Tired of Research...$250 to spend on VC

What kind of advice can you offer me. I have about 250$ to spend. Should I go with one card at 250 or two 130$ cards in SLi?

I am burnt out on researching...been at it all day.

What games do you play? Are you using PCI-E? AGP?

current rig is 2500 Barton in a nf7 with 5700.

I play nwn2 and oblivion but they both such on my current setup. I would also play fear and such if I could.

I will note that I am getting a opty 165 and either a UltraD or a ddr2 based board.

Have you checked the classies? Saw some 7800gt's in your price range.

http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=29

Easy question imo: x1950xt 256MB by Sapphire at Newegg. *edit* Maybe it should be avoided if you know specific games you play require 512MB memory for high texture quality, but it does have better IQ options otherwise than NV cards.

Yeah, I did Mav but I am going with the egg out of need to take advantage of offer there.

I haven't ever baught ATi. I had an old one but haven't used one in a few years. Not that I am loyal to Nvid only but I want to run my games on max.

FOr NWN2 the reqs are # Video: 256MB Pixel Shader Model 2.0 (ATI X1600 or nVidia 6800 GT/GS or better) I want to be in the better range. But does Sli matter much if do this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102067
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130033
or maybe even
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130061


or would I get better doing SLi with 2 of something like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130017

Exar Jun said:

current rig is 2500 Barton in a nf7 with 5700.

I play nwn2 and oblivion but they both such on my current setup. I would also play fear and such if I could.

I will note that I am getting a opty 165 and either a UltraD or a ddr2 based board.

Click to expand...

opty 165's support ddr2... dont think so

N e ways for 250... hmmm you coulda gotten a 7900gto when they were around... to bad tho.

Damn, that eVGA 7600GT was $120-$20=$100 MIR for a few days heh I guess Newegg had 'too many' sales of it and pushed the price back up I was thinking of it as an option for an ultra-cheap holdover and secondary card.

Mm yea as far as those cards, I wouldn't do SLI 7600s. The x1950xt 256 and 7950GT should be comparable framerate-wise. The NV's advantage is the extra memory size, which mostly only matters for games that need 512MB for textures as I said. The x1950 has the advantages of other x19xx cards - HDR can be run alongside AA, better quality AF. Also, the 7950 will draw a bit less power and be quieter, the x1950 has the 'old' fan which is known to sound harsh when it cranks up. I'd get this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835186002 as an inexpensive add-on if the noise might be a concern, just note that it is tall and you need a case in which the side panel isn't too close to the cards slots.

Then I am thinking the 7950 GT KO

HMM...after more research I have a question.

The games I run use HDR and I would like for them to be a nice as possible.

Is the 1950 better for this or with the 7950 GT KO do it just as well. I read Godman in another thread saying that the 7 series doesn't do HDR

They don't do HDR along with Antialiasing at the same time. The x1900 series can.

So it is basically a coin flip at this point?

1950 256 MB ram HDR and AA
or
7950 GT KO 512 MB ram no HDR and AA

I thank you guys for the advice. I am still a bit confused on which would be better for gaming. With the setup I own...I have never ran AA or HDR so I really don't know the difference in how it makes the games run and appear. I can search around for more info on that...if you have more advice on the subject I would appreciate the time you spend on it.

The higher the resolution you're running, the less of a need for AA. HDR can look nice if done correctly. It just makes the light sources look more realistic. I have'ne tried an ATI card in years, so I can't comment on the 1950, but this 7900 GT was a great deal at $230 when I bought it. If you V-mod it, you can get some great power from it. All my specs are in sig. You will need to buy a $12 conductive pen and at least a Zalman VF-700 for the card (about $25). And I would highly recommend a single card solution over an SLI setup. You will need a beefier PSU for SLI and generally speaking, a single high end card generally will beat out 2 low-mid end cards. I had an SLI 7800 GT setup before this card and the scores were very close with this 7900 edging out ahead of the SLI setup.