What graph card?

[Deity A]

I've decided to buy a new graph card (since I want a second monitor too).

What card would you suggest to be able to play Eu at high settings.
Also note that I need two digital exits (DVI) on the card (both screens have high resolution, wide screen).
Motherboard is ASUS PW5 DEluxe; but I'm going to upgrade it in the comming year; not sure what MB I'm gonna take, but it will be High end (maybe a rampage II).

The card should be strong enough to let me play EU on one screen and prelisten music or watch tv (powercinema, streamed through tv card) on the second one.
Primairy screen resolution 1680x1050 (SynchMaster 205BW) -> current screen
Secondariy screen resolution 1920x1080 (Samsung SyncMaster P2270) -> use to play EU.

Furthermore the Card shouldn't form a bottleneck when using Maya, Photoshop or Pinacle Studio.

 

[WoenK]

Depends on how much you want to spend.
ATI HD5770 is quite a good choice right now and offers DX11.

 

[CrestIV]

Right now ATI 5700er or 5800er series.

Info about your CPU, RAM, Power Supply Unit and budget is needed to pick the right one.

 

[Deity A]

Depends on how much you want to spend.
ATI HD5770 is quite a good choice right now and offers DX11.

do you mean the:
Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 Vapor-X 1GB

I must say I'm surprised of the low price (150€), I was actually fearing I wouldn't get away below 250€

Hmm, seeing how much power those beasts consume I might need a bigger power supply;

 

[Arto]

You might have issues with full screen mode

Just a note t say that if you play in full screen then some software for watching tv etc also tries to be full screen which can cause issues.

I run an NVidia GTX260 which seems to cope fine, and there are more powerful versions available. the ATI cards a great too by the way.

You will need to carefully research a suitable power supply, I had to upgrade mine, but it wasn't expensive.

regards

Arto

 

[Deity A]

Right now ATI 5700er or 5800er series.

Info about your CPU, RAM, Power Supply Unit and budget is needed to pick the right one.

with my system upgrade (to x64)
I've thought about 6x4gb DDR3 on a overclockers MB (Rampage II or such [3memory lane channels). Though I might start with 3 chips, and add 3 later
Hz I can't tell yet, didn't decided yet.

CPU would be a socket 1366 one, quad core 2.8GHz or 3GHz

2HD's (might buy another one, dunno yet) SeaGate ofc

Internal sound-card not used -> use a ASIO2 interface instead (and a Midi kb) (both always plugged and eating power)
+ speakers & woofer (seperate power feed)

and only other special card is a tv tuner card (digital television line [coax])

9inch artic cooling fans in a server tower case.


Run a slipstreamed (and cleaned out of not used services & other crap) XP with multiple tweaks (never crashed last 2 years, did once on a almost meltdown in the middle of summer, cleaned my cooling elements: reason was dust)

Will run a cleaned out version of W7 64x

current setup is tweaked to 110%, but the setup above will not be tweaked (unless I need more muscle, but I do not go above 110%).

Power supply is the last thing I decide, since I need to calculate the rest first.


And for the ones thinking this costs much: it's my tv/HiFi/PC/Workstation in all. well actually the only piece of electronics in my appartment that isn't ment for coocking/ showing time/cleaning.

 

[Legion]

i would wait for the new nvidia cards to come out, should be a month maybe two.

 

[Deity A]

i would wait for the new nvidia cards to come out, should be a month maybe two.

Hmm, I have an NVidia now (and I can't complain much about it), but I've heard that Nvidia isn't all that good anymore
Remember too, that 2D is a big factor too for me (as is video processing)

 

[kikulins]

I use Maya photoshop and 3d studio MAx
I have Nvidia GTX 295. But i cant play EU on max settings. I have 26" monitor but on 19'' monitor you can play on max maybe
sorry for bad english

 

[Trina Xenophage]

Depends on how much you want to spend.
ATI HD5770 is quite a good choice right now and offers DX11.

I Have a new system being built and shipped with that vid card. It looks like a realy good chioce since it has 1 gig ddr5 onboard,It has the two dvi outputs, 1 hdmi and one standard vid port.

I went with the 5770 as it has the faster clocking over the 5750 which puts it in a new class without the cost of the top of the line 5800 series.

I know vid cards are fairly close in what they can do now days with all the competition between manufacturers. I guess for you it would be a matter of prefrence twords one vendor and price range you have available to buy with.

Gl if you choose the ATI board. I have had much success and enjoyment from ATI products over the 25 plus years I have used them.

 

[Legion]

Hmm, I have an NVidia now (and I can't complain much about it), but I've heard that Nvidia isn't all that good anymore
Remember too, that 2D is a big factor too for me (as is video processing)

then you heard wrong, nvidia is still as good as they always been. But when it comes to choosing ati or nvidia you have two options, more bang for the buck or raw power. if you want to go raw power choose nvidia, and if you want more power/buck choose ati. But i would wait for the new nvidia to see what it would cost, it's supposed to be daaaamn good as it looks.

 

[CrestIV]

Ah i hate how every discussion about gfx cards comes down to some weird philosophical showoff, well i try to add to it anyway.

EU right now runs only on a Direct X 9 render path and i don't really see MA changing that any time soon.
Direct X 10 was never been used much, the list of Direct X 10 games is very short indeed. This came mainly from the low acceptance of Vista and therefore not enough gamer with the right OS to actually use the Direct X 10 cards they had.
With Win 7 out, this is not an issue and the features Direct X 11 offers, mainly tessellation, are too nice for game makers not to support.
But this is the first generation of Direct X 11 and Nvidia cards are not out yet.
While all i red about the G100 is not really all that impressive when it comes to gaming, since the Fermi is heavily designed for the professional Tesla platform, they will most likely be competitive when it comes to performance compared to ATIs 5000er series.
When it comes to price, heat and noise, no real way to know yet, but they will most likely be hotter and more expensive compared to the ATI cards when they are finally available.
I certainly wouldn't wait for the new cards from nvidia for any other reason that they might bring down the price for the ATI cards.

For the performance you want, you need either a 5850 or 5870, i just checked and the 5850 isn't available here in Germany right now.
According to the listings the 5850 does however cost ~150€ more than the 5770 for ~50% higher performance, which i wouldn't spend myself.
Thing is, the way both nvidia and ATI work you can expect the next generation (or half generation) of cards to have support for Direct X 11.1 or 11a or whatever they call it with nice new features and probably far better general performance to gain at least a marketing edge over the competition.

So while for high setting with your setup at 1920x1080 you should get a 5850/5870, right now the price isn't worth it.

Buy a 5770 and lower some settings for now.

In 9-12 month you can buy a card with probably twice or more the performance for roughly the same amount you pay now for the 5770 and most likely will gain extra features and a better overall design by paying the same for 2 cards you would pay for the 5850 now.

 

[florin]

............
Gl if you choose the ATI board. I have had much success and enjoyment from ATI products over the 25 plus years I have used them.

In ZX Spectrum era you were using ATI too? rofl

 

[WoenK]

In ZX Spectrum era you were using ATI too? rofl

If I remember correctly, 25 years ago ATI and SGi were one of the first to have dedicated graphics chips. Can't even remember the standrad they used, I think it was before CGA.
Spectrum was 28 years ago, and 26 years ago also the first Amiga was was shown to the public


...back from history lesson...

a HD58xx would be overkill at the moment, unless you really want ultra high resolutions with 6 displays connected via Eyefinity . Just switched last week from my Sempron to a 620 Athlon and have not found one single game that I can not run in full HD with all settings at maximum on my HD4850.
the HD5770 has the same shader count as the HD4850 and is still around 30% faster. For 150 Euros one could also get a HD4890 and have a slight 5-10% improvement over the HD5770, but no improvements for DX11.


As for power requirements, 108Watt is not that much for a graphics card today, add another 250 Watt for the rest of the system, 20% loss from the power supply, another 20% security margin and a 450-500 Watt PSU shoul be sufficient.