Video Cards

Larry Stovall · Feb 13, 2012

Am preparing to purchase a new video card for my computer and am eying multiple cards in the approximately $200 price range.

I know almost nothing about video cards, though, and the last time the computer guy in town recommended one, it turned out to be worse, in some ways, than the one I had.

So if anyone here could tell me what they think of the ones I'm looking at, I'd deeply appreciate it.

Choices so far:

Choice #1

Choice #2

Stats wise, either would be an significant improvement over the 8400 GS I have now, I think. But I don't wanna spend $200 bucks and then wind up wishing I'd got a better card for the same amount of money.

Jim Cole · Feb 13, 2012

When in doubt I always look to toms hardware to see what is what on graphics cards. That being said, have a look here.
You will notice that it is broken down to different price ranges and at the back you will see a graphics card hierarchy chart to show you top down best to worst with nVidia on the left and ATI on the right.

glight · Feb 15, 2012

We were saying it last year but I think it is truer now: Graphics cards are due for a price drop.

As much as it hurts I would wait.

David Ignjatovic · Feb 20, 2012

Larry Stovall said:
Am preparing to purchase a new video card for my computer and am eying multiple cards in the approximately $200 price range.

I know almost nothing about video cards, though, and the last time the computer guy in town recommended one, it turned out to be worse, in some ways, than the one I had.

So if anyone here could tell me what they think of the ones I'm looking at, I'd deeply appreciate it.

Choices so far:

Choice #1

Choice #2

I have the saphire 6850......

It's cool, quiet and only requires one 6 pin plug.
I bought it to replace a slightly faulty 4850 and it absolutely slays it....I think it's somewhere between 80-90% faster.

pcars looks awesome on it, as do F1 2011/Dirt2/3 etc.

I use it to power my 26in 1080p PC LCD and my 37in HDTV.....

What CPU/ram/OS do you have?