Curse

Slinkiroth · Feb 23, 2007, 05:29 PM // 17:29

I'm wanting to buy a new graphics card and don't want to have to spend a lot of money. I want one that would be able to run Guild Wars to its fullest graphical settings. I've found this one; GEFORCE 7300GS 256MB, but am not sure if it would get the job done. Could someone help me out here?

tijo · Feb 23, 2007, 06:56 PM // 18:56

First thing this should be posted in the technician's corner forum, not here.

Second thing, that card should run GW just fine since an intel GMA 900 cna handle GW.

spydre1 · Feb 24, 2007, 12:08 AM // 00:08

That will run just fine. I'm running with much less than that, and the only issue I have is that it takes a while to load in.

Dex · Feb 24, 2007, 12:30 AM // 00:30

What kind of graphics card are you upgrading from? Despite the "7" in the front of the name of this GPU, it's not a lot better than the old 6200 cards it's intended to replace. It's also a turbocache card, which means it will be helping itself to your system memory for some ultra low-speed texture and scene data storage. Depending on what you're coming from you might want to save up another $30 - $60 or so and get a card that's made for gaming.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2699&p=3

As you can see, this GPU can't even run Half-Life 2 at a playable framerate at any resolution above 800x600.

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=522&p=8

IMHO anything less than a GF 6600GT, GF 7600, or Radeon x1600 is simply a waste of money if you're planning on using it to play games. If you're a gamer you shouldn't even be considering spending money on a GPU that can barely run a 2-year old game.

Here you go:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130062

That's a MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH better card for a gamer, and after the $20 rebate it's only $90.

eggrolls · Feb 24, 2007, 12:40 AM // 00:40

I have that card. It runs fine on my low end system (sempron, 1gb memory) with highest settings with about 40fps average in pve or ~20 in pvp.

i recommend the 7600gt though. it doesn't cost that much more (about $60 vs $90), but is a way better card.

edit: lol, dex beat me to it. funny though, i've been watching that exact evga 7600gt since the beginning of the month, and placed an order a few min ago.

Eldin · Feb 24, 2007, 03:40 AM // 03:40

Yeah. The 7300 is basically like a 5900 but DX9.0c compatible.

I use a 7800 GS OC 256MB. It's one of the best AGP cards you can get, and probably one of the last. GW has low system requirements. You can probably get away with max settings on it on a 6800 GT. If you have other gaming interests too though, I reccomend what I use if you are AGP or a 7600/7800 for PCIe.

Now for my advertisement spiel:

7800 GS OC is professionally overclocked by BFG Technologies, making it slightly better than a 7800 GS. It's only for AGP though. I can run Half-Life 2 on max settings and average about 60 FPS on it, sometimes up to 100 FPS in really uneventful places.

Dex · Feb 24, 2007, 06:02 AM // 06:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eldin

Yeah. The 7300 is basically like a 5900 but DX9.0c compatible.

I use a 7800 GS OC 256MB. It's one of the best AGP cards you can get, and probably one of the last. GW has low system requirements. You can probably get away with max settings on it on a 6800 GT. If you have other gaming interests too though, I reccomend what I use if you are AGP or a 7600/7800 for PCIe.

Now for my advertisement spiel:

7800 GS OC is professionally overclocked by BFG Technologies, making it slightly better than a 7800 GS. It's only for AGP though. I can run Half-Life 2 on max settings and average about 60 FPS on it, sometimes up to 100 FPS in really uneventful places.

Good advice if the OP is looking at an AGP situation. For PCI-Express, though, I wouldn't go with a 7800...if you can even find one. The PCI-Express 7800s were almost all replaced by the 7900s some time ago.

The 7900s are good cards, but at that price point I'd opt for an ATI x19XX - series card. The x19XX GPUs are just nicer and have more features. They run a little hotter, but produce better images, have more shader muscle, and can do more tricks like running Anti-Aliasing and FP16 blending at the same time. The 79XX series nVidia cards aren't even capable of running MSAA and FP16 blends like High Dynamic Range lighting (REAL HDR, not simulated like Half-Life 2: Lost Coast) at the same time.

Still, though, for under $100 the GeForce 7600GT is really the best choice.