Graphics Card

[Last Known Hero]

My graphics card fried this morning
Had a GeForce 8600 GT. Lasted me a long time, but I've found that only 256m of dedicated memory isnt enough.
Now I'm looking at getting this:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... CatId=2306

It's got more dedicated memory, but the core, memory and shader clocks are a little bit slower..

What do you guys think?
Ps. I am loving it because of the price too.

[Jackolantern]

Don't buy a graphics card based on memory! In modern graphics cards, the dedicated memory means almost nothing. The core, memory and shader clocks, as well as pipelines and their specs, are really what make a video card. The 9500 is actually weaker than the 8600! If you can put in a bit more cash (well, actually 2x isn't a "bit more"), I would suggest a 9800 GT. They are great cards for the price. Sure, you can get a better card by going into the new generation with one of the GTX XXX cards, but you will be getting a small amount of additional performance for 3 - 4x the price. Video card technology has not increased exponentially in the last few years, so the high end (GeForce 8800 - 8900, 9800 - 9900) cards of several years ago are still a great value to be able to play almost anything today. My 9800 GT (not 9800 GTX, mind you, which is a worse card that costs more) can play Crisis at decent settings, and plays almost everything else maxed out (it played WoW with all settings on max at 60 FPS, the game's hard cap). Pretty decent for a $100 card!

[Last Known Hero]

Visited the store in the next town over and got this instead:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... CatId=3670

Thanks for the reply, wish i read it in time, but atleast this one is 2x as good as my other one in all the clocks and dedicated memory, plus its DDR5 and my last was DDR3 or 2

[Jackolantern]

Hope it works well for you! As an odd side note, some benchmark sites list the 9800 GTX above the 9800 GT, and others vice versa. I guess it depends on the tests, and really makes you question these sites.

[hallsofvallhalla]

GeForce 8600 GT

600 series GT's(6600,7600,8600,9600) were the best damn card ever made. Bought one brand new(6600GT) years ago and it is still running strong.

[rockinliam]

Ati Radeon 5850, absolutely brilliant card, i have its predecessor the 4850 which is an absolute powerhouse still running the latest games nicely. If you are looking for a more budget card, please check out the 5770 or 5750, almost half the price of the 5850 but still very very powerful. If you can tell i think i have fallen out of love with nvidia and i don't know why, but the ATI cards, no matter what the haters say, are still very good cards.