Graphics Card Opinion

Hey all, in light of my B-day coming up, I'm getting a new graphics card and I wanted an opinion on which I should get.

I'm stuck deciding between a GTS 250 1gb or a GTX 260 core 216.

GTS 250: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130469

GTX 260: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130434

On average the GTX 260 is only 50$ more, but consumes more power and that's about my only concern. I have a 500w 36amp Power Supply which I was figuring should be enough considering that's the minimum, but yeah I hate running minimums.

The GTX 260 probably decimates a 250 in every way possible, but I'm not sure if I should go with a more modest upgrade or not. I plan to play GTA: IV / Left 4 Dead / Gw / with the new card. My 8800 struggles with GTA: IV really badly right now because of the low v-ram on it.

Then I also have an old 90nm 3.0ghz Athlon X2 6000+, I wonder if that'd hold back the GTX 260 any but I doubt it.

Help me decide!

EDIT: I'm also running a 320mb 8800GTS currently for the record.

If you are worried about power consumption and whether or not your PSU can handle something then check this page out.

http://www.antec.outervision.com/index.jsp

As for which of those to get, both will be decent. Might I also suggest looking into the newer ATI cards. I've been an nVidia buyer for years and just went with this card because of the price point...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102825

It offers comparable performance to a GTX260 and is a bit cheaper.

Hmm well unfortunately me and ATI are in bad standing due to constant complications I've had with their products, so I'm sticking with Nvidia for now.

I'm trying not to buy a new PSU right now but if I have to ultimately I will, I think it'd be a good idea soon anyways.

Personal experience - coz others will always argue the toss.

500W PSU WILL run GW just fine, but if you plan on running more intensive games such as World in Conflict, Bioshock, Call of Duty 4 then it's not going to be able to cope.

Upgrading to 650W will cost next to nothing and is well worth the minor investment especially if your older PSU does not have 6 & 8 pin GPU power cords.

nVidia drivers are still complete dross especially under Vista, ATI is way more stable.

The Radeon 4770 will simply blow your socks off in terms of bang per buck!

As I am also going to order a card for myself somewhere around next week, I also have been checking many of them, and finally decided for the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, It's cheap (I'm on a budget here) and it's rly great imo, it only costs ~$170 for me also. I've checked some reviews on it and all say it's very good..

you can easily power a GTX260 core 216 on a 500W PSU. indeed, such a system, even when paired with a top of the line core i7 processor, will only peak at around 300W.

heck, i'm running a radeon HD 4890 on an antec earthwatt 500. tested oblivion, fallout 3, mass effect, guildwars, call of juarez... no issues whatsoever.

Perhaps you should point out that the Earthwatt 500 is a high efficiency, SLI certified, modern PSU with distinct advantages over similar power rated legacy PSUs of even 1 year old.

Don't assume that just because someone is replacing their graphics card that they have a top-of-the-range PSU already in their machine.

You also don't post graphics settings and achieved frame rates so stating that you've 'tested' with this game or that doesn't mean nowt without qualification.

graphic settings: maximum

frame rates:

GW: 300+
oblivion: 60
fallout 3: 60
mass effect: 58 (it's capped at 58 for some reason)
call of juarez (dx10, absolute maximum settings): 30

in most of my games, i have vertical sync turned on, or it was turned on by default. GW was the exception, because there was a delay in camera rotation with vertical sync on.

resolution: 2048x1152

btw, the earthwatt 500 is decent PSU. it is by no means SLI certified, and it happens to BE 1 year old. additionally, efficiency doesn't matter, since the 500W is its maximum output, not how much it draws from the wall.

My main computer, the one that is receiving the upgrade, has a brand new 36 amp 500w PSU. It was the one that I got for my new secondary PC, but I put it in this one instead and gave my other PC the older one.

Anyway, I play all games just fine and don't / haven't ever had any problems running the games that I play, I already know these things, I'm very aware of my machine's capabilities. I just want an opinion on which graphics card I should get.

Also I'm running 1680x1050 as my resolution, and that's really where my 8800 cuts me short. I get good frames in some older games, but newer ones are becoming more v-ram hungry and that's my reasoning for picking a card that has close to, or 1 gig of ram on it.

That should be fine to run the 216 and the 250

While one card has 1gb and the other has 896mb(104mb diff) of Vram i dont think it will matter as much as the extra 192bit bus width the 260 has. Then take the 216 unified processors(260) compared to the 128 unified processors(250) and you have a card that comes out on top.

TL;DR, you're better off with the 260 shelley.

Yeah I guess the GTX 260 is a better idea after all, seems more future proof.

Cocaine is one hell of a drug.

I would get the 260 the only possible advantage of the 250 is the 1GB of VRAm and at the resolution mentioned it will not likely come into play. Either one will run fine on your PSU, esp since I ran a HD4850 and a 9850 CPU on a 500watt PSU just fine.

Actually you'd be surprised, GTA: IV at 1280x1024 on max settings can go up to 1.5gb of V-ram, and I'm running 1680x1050. I don't plan to max it out but I want it to be playable. I realize this game is a terrible port and that's probably why it's so demanding on v-ram and such, but I am a fan of the series so I want to play it, it's a good time killer when I'm bored.

I'm not surprised if this will become a trend as games become more demanding either, GTA: IV isn't the only game that I've played that benefits from more than 512mb of RAM on the card at my resolution. I think even though the 260 has less of it, it has way more processing power than a GTS 250, so that power will help with newer demands as well where I think the 250 would fall short very soon.

It's basically just a 9800GT after all, that can do CUDA+PhyX and it probably has a die shrink and uses less power, really nothing major.

GTA:IV is ridiculously resource-hungry. I can't even come close to maxing it with my 260 - mainly because of the "mere" 896GB of VRAM.

GTA is not an excuse to buy a lesser card, though ^_^

Well Snog, what resolution do you have? Can you at least get like 1680x1050 resolution in game with High textures and Shadows, and like 8-10 draw distance without capping out the ram on it?

GTA IV is a bad example to compare Graphic Cards. It needs more CPU power than GPU. I have a GTX295, but "only" an E8500 OC to 3.8, and yet it still doesn't run (super) fluent, but enough to play and enjoy (I'm guessing around 25-35 fps on 1680x1050, everything max except view distance at 50 and shadows density at 8). However, the same machine can pump out Crysis:Warhead at a constant 50+FPS, same res and everything max.

To help your choice, go with a GTX260, definetly. Your 500w PSU should be able to handle it, no problems. I got a 700w PSU with a GTX295 and it works fine.

I have not played GTA-IV but everything I have read indicates that it is highly CPU dependent and is one of the feew games out there that actually runs better on quad cores than dual cores - I've also read that it's not well optimized for PC and I expect it may vary from user to user as well. In any case I'd still get the 260 out of the two cards.

Well I think my CPU should be fine, but I won't know 100% for sure until I get a graphics card that will allow me to run it at higher settings. I'm not planning to max the game out and I only intend to run it at about 10~ draw distance, I just want my native resolution and higher texture settings.

Yes.

Everything at High ("highest" for Texture Filter Quality), View distance at ~30 uses 852 out of the max 871MB.

Works for me then, thanks. ^^