Video Card

[Shift]

Well im planning on botting my RAM up to 4GB and getting a new video card by the end of the summer.

Ive been seeing constantly crossfire technology based cards at the moment, meaning they come in bundles. Cool yes, but my motherboard on supports one PCI Express 16 card, so I was wondering what are the best singular video cards around at the moment, in otherwords, the ones that dont come as a box of 2 video cards.

Cheers.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

A better question would be...what's your price range? Nvidia's top of the line 280 range has just been released, for example - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp... GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

If you are one of those people who only ever buys ATI because it's comfort territory their newest range are the 4850 range - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=939

Also, if you are thinking about going 4gb of RAM, don't waste your money unless you are running a 64bit operating system. The standard 32 bit systems only support up to 3gb of RAM (well 3,145,728 kilobytes to be precise) so you wouldn't see the full potential.

 

[Shift]

Well I know my motherboard can go up to 4GB but yeh I think its only Vista that supports it fully?

And yeh card does look mighty, depends on how much money I can save up. Somewhere between 200-400 I would estimate.

 

[Eejit]

Well I know my motherboard can go up to 4GB but yeh I think its only Vista that supports it fully?

Vista 64 or 64bit XP.

 

[Asus]

Right now everyone on tech forums are really looking at the 4850. It's cheap ($200 USD), better than Nvidia's previous $300 card (9800GTX), similar to Nvidia's new $300 card (GTX 260) and it uses less power. Plus it's in stock while the new Nvidia cards are a little harder to find in stock (GTX 260 and GTX 280).

Performance of cards.

Prices from the UK:
400 - Nvidia GTX 280
316 - Nvidia 9800GX2
265 - Nvidia GTX 260
235 - ATI HD 4870
200 - Nvidia 9800 GTX
130 - ATI HD 4850

 

[Shift]

The performance of the 4850 on those stats is on its own, not two of them together right?

 

[Asus]

The performance of the 4850 on those stats is on its own, not two of them together right?

Yes. The 4850 and 4870 in solid red are single cards. The checker-board bars mark the "CrossFire" and "SLI" setups. The HD 3870 X2 and 9800GX2 are Crossfire/SLI on a single board, 2 chips together using a single PCI Express slot. All the cards are single boards.

You can see the image from the UK site, which I linked to selling the cards above, that they are single cards.
4850

 

[Shift]

Ok cool, I believe I shall look into the 4850 then.

Thanks for the help