person and i have found them good in the past, we had a faulty gfx card 2 years ago and they replaced it without question. this obviously cuts the postage out.

As for the pc specs we have a athalon 64 x 4600+, 150 hard drive ( about to be upgraded) 2 g memory( maybe going to increase that), a 450 w PSU (maybe need to upgrade that)

We are hoping after these little upgrades we can get the pc to last another couple of years, we had been looking at a new pc but that was coming out at £850. Son has £350 to play with easily (he was a lucky winner of a nintendo wii so is feeling flush having sold it, plus his savings)

banger9365

if the psu is a cheep one you will need to change that (more than likely will be,becuse that what people us ),do not be fooled by buying a £20 to £30 psu with lotts of watts like 600watts and thinking it's a good one,it do's not work like that unfortunately,
the more amps you have the better,
so look at something like this click here (good)
put not something like this click here (bad)

Win2Kuser

I too would go with the Overclockers one, thats a bargain.

Your machine spec is fairly up to date, a 4600+ cpu with a 8800GT will certainly play the latest games (albeit Crysis is a system killer). If you are running XP, you can only really go upto 3gigs of ram, any more than that, and windows won't see it. If you have up(think down) graded to Vista, you can add a lot more ram.

The 8800GT cards require a 6pin PCIe power connector. The card itself should come with a 2molex to 1 PCIe power adaptor, so you will require either 2 spare molex connectors or one PCIe power connector from your PSU. The PSU should be upwards of 500watts for your spec machine.

Also, make sure your system uses a PCIe video card and not AGP.

HTH