EVGA GeForce GTX 280 1GB GDDR3 PCI-E Video Card

$10 off Asus GeForce 9800 GT coupon code VGA1118 [Exp 11/25]

10% off OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W Power Supply coupon code CZ11 [Exp 11/25]

$10 off MSI GeForce GT 220 Video Card coupon code VGA11161 [Exp 11/23]

Newegg MSI Radeon HD 4550 1GB 64-bit GDDR3 PCI-E Video Card $36 Discuss (3)

Newegg MSI GeForce GT 220 512MB PCI-E Video Card $40 Discuss (0)

Newegg Sapphire 100283-2L Radeon HD 5770 1GB Video Card $165 Discuss (5)

Newegg Sparkle GeForce 8400 GS 512MB Video Card $20 Discuss (1)

Good price, the GeForce 280's were around $270 just a couple weeks ago...

All graphics cards will be on sale with ever lower prices for the next 3 or 4 months, because this fall Win 7 and DX 11 comes to town. Also the newer 40nm die shrink will up performance and cut power/heat requirements, TSMC says they'll have the kinks out by August. AMD/ATI is supposedly going to have their DX 11 cards ready in Sept./Oct. (Win 7 rolls out 10/22), NVIDIA on the other hand won't have DX 11 until 2010. So the green machine will have to cut prices to keep customers, but they'll lose the high end. Rumors are that DX 11 is as big an upgrade as DX 9. If so then AMD/ATI will be in a good spot for Christmas season and NVIDIA will be out in the cold staring in the window.

But for those of us who aren't intensive gamers there will be some powerful cards for sale at low prices.

How do you know Nvidia won't have DX 11 cards until 2010?

And what do you think the probability is for MS to actually have Win 7 out by holiday 2009?

DX11 won't matter until there are DX11 games, and for online benchmark geeks, good performance in DX11 mode.

'Till then, you might as well hold off on long term DX11 thinking as there's always something better just around the corner.

#3: actually, there have been stories running about that on many tech news sites.

here's a couple you can read over:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/6/24/nvidia-gt300---geforce-gtx-380-yields-are-sub-3025.aspx

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1052025/gt300-delayed-till-2010

They could launch a DX11 card very late in the year, but it would be essentially a paper launch, with very little availability for a few months. They haven't gotten their manufacturing kinks out yet. And, if they did that, they'd be losing money on each card. Really, I doubt that we'll be seeing anything DX11 from nVidia before 2010.

ATI has already demonstrated a working DX11 card, so they'll definitely have them out for the Windows 7 launch.

As for the Windows 7 launch, that seems pretty much set in stone. It will be October 22nd.

durkzilla wrote:

Good price, the GeForce 280's were around $270 just a couple weeks ago...

Well, it's a good price for a GTX280, but the faster Radeon 4850x2's are on sale for this same price right now, and the slightly slower Radeon 4890 is on sale for $122 right now.

i'm still waiting for the AGP version. they promised me a launch sometime around next y

Oink

benzabacon wrote:

Can I really even notice any improvements with this card over my ATI radeaon 4830? I do like nvidia more, I don't know why. ANy comments on the upgrade? Thanks!

You will see HUGE improvements in framerates AND STABILITY. Nvidia's drivers are WAY BETTER than ATI's.

#8 Yes this card is a step up from the 4830. Still both cards are yesterdays technology, if you're a gamer then I'd hold out for the Christmas special season and read the new reviews. If your not a big gamer then this is a powerful card from a very good company in EVGA at a great price.

#9 I do agree that NVIDIA has better drivers for GAMING. They work a little harder at it (of course that used to be different and ATI had better drivers, then the pendulum swung to the green side, now ATI seems to be putting forth a bit more effort, likely the fact that their 4000 series cards are hits are helping that effort).

#3 Microsoft could likely launch Win 7 TODAY, I've run both the Win 7100 build and currently running the Win 7229 (both 64 bit) on an AMD Phenom II 740 BE and 8 GB of ram. The system is very stable and mature, but then it ought to be, it is what Vista SHOULD have been at launch. It's Vista fixed and enhanced (well everywhere except they did away with the show desktop button, morons). If a program, device or driver works on Vista then it'll work on Win 7.

The reason that MS is waiting until October is twofold, one they HAVE to be SURE that Win 7 will be a hit, the Vista backlash kept nearly all Fortune 1000 companies from upgrading their OS and that's where a large amount of MS profits come. So MS needs Win 7, especially the 64 bit version, to be a hit so that they can sell the corporate world on a 64 bit upgrade path.

The 2nd reason is that MS is working with the PC guys to drive sales for the Christmas season.

#11, I'm pretty sure you can add the desktop button if you're so retarded you can't "Windowskey + D"

#3,

As #11 says, Win7 is pretty damn good (running Build 7100). Also, I've read that DX11 is supposedly backwards compatible to DX9. I guess they are carrying the DX9 and DX10 API into DX11. However, when I installed and COD4 on my machine, I had to explicity install DX9 also. Theorectiaclly, each Dx version is separate and does not step on each other.

I have a question: should I update the (350W) power supply on my Dell Dimension 8400 to facilitate graphics card upgrading or should I take the (more expensive) route of buying/building a new gaming machine?

#12 You're the retarded one, or either very, very immature. Make you feel big and tough to call someone retarded on the internet. Yep, can't wait for someone to make a filter for idiots.

And yes I know about the Win + D key, and yes there is a WORK AROUND for the show desktop, but it's not the exactly the same. When something isn't broken you don't fix it. Also Win 7 made it harder to open multiple windows for Firefox (or IE) or at least more time consuming. The default has the windows stacked on each other, you can tell it to not stack them until the task bar is full. But to open a new browser window (not a tab), you have to opposite click on the icon in the task bar. Since I usually operate with as many as six or seven instances of Firefox going, some with nearly as many tabs then MS has again "fixed" something that wasn't broken. Are these big things, no, but it shows that MS still doesn't understand how to make an interface simple, elegant and powerful.

#13: you're better off building a new machine. The CPU in your computer is just too slow to keep up with modern graphics cards.

It really doesn't cost that much to build a good gaming computer. Here's a $500 gaming system configuration I posted up a couple days ago:

CPU: AMD Athlon II(Phenom II based)X2 250 (3ghz)
$78 at newegg after coupon code: AMD691

GPU: HIS Radeon 4890 1GB
$121.99 at ZipZoomFly.com after - $30 off $100 with eBillme for New Customers and $20 rebate

Motherboard: any one of the AM3 motherboards on newegg for under $110(including shipping), pick whichever one you prefer, maybe the ECS Black 790GX for $99 after rebate + $7 shipping.

RAM: OCZ 3gb kit (1gb x 3) 1600mhz 8-20 240-pin ddr3 dimm w/heat spreader
19.99 at MWave.com w/ $40 rebate

Hard Drive: 1TB Hitachi 7200RPM
$67 at newegg with coupon code: EMCHDD10A

Case: Cooler Master Case Centurion 5 Case
$40 at newegg with $10 rebate and coupon code: EMCLTMM67

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S223Q/BEBN Black 22X DVD burner w/ lightscribe
$20 at zipzoomfly w/ $15 rebate

Power Supply: OCZ StealthXStream 500watt PSU
$40 at newegg after $20 rebate

Total: $492, all prices include shipping.

The Radeon 4890 is very overclockable, and the AMD Athlon II's can sometimes be unlocked into being Phenom II X4's, so you may even get a quadcore out of this. If some of the disabled cores are a bit less overclockable, you can independently overclock each core usi... [Truncated]

#13, if you can at all afford it then a new build is definitely the way to go. A P4 is old tech. The cpu's with built in memory controllers like AMD or the new chips from Intel (the desktop versions are coming Sept. 1 or thereabouts) do better at both gaming and multitasking. Also the L3 cache chips (and the larger the better) also do better at both gaming and multitasking.

The least expensive chip like that is the new AMD Phenom II X2 BE (and you might be able to unlock the other two cores) for about a hundred, pair that with a Gigabyte, MSI or ASUS mobo in the $80 to $100 range, at least a 600 watt power supply (more if you're going SLI or Crossfire) lots of good deals on those lately. Watch newegg for free shipping and discount specials on a decent case (look for at least two 120mm fans, one front, one back), Rosewil has some good ones that'll be on sale for about $50.

Check out techreport .com they've got a good build guide fresh off the press anandtech is another good source for build components.

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>Zorak wrote:</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote"> at least a 600 watt power supply (more if you're going SLI or Crossfire) lots of good deals on those lately. </td> </tr></table><span class="postbody">

He's not going to need a 600watt + power supply unless he goes for SLI/Crossfire.

Normal gaming rigs really don't draw as much power as you might think.

Here's a chart showing the power consumption of gaming computers with varying graphics cards, under load and idle conditions:

[image]

(image from TechSpot.com review)

And, the system there uses an Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition, a very power hungry CPU. It uses double the power of the AMD CPU that I recommended in my last post.

So, even the systems running the rediculously expensive GTX 295 cards(which is like two GTX 275's in SLI), the load power usage is still under 500watts.

Of course, if you were setting up a system similar to that with a GTX 295, I would recommend getting a higher wattage power supply. It's quite likely that other applications could push the load up a little bit, and you always want to give your power supply some breathing room, and allow for future additions, like a second optical drive or hard drive.

But, for the gaming system I described above, a 500watt power supply is easily enough. Looking at that chart, I'd guess that the system I lined up would draw under 300watts at full load.

If we take the rated maximum power draw of each component and add them up, we get around 360watts, but that's a number you're really not likely to see in... [Truncated]

Many of the new high end cards recommend a minimum psu of 600watts (the one in the add says 550 on the egg). If you buy less and the card doesn't work then the costumer service is going to tell you it's all your psu. Also all psu's are NOT created equal, 600 watts from a corsair, seasonic or other good brand psu is likely a lot better than 750 from a cheap no name unit. Also computer stability for overclocking is helped with a steady power supply that's not being strained.

#18: they probably recommend more than what you need because many people buy junk power supplies that can't put out the power that they're rated for.

If you buy good quality power supplies, you don't necessarily need to get the wattages that they recommend.

For the computer configuration I lined up, here are the rated max wattages for all the components:

CPU: 65watts
GPI: 190watts
DVD burner: 25watts
Hard Drive: 10watts
RAM, System fans, PCI cards, etc: 50watts
motherboard: <20watts

total: <360watts

that's the maximum possible power draw for each component. The only way that you could really get near that number is to run synthetic testing programs on the CPU and GPU to push them to their max load, burn a dvd, and defrag your hard drive, all at once. Playing Crysis will not hit 360watts, chances are that will run below 300watts, as you can see from the chart listed above.

So, as I said, you're perfectly safe using a decent 500watt power supply, like the one I listed in that build.

If you're wondering which power supplies are good quality, I've been working on a tiered power supply list for a while now. It lists out many of the power supplies in the market, sorted into tiers, from best to worst. It's a quick and easy way to check if a power supply is good or not, before you commit to buying it.

link: http://bensbargains.net

Oink

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