best card is 9800GX2 without a doubt. second best is basically a tied between 9800GTX, 8800GTX, 8800ultra, 8800GTS 512 and you get whichever is cheapest.
Here are the top 5 video cards to date: 1. 9800gx2 2. 3870 x2 3. 8800 gts (G92) 4. 8800 ultra 5. 8800 gtx
Well, I went to pick up the 8800GT Alpha Dog but it wasn't in stock so......... instead I ended up picking up BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC. From what I've read it's a good card but I guess I'll see for myself tonight when I install it. I can always bring it back so I figured I'd just try it out and see what it can do. BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC I got it for 199.99. Decent? This card... http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/Sea...&CatId=3670
the 9800GX2 will out game the quadro since it has two GPUs on it. the additional memory doesn't help much outside of 3d rendering
Well the card I picked up seems to be doing the job pretty well. I'm able to run Crysis on "Very High" and that using the auto detect feature in Crysis. I've tried a few other Nvidia demos and they all look great, only thing I've noticed is when exiting the game/demo the card seems like it's running hot at around 80c. My old card used to sound like a plane when running a game or video and I can hardly hear the fan on this one. I downloaded Ntune and I can manually adjust the fan but I thought it would automatically speed up when running a 3D application. Weird..
the fans are temp controlled and have been for a while also, I'd suggest playing crysis in DX9 and manually forcing ti to very high through the config file. there will be a slight loss in quality but around a 20% boost in frame rate. also, try the latest beta drivers and then consider overclocking the sucker. 750-800mhz core is doable.
Exactly, so I thought I would have heard the fan kick in when it started getting hot but I don't hear anything. If I use NTune and increase the fan speed it's good but I don't want the fan running at a high RPM all the time. The card is factory overclocked so would it be bad to overclock it again? I don't think it's really needed right now considering I'm getting a playable framerate on Crysis at Very High but No AA. I'm always up for making it run better though.
just use rivatuner I find the fan controls a fair deal better in that also factory overclocks are usually somewhat conservative. so long as stability isn't impacted you should be fine.
The 8800 gt is an amazing card. For the price range i would say its probably the best you can buy. Look at benchmarks and compare it to other cards in your price range and you will probably find it to be the best bang for the buck.
