Considering a new graphics card

**Beirut** · 08-26-2006, 10:52

Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

The 7800 GS was sounding great until I saw some reviews which compared it to the PCI express cards. It got spanked badly. Now I feel uneasy; if it's doing about 40FPS with everything on in current games it surely won't be long until the process of turning down begins. But if it is, say, half the cost of those flash cards then it's not so bad. This makes me squint dubiously at the 7600GT.

The 7800 might be spanked by the better PCI-E cards, but truth is, there are always better cards. I didn't get my 7800GS AGP thinking it was the best, I got it thinking it was good and good enough. I didn't have to change my MB (which usually causes one to change their CPU as well), so that saved me some cash, but I still saw huge improvements in every way over my 9800 Pro. I felt like I had a new system for the price of a card. Mind you, I did throw in a second stick of 512 RAM at the same time, that helped as well.

75% of my game time is flying IL2-Pacific Fighters and the 7800 card brought the game up several levels. Being able to access the Shader 3 option (many games have this graphic option) with the new card made it a whole new game. Detail, speed, quality of graphics, everything went up. And, as I said, the card runs stable and quiet.

The 7800 AGP isn't anywhere near the best card (though it is the best AGP card), but from what I've seen on the screen right in front of me, it is a very good card. All depends what you're upgrading from and what you're expecting.

**Master_Thief** · 08-26-2006, 11:14

If you have the money available to get the 7800 then its probably the best one to get, unless ATI bring out an AGP version of the x1800 or x1900 which is unlikely. The 7800 gs is likely to cost about £200. There is one available from a good online store called www.lowestonweb.com. www.overclockers.co.uk also looks good and has some limited edition overclocked versions from Gainward. Also www.savastore.com looks quite good and is where i'm going to be ordering my new graphics card from. If you want to spend less then check out the "What Graphics Card?" thread which I started. After much discussion I decided upon the x850 pro which is outdated yet still very powerful. Your options at that price range are quite limited though. However if you really want to be on the cutting edge of modern gaming technology then upgrading to PCI-Express would be the only way to go.

**frogbeastegg** · 08-26-2006, 11:40

:sigh: Things were so much easier the last few times I did this. Back in the good old days (

) there was ATI and nVidia, and all you needed to do was compare their top end cards, their second best cards, and then plump for whichever suited your budget.

D'oh. If you click on the nice 'where to buy' link on the site Beirut linked to then there's a big fat list of places selling in the UK. One of these days I'll learn not to do four things at once. One of these days I'll have time not to do four things at once. After rummaging about, I just found that the 7800 is a little below £190 inc VAT on two of the sites. That sounds more like it, and it changes a lot. At that price I'm happy. Looking at the prices in dollars is deceptive; it made the card look much more expensive. I thought that I'd be forking out £300 or more, and at that kind of money I want my future proofing and something which makes me tea while reading Shakespeare to me, damn it!

So, three new questions.

1. Can someone please check I am not being blind and/or stupid, and that this and this are the same card Beirut is talking about.

2. Anyone got any experience buying from ebuyer and overclockers UK? Id rather not get scammed or buy from a lousy company.

3. This will be easy to fit, right? For a frog who has never done any fiddling about inside her PC. Not likely to run into any problems with power supply or anything, right? :froggy sits looking clueless and vaguely hopeful:

**Master_Thief** · 08-26-2006, 11:56

As far as I can tell those are the same card. However the one on overclockers has a metal piece down the side which is designed to keep the card rigid and make it easier to hold when inserting it into the AGP slot, it is also a different colour. It might be better to ask one of the others, as they're more knowledgable than me. Its hard to tell which websites are honest and which are going to scam you. I think that both Ebuyer and Overclockers are well thought of, I've certainly heard good things about Overclockers. As far as inserting the card goes, i;ve never done it but I will do soon and it doesn't look very hard. I've added new RAM to my computer and there were two things I learnt from that: 1. A bit of brute force isn't such a bad thing (as long as you don't break anything) 2. Don't fiddle around with yur computer in 32 degrees temperatures - sweat and microchips don't mix. Thankfully everything worked fine. The card will come with a manual and there is plenty of information on the internet.

**Beirut** · 08-26-2006, 14:46

Lady Frog,

I can't answer your questions, but perhaps this review will offer some enlightenment on your future purchase.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/...aint_dead_yet/

From the review: Page 15 - NVIDIA has a winner on its hands in the AGP arena. The GeForce 7800GS can clearly push out high frames rates with ease despite the limitations of the AGP 3.0 specification. It could handle everything we threw at it. The GeForce 7800GS definitely has serious horsepower and easily beats anything previous AGP offering from NVIDIA.

**orangat** · 08-26-2006, 15:22

Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

...................
1. Can someone please check I am not being blind and/or stupid, and that this and this are the same card Beirut is talking about.

2. Anyone got any experience buying from ebuyer and overclockers UK? Id rather not get scammed or buy from a lousy company.

3. This will be easy to fit, right? For a frog who has never done any fiddling about inside her PC. Not likely to run into any problems with power supply or anything, right? :froggy sits looking clueless and vaguely hopeful:

Just get the 7600gt. There is an agp model at overlockers in your link.
Its time to upgrade, don't bother waiting for dx10, a 7600gt will offer >2x perf boost for cheap.

Both models at stock, the 7600gt runs abit faster than the 7800gs. Stock 7600gt and bfg oc 7800gs, about the same. Heavily overlocked (7800gs has better oc'ing headroom), the 7800gs is faster. At low resolutions, approximately 1280x1024 and below the 7600gt would usually be faster. Factor in the price - 7600gt (GBP 123) vs 7800gs (GBP187) and the decision is easy.

Forget about the 7600gs, its slow and won't be an upgrade but a sidegrade from your 9800pro.

**frogbeastegg** · 08-26-2006, 16:12

:froggy huddles in a corner somewhere and cries: This used to be simple!

I've definitely got to do something soon; this current card has been lightly barbequed for a year now, and it's beginning to do Scary Things as well as underperform.

Ok. Whatever I do now I want it to last. Two years, preferably more. I'm not keen on upgrading, or on endlessly spending money, or on having a collection of old computer bits I can't do anything with or get rid of. In roughly two years time - assuming there are games I am interested in - it will be about time for a big system overhaul.

I am definitely wondering how the 7600gt can keep up so well. There must be things it can't do which the 7800 can - else why the big difference in price? For raw power now the difference may not matter so much; in the long term ...?

I don't know a thing about DX10, no ideas what features it will be offering. I don't know of any games I'm interested in which will use its features. Whatever they are I can probably live without them; the only DX feature I've wanted badly was the realistic looking water which began to appear around DX8. Fortunately I upgraded naturally about that point anyway. As long as the games overall look good and play smoothly at my LCD's native resolution.

I don't think I'm going to go the PCI express + ubercard route. I shall stick with AGP until that potential big overhaul in two years time.

:hops off to read reviews, since there's also one for the 7600gt on Tom's hardware:

**orangat** · 08-26-2006, 16:38

Its is simple. The 7600gt has better shader performance and higher fillrates than the 7800gs but only lags in memory bandwidth. I never thought that the 7600gt will ever make it to agp because it competes with the grossly overpriced 7800gs, but now it has and you should take advantage of it. Dx10 is not going to be a factor anytime soon.

**frogbeastegg** · 08-26-2006, 17:39

Is there anything which compares the 7600gt and the 7800gs head to head?

**The Spartan (Returns)** · 08-26-2006, 17:44

there is a nice Nvidia 7800 for only 100$.

**Geezer57** · 08-26-2006, 18:07

Froggy, I have to pretty much second what orangat is saying: there's a Leadtek GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-088-LT) for £123.32 Including VAT at Overclockers UK. It's available now, fits your existing machine, offers many new features, is a simple upgrade, doesn't cost a fortune, and will future-proof your current hardware as much as possible without a complete overhaul. It or something similar should do you great for now.

In a year or two, you can reevaluate your requirements based on what you're playing then, and opt (or not) to go for a new hi-zoot machine. I wouldn't worry about DirectX 10 right now, as it isn't available and will probably require a transition to Vista. Rumor has it that Microsloth plans to built DX10 into Vista, but not offer it as an upgrade for WinXP (boo!). At any rate, I don't recommend planning purchases on announced, but unavailble, features - or staying too close to the bleeding edge of technology. That way lies madness, as there's always something better 90 days after you buy the latest new thing.

And don't fret the technicalities - you've lots of .org friends who'll willingly volunteer the best advice for their favorite Froggy!

**frogbeastegg** · 08-26-2006, 18:39

I can't really spend more of my sole day off pondering this; I've gone way past the time I could spare. I've not found anything much to make me jump one way or the other yelling, "Yes! That's the card for me!" and likewise nothing bad. All I can find says the 7600GT is exceptionally close to the 7800GS, so I'll go for the cheaper option.

The only place I found selling AGP versions of the 7600GT was overclockers, so that's where I ordered from. 2-3 days wait, plus a day of transit ... probably get it for Thursday/Friday of this coming week. Monday is a Bank Holiday.

I'm assuming that this card won't need more power or cooling than my current 9800 pro? Please say it won't, or I don't know what to do.