The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

well take a tape measure and find out how many inches across would fit

 

That's exactly what I was thinking. However, I don't even know the exact width and length of EVGA GeForce 9800 gtx graphic card.

Can anyone please post the exact width and length measurements of EVGA GeForce 9800 gtx graphic card. I'll be a happy man if anyone can do so.

 

well ideally you would want a GTS250 as its the same but uses much less power and its 9 inches.

what PSU do you have?

 

Currently my PSU (stock) is crap. It's only 300W Max. But since I am planning to upgrade my OS, I'm going to buy this

So yea, I'm not too worried about the power that the 98000 requires. And for additional info, I'm doing an upgrade coz I recently bought left 4 dead 2 and it lags all the time! It drives me nuts. And plus, it does not detect the proper shadow/colour patch of the game coz the buildings are too bright that it literally blinds me. So yea, that's a big issue for me and hence, my decision to upgrade. I just hope that it is compatible with my CPU.

 

so tell me you will buy the PSU first? adn dont buy that one. buy a corsair

also the 9800GTX was replaced by the GTS250 (basically it got a rebrand, smaller card and lower power, moving from 2 x6pin PCIE cables to 1x6pin PCIE cable for power)

 

Well, I'm not exactly trying to create fan preference, but I don't remember hearing of compatibility issues with ATI cards and that chipset off hand. ATI's low-end HD cards tend to be better than nvidia's from what I can gather.
A card like an 8400GS uses very little power at all, but you know what low quality PSUs are like...
Schwaber: Looks pretty cramped in there, as said you will have to measure the space you have, and also as said, I would strongly recommend a GTS250 over the 9800. Apart from using less power, being more powerful, and probably costing the same or less, it's also much smaller, so will fit in the case a lot better. The 9800GTX was discontinued a while back, the GTS250 is its successor.
You will have to upgrade your PSU to run either card as well.
Also, the PSU you have chosen isn't very good. A 400W Corsair CX will be fine for your system, assuming you buy the GTS250. It is much better quality, and cheaper as well.

 

@Sammorris & Shaffaaf:I see. I really appreciate your input into this. Yea, I will follow your advice guys since this is my first time upgrading my system. I'm pretty noob when it comes to this.

So let me just get this straight. The only difference between the 9800gtx and the GTS250 is that the GTS250 uses less power? But everything, even the core clock is the same???

Question, are you guys using the same ones that you just recommended to me? And, what corsair PSU should I exactly get?

BTW, one more favour. Can you guys post the specs of GTS250? Thanks!

 

Ok, i've talked about this in the past, so here is the proof, that the MSI board does not like at least certain ati models. Due to that, I'm afraid to risk buying ANY ati card that will end up not working on this board, or at least cause bugs.
K9N6SGM-V

 

Schwaber,
Not sure which one your looking (1GB vs. 512GB) at but here's a bunch of different GTS250's (all pretty much the same) link and a details of a random one:


And I'm guessing Sam was referring to this psu: Corsair CMPSU-400CX


oman7,

Those are fairly old cards, and while I can't say you won't have problems with newer ones, that might be part of the reason they're not supported.

 

The board in question is as old as the cards it doesn't support...

At least i'm somewhat certain. LOL!

 

Well then I have no idea; I can think of a few things but I don't understand them well enough to talk about them lol.

 

I'm still confused about the PSU. The ones that you guys are referring to me is only 400W max (corsair). But the one that I want to buy is 700W max. Isn't it that the higher the Watts, the better? Or Am I just horribly mistaken? Plus, according to this the minimum PSU requirement for the GTS250 is 450W. Remember, I'm upgrading for a better gaming experience.

Here's more pics of my BIOS:


my motherboard


My PSU

 

Schwaber: You should really try and ignore clock speeds as a method of gauging how powerful a graphics card is, it always leads to false assumptions.
People might be tempted to think that an old 2.8Ghz Celeron would be faster than a 2.66Ghz Core i7, but it sure as hell isn't. The same applies to graphics cards. The stock clock of the GTX280 is only 600mhz or so yet it demolishes the 9800GTX which runs at 675mhz.
All the GTS250 is, is a newer version of the 9800GTX. It doesn't just perform the same, it is the same card, just a newer version of it.
It's still quite poor value compared to its ATI Rival, the HD4850, but if you have to use an nvidia card, the GTS250 is a reasonable buy.
The Corsair 400W CX is ample.

Omega: Has it not occurred to you that the same chipset could very well cause bugs with nvidia cards too? There is nothing that sets the X1800XL apart from the X1800XT that could cause one to be problematic but not the other. As stated you are looking at all PCI Express version 1 cards there, I can only assume certain PCIE1 cards that use a lot of bandwidth can crash the chipset. nForce chipsets are after all very poor generally.
Given the age of the board itself, it wouldn't surprise me if every single current reasonably powerful card from the GTS250 and HD4830 upwards would cause the exact same issue. Personally, I wouldn't skew your choice of card on this at all. If you get strange problems with the graphics, buy a new motherboard. This is after all an nforce, so its days are numbered anyway.


Schwaber: More watts means the PC can run more stuff, if you have more stuff plugged in. It's rather like having a 20 amp fuse in your mains plug instead of a 13 amp fuse. If your PC only uses 2 amps, so what?
The main issue is that cheap PSUs lie about their wattage rating, since they are never tested at their full output (The cheapest brands will typically fail at 20-30% of their rated output) and when cheap PSUs fail, they go bang, and sometimes catch fire.
Proper PSUs have decent protections fitted so they aren't safety hazards, and are actually tested to run at their rated maximums.
Many people refuse to believe that cheap PSUs fail at such low ratings since they run PCs, but that leads me to my next point - power usage. PCs use substantially less power than people think.
In a normal PC, a GTS250 will run off a 200W PSU, let alone 450W. These ratings only exist due to the piles of crap PSUs that can't deliver what they say they can.

 

sam the gts250 is around the same price as the 4850 adn the same performance.

 

Last I looked, the 512MB GTS250 and HD4850 were relatively close with the 4850 slightly ahead, and in the US the GTS250 is 10% more expensive. Good by nvidia's standards, but still relatively mediocre value compared to the HD4850.

 

I'm a sheep. I listen to my manual. If it doesn't like ati, it won't get ati LOL! Joking. No, it hadn't occurred to me that nvidia could cause a similar problem. The way I saw it, was since it has an nvidia Chip, it won't mesh well with ati. It would be like intermixing car/truck parts. At least thats what I thought. That board is one of the smoothest boards I've ever used. Did you have a dead Nforce board then? I'm simply not interested in experimenting with ATI(ON the Nforce board), only to have to return the product. I'm probably being foolish. I think I'm being super cautious

 

"The way I saw it, was since it has an nvidia Chip, it won't mesh well with ati"
Tell that to my friends' PC that ran an nvidia chipset with an ATI card for 2 years without incident. Several other such systems existed, and still do today. nForce chipsets are much less reliable now than they were, but there aren't any additional problems I've heard of when using ATI cards, on any nforce chipset, other than of course not being able to use Crossfire.
nForce boards probably made up 10-20% of motherboard sales over the last couple of years and 50% of the RMAs. The nforce chipsets are all flawed by design and will eventually start falling apart, USB ports not working is usually how it starts, then PCI and PCI express glitches, disappearing network cards, broken sound and then finally, failed POSTs.

 

I'm not an nvidia fanboy. And that is the theory to my madness LOL! I don't not believe you about the board failing. You have some strong numbers on your side. Good thing its simply an HTPC now. When it fails, I'll replace it with yet another simplistic board(and more reliable). Probably go for even smaller than µatx though. I'll give that more thought when the day comes.

 

sammorris: Got it. But I might go with the 550w corsair instead for the 400w.
BTW, is BFG a good brand for a psu?

Also, what is the difference between this video card over this??? Coz I'm a bit baffled on what to choose between the two coz pretty much they have the same specs. And I'm also not sure which brand is more trustworthy. What is your verdict?

EDIT: Here's the spec of my stock PSU I hope the chords of the corsair 550w is the same so that I won't be having trouble installing it.

 

The 400W is a little small for some systems. The 550 is a wise buy for future upgrades as it allows the use of powerful graphics cards (two PCIe connectors).
BFG isn't a great brand for PSUs, as they only rebrand other companies' units, and they're often not that great. Corsair don't exactly make their own either but they use their own unified design and guaranteed high quality OEMs so they're always reliable units.
I much prefer XFX to EVGA, and the XFX has a better cooler on it too, so I would recommend that card.
I'd still maintain you should buy this though:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102824
It's exactly the same performance, often slightly faster, and look at how much cheaper it is!