The $200 gaming videocard...

[ddrueding]

I'm in the market, my stock X800 from gigabyte is nice and fanless, but it can't keep itself cool enough. I'd really like one of the video cards that exhausts outside the case. I currently have my eye on the HIS Hightech X1600XT IceQ, but I certainly don't want to go backwards in terms of performance.

ATI/nVidia aside, and with noise/heat in mind, what's a good card in the $175-$225 range?

 

[Sol]

Why not just stick an aftermarket cooler on your existing X800?
Arctic Cooling make a couple of models of thier VGA silencer series which would fit your card. They're pretty quiet and have the external exhaust your after.
Thermalright have an impressive looking heat pipe cooler which, if thier other products are any indication should do a great job very quietly.

Either option should cost $40 or less and installation is generally just a matter of a couple of push pins.

Another alternative would be to grab a seperate PCI slot fan that sucks air over the existing passive heat sink and exhausts it outside the case.

 

[mubs]

... my stock X800 from gigabyte is nice and fanless, but it can't keep itself cool enough.

Bad News! I was thinking of getting the Gigabyte heat-pipe cooled X1600 Pro; now your comments give me pause. Maybe I should buy the HIS x1600 instead, despite my misgivings. Monarch has better prices (and no tax for us in CA) compared to Newegg, but Monarch is not listed on HIS' website as an authorized retailer, and they won't answer my questions about warranty (HIS does not have an office/phone# in the U.S., and seems to put the onus of the warranty on the retailer). Newegg replied that they'll take care of the warranty for one year. So despite being more, Le 'egg may be the better choice.

IIRC, the reviews I've read indicate that the x800 is faster by a bit.

 

[ddrueding]

IIRC, the reviews I've read indicate that the x800 is faster by a bit.

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. I may have to go for a more expensive card then. The X800 isn't quite fast enough for me in my latest home addiction (Need for Speed: Most Wanted: Black Edition). I like to play games at the native res of my monitor (1280x1024) and I like some eye-candy, especially for a game this beautiful.

I'm torn between just installing theaftermarket Arctic Cooling device or getting an X850XT with it already installed.

The reason the Gigabyte doesn't work for me is:
a) I'm overclocking the heck out of it
b) my new case (P180) doesn't have as good an airflow situation for the video card as my last case (Antec BQE)

It worked fine before (at stock speed with a case fan). If you're interested, we might work out a deal?

 

[mubs]

DD,

I'm buying only an x1xx based card (see my thread HIS brand video cards), so your x800 won't do it for me.

If you're going to buy a new one anyway, some thoughts:

1) Suggest you buy an x1xxx based card if you can.

2) Arctic Cooling doesn't make a cooler for the x1600 that the public can buy; production is sold exclusively to HIS. If you're buying an x1600, might as well make it a HIS.

3) For other models, I don't know if removing the stock cooler voids warranty.

 

[Sol]

If the only reason your having problems with your X800 is overclocking you could drop it back to stock and spend your money on an X800 crossfire edition...

O.K so you'd probably need a new motherboard, but it's worth considering if the framerate increase your likely to get beats out whatever card you could get for the same money...

 

[MaxBurn]

What's the chance of expanding the budget to $290 or thereabouts? The 7800Gt's are below the $300 mark now when you find deals. Most are a single slot solution and won't vent outside the case though, but you don't block slots either.

MSI Geforce 7800GT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127190
$264.00 after $30.00 Mail-In Rebate


I was simply blown away when I changed from a ATI 9700 Pro to the 7800 GT.

 

[ddrueding]

The 7800GT is tempting, especially with an Arctic Cooling solution on it. Even though Newegg says otherwise, the package itself only says it's compatible with 6800-series cards (see below), any comments?

 

[Mercutio]

I was simply blown away when I changed from a ATI 9700 Pro to the 7800 GT.

By what?
Only thing a move from a 9800 to an X850 did, IMO, was let me play at a higher screen resolution

 

[Sol]

Newegg probably just havn't updated thier picture yet. There is a revision 3 of the NV5 silencer which supports the 7800 series cards.

 

[mubs]

There's also the new Accelero X1 for "NVIDIA 7800 series".

 

[MaxBurn]

I was simply blown away when I changed from a ATI 9700 Pro to the 7800 GT.

By what?
Only thing a move from a 9800 to an X850 did, IMO, was let me play at a higher screen resolution

Take a look at the fakefactory cinematic mod for Halflife 2, lost coast with everything maxed was impressive as well. I also was never able to get games at a playable frame rate on the 9700 with any FSAA. AF was there on the 9700 but at lower levels. Now I can turn all the games detail settings to max pretty much no matter what with 16xAF, 4xFSAA and 1280x1024. I could go higher but this simply looks really good and gives high frame rates in pretty much anything. I am sure I will be happy with the card for a year or two, and then I left the door open for SLI.

You all got me interested in those coolers. My card is an evga 7800 GT CO which is a factory overclock (470/1100) and the cooler is copper with a faster fan. It's rather loud.

 

[Mercutio]

If only I could find a non-ass-suck version of Halflife2 that actually works...

 

[MaxBurn]

Warez? I admit I delve into usenet more than I should for games (thank you verizon for unlimited free downloads even if retention is the suck), but I paid full price about a week after release for HL2 and the same for the original. Not many games are worth my dollar. Doom3 for example would have really pissed me off had I paid for it, who knew you would want to see what you are shooting at? Not being able to see and shoot at the same time is retarded. duct tape mod is a requirement and still isn't that great. Q4 I was disappointed in for similar reasons (same engine?) but mostly the textures were really low quality and look terrible while you are hugging a wall peeking around the corner or something.

I think that's what I will do tonight, the original Half Life should run at insane resolutions.

Couple HL2 FFC teasers:
http://scottjal.ath.cx:85/ebay/Game screen captures/HalfLife-FakeFactoryComputer2.JPG
http://scottjal.ath.cx:85/ebay/Game screen captures/HalfLife-FakeFactoryLComputer.JPG
Good thing the computers I put together don't look like that, the cards aren't even in slots! Anyway little things like this give me a kick and help the emersive experience.

F.E.A.R.
http://scottjal.ath.cx:85/ebay/Game screen captures/FEAR RTFM Guy.JPG
http://scottjal.ath.cx:85/ebay/Game screen captures/FEAR RTFM Guy2.JPG
http://scottjal.ath.cx:85/ebay/Game screen captures/FEAR TPS report.JPG
http://scottjal.ath.cx:85/ebay/Game screen captures/FEAR TPS report and Planning to Plan.JPG
TPS report, planning to plan flowchart? PC load letter, what you say!?

 

[Mercutio]

Meh. I bought Half-Life 2. I feel I'm entitled to a working (working, by my defintion, meaning that I can play a single player game without EVER needing permission from an internet server) copy. I've downloaded several "cracked" versions but so far I haven't found one that works.

In my opinion, games like Farcry are quite playable on a 9700 or the like. The decidedly mid-range X600 Pro in my laptop seems fine with even pretty intense games.

 

[MaxBurn]

Meh. I bought Half-Life 2. I feel I'm entitled to a working (working, by my defintion, meaning that I can play a single player game without EVER needing permission from an internet server) copy. I've downloaded several "cracked" versions but so far I haven't found one that works.

In my opinion, games like Farcry are quite playable on a 9700 or the like. The decidedly mid-range X600 Pro in my laptop seems fine with even pretty intense games.

Yeah I was on the fence post about Steam, I do view it as spyware / spamware with its popups on machine startup and reporting your configuration and usage to them. Whatever, you also get updated ASAP. Also I was going to install HL1 and I took a peak into Steam, entered my HL1 CD key and it upgraded me to the platinum pack with HL1, blue shift, opposing forces, TFC and all the goodies. I only originally purchased HL1, not those other expansions. Didn't even need the HL1 CD. Downloading now.

Farcry does look really good and not needing a lot of horsepower to do it. Did they licence the engine for other games? They should... Anyone hear of a mod for Farcry that offers better graphics like the cinematic mod for HL2?

 

[Handruin]

I have farcry, but I only played it once and stopped. Not being able to save at your own discretion is highly annoying to me. I started the game with a high difficulty and it's a huge pain in the ass when I'm stuck replaying a certain part of the game 20+ times because I can't save. I realize there is a save-game hack, but I haven't tried it yet.

I thought there was an enhancement for farcry for those with pixel shader 3.0? There was a patch for it from their website, but other than that I dont' know.

The following before-and-after images are from the CryEngine. Developer Crytek uses Shader Model 3.0 techniques (vs. 1.x shaders) to add more depth and realism to the scenes. Notice the more realistic look and feel when SM 3.0 is applied to the bricks and stones that make up the staircase. In the scene featuring the Buddha, the full image comes to life with the use of SM 3.0, with the technique applied to multiple objects.

linky

 

[Sol]

I think the new shader model 3.0 stuff in cryengine is for their next game which is using it. They may also use it for the x-isle expansion (Or x-isle could be a whole new game I guess, Far Cry started sucking about half way through so far be it from me to care...). At the moment you can get a higher level of detail in Far Cry if you apply the 64bit patch, but you'll need to be running windows 64bit edition for that.

My gripe with steam is that it downloads another patch every single time I go to play any steam based game... That and the fact that all the games are based on the original half life engine (which is ancient) or the source engine which is a nice enough single player engine but is architecturally unsuited to multiplayer games, or fast paced ones at least...

 

[Santilli]

Well, I enjoy Quake 4, but, I can't run it at ultra high quality, even with the 800XL, and dual 2.8 ghz zeons, and get decent frame rates. Weird.

Anyway, Farcry is nice, but the controls aren't real good, and niether am I at doing it. The saving thing is a pain.

I've actually got a bunch of neat games I've never played through:
Myst III, No One Lives Forever, Max Paynes, MSFT Aircombat simulator,
Doom 3, James Bond's 007 NightFire, Tiger Wood's 2004, and Unreal Tourney 2004.


I should spend more time on this stuff, but, I don't have it...

GS