tell me

Whats your current card? Is your motherboard PCI-E?

You said you wanted a PCI card, but PCI graphics cards pretty much stopped being made over 10 years ago, so obviously you meant PCI-Express.

As such, you need a PCI-Express motherboard. These motherboards typically don't have an AGP slot, and have a PCI-Express (PCI-E) slot instead. So if your current card is an AGP card, you almost certainly don't have support for PCI-E, and thus can't really buy a modern card.

If you do have PCI-E support, I highly recommend you get the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 320mb. This is one of NVIDIA's highest-end cards, and is extremely fast.

You should be able to get it for ~$300 online, however if you look hard you may find the 640mb version which is more desirable for around the $300 mark too. If you do, I recommend you get that version instead.

The only card more powerful than the GeForce 8800 GTS 640mb is realistically the GeForce 8800 GTX 768mb, which is a lot more expensive.

So in other words, with this card you'll be sitting in the top tier of graphics cards owned by the majority of people. Unless you use a really high resolution like 1920x1200 you probably wouldn't even need the additional horsepower of the GTX.

Aye but GTX's are shit hot fast, they're great.

I'm gonna buy a new gfx card too, and I've been comparing benchmarks n' stuff, and I've came to the sad conclusion that the 8800gts fatality is the best cost/quality relation, in here it costs 350€~. I'm gonna buy it next month.

http://www.xfxforce.com/web/viewFeature ... Id=1430916

Yeah, I can't see anyone being disappointed with an 8800 of any model. The whole range is extremely powerful.

The only thing I'd warn is that all rumours are heavily pointing towards NVIDIA bringing out a new card in the upper end of the GeForce 8 series this autumn, which will either provide a new product that's better value for money than the 8800 GTS or it'll drive the price of the existing models down.

I'd recommend waiting until then before making any decisions.

Mmm, yeah, maybe you'r right, the NVIDIA 9 series, are almost there, and when they come out, the 8 series will become alot more afordable, maybe I'll wait two more months... how bout you nexus?

Quote from Nexus

NVIDIA 9.. how does it looks like?

Nobody know's yet, but there's rumors it will come out this autumn.

wowow..

oke, there will be NO, I REPEAT, NO new high-end graphic card coming out this year.

the 8800GT (which is as good as 8800GTS 320 and 640mb) will be released soon (prolly BEFORE november).

also there will be a new 8800GTS (but now with 512MB ram and later 256mb, based on the new core "G92" ) with the same amount of power as the GTX. But the GTX (or ultra..) will be better in the end cause it has more memory(768mb instead of 512mb), and more bandwidth (320bits instead of 256bits which the G92 core has..)

thats all you will see in the coming 4 weeks from nvidia.

now for ati (noone likes ati )..

ati will release the RV670 (code name, a guy i know from ati says it might get a "3" in its name, meaning HD3xxx series which will be a new generation) which will be almost be better than the HD2900XT, but it has 256bit bandwidth instead of 512bit. better Anti Aliasing, and fully DX10.1 (which the new nvidia will NOT be..), also it will be cheaper (to produce, maybe they will sell it at the same price), and requires much less power (around 120 watts), so therefor making it easier to cool and also cooler.

i don't have any english sites to back it up, but those are from good sources inside ati and nvidia..

NVIDIA used to released a new generation every year and then six months after that they would introduce new products in that generation, usually being the medium ones.

It's been around a year since they released the 8800, which should mean that they will release the 9xxx series before christmas. Due to the 8800 still being quite strong and the lack of competetion from AMD/ATI, then I do agree with Gorion, that it's unlikely to get the 9xxxx series before christmas.

Yeah, annual releases in the high-end bracket are the norm and have been pretty much since 1999, but because NVIDIA kind of caught ATI with their pants down with the GeForce 8s and ATI still haven't come up with a contender for the most powerful card, there's really no need to push it forward a step just yet.

Obviously it's all rumour and speculation, but there's no logical reason for NVIDIA to push ahead a whole new generation of horsepower just yet.

There goes the tradition that's gone on since I was a boy.

As I said though:

Quote

The only thing I'd warn is that all rumours are heavily pointing towards NVIDIA bringing out a new card in the upper end of the GeForce 8 series this autumn, which will either provide a new product that's better value for money than the 8800 GTS or it'll drive the price of the existing models down.

Whatever you do, you'll benefit from waiting a little while.