Age of Conan

[JPMiller]

You said it... technically a 9600 is a 9600
Often the main differences are the core clock speed and cooling options

I like the heatpipe options from ECS and MSI
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814134040
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127355

[johnross2007]

One of them has 1 gig of RAM but that is completely unnecessary especially since you are running XP (I assume 32-bit). Higher clock means more performance, but really not that much more.

[homrok]

Originally Posted by JPMiller

You said it... technically a 9600 is a 9600
Often the main differences are the core clock speed and cooling options

I like the heatpipe options from ECS and MSI
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814134040
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127355

Might be one of my normal stupid questions but they are
PCI Express 2.0 do i have that in my box? sense i am upgrading from 7900 card witch i assume is PCI Express 1.0?
I'm not sure what the difference is with 2.0 and 1.0 does 1.0 mean you plug it into 1 slot and 2.0 into 2 slots or do you have to change motherboard for a motherboard that got some 2.0 slots as well? or is it the same slot just different speed settings? or does 2.0 mean that you need 2 cards to be SLI connected together?.. as always 100 questions witch i do apoligyze for.

also, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130345 on that one you got 1 gig instead of the normal 512meg,

Hexo

[homrok]

Originally Posted by johnross2007

One of them has 1 gig of RAM but that is completely unnecessary especially since you are running XP (I assume 32-bit). Higher clock means more performance, but really not that much more.

After i get the card ill get Vista to be able to use the dx10 tech, and i assume Vista alows 1 gig on cards. still i dont like the look or feel on Vista but ill get used to it I assume.

[johnross2007]

If you get that 1-gig card and Vista make sure you get Vista 64-bit so it will recognize all of the ram. The 1-gig is a little overkill and you might be better off getting a 9800GTX, though I don't really remember what your budget is. There's a reason the best single-GPU card only has 512MB of ram; 1 gig isn't necessary or even very useful yet. Not to say you won't see improved performance, but I doubt it would be worth the extra $80.

edit: oh and about PCI Express 2.0. don't worry about it; it is ahead of its time. It doubles the bandwidth between it and the motherboard, but the GPU STILL doesn't fill up the current generation system. It would be nice to know what motherboard you have though.

[ShyguyXPC]

Originally Posted by johnross2007

Remember that oftentimes people's GPU problems are not actually with the GPU. Often they have an underpowered or low quality power supply that causes it. Until now I haven't heard a major complaint against the 9600. A good place to get a good selection of reviews is Newegg. Remember that most people posting problems on forums are doing so because.... they are having problems. They don't post if everything is working as it should. On Newegg you'll see both sides.

Please tell me you don't take many of those Newegg reviews seriously?

probably more than half of the reviews posted there are from Noobs who think they know a lot about computers & hardware, when they don't know a thing...

I can't even count how many times I've read reviews & they've posted that they have a High technical understanding of stuff, & then make some lame post & sound like an idiot when they do...

I'd have to say very few (less than 50%) reviews are by knowledgeable people... from what I've read on there.

I always take the Newegg reviews with a ground chip of a grain of salt when using them for decisions on parts... which is why I read reviews or posts on there, plus several tech forums, to get a good idea of the product.

[homrok]

Originally Posted by johnross2007

If you get that 1-gig card and Vista make sure you get Vista 64-bit so it will recognize all of the ram. The 1-gig is a little overkill and you might be better off getting a 9800GTX, though I don't really remember what your budget is. There's a reason the best single-GPU card only has 512MB of ram; 1 gig isn't necessary or even very useful yet. Not to say you won't see improved performance, but I doubt it would be worth the extra $80.

edit: oh and about PCI Express 2.0. don't worry about it; it is ahead of its time. It doubles the bandwidth between it and the motherboard, but the GPU STILL doesn't fill up the current generation system. It would be nice to know what motherboard you have though.

That sounds good, i got a little frightend when i saw the pci express 2.0 all the sudden, I will post all my computer specs as i get back home from work, my budges id say is at the very very most 400 including tax, but id like to save as much as possible 200 or 300 on a card is acceptable 300 might be stretching it a little but still doable 400 than i would lack future funds for vista laster on, 200 to me is alright but id rather spend closer to 300 on a card i dont have to upgrade next week, than 200 for a card that i can't use max grafix on and still might have to upgrade in a soon future.

Edit: might be hard to understand but I want a kick ass card compared to my 7900 and still be able to put a couple of dollars away for future investments but as i said i want a big grafix change from the 7900 so im still not afraid of spending some cash on it.

Edit2: as said before I want to be able to play Age of Conan on a good grafix setting, I read in a newegg rev on one of the 9600 cards than he was in Beta and he could play it on max setting, still not sure what the rest of the system contain, but im not locking myself into 9600 could just as well be a 9800 sept ive seen that the 9800 ones are around 600 dollars or close

[ShyguyXPC]

Originally Posted by johnross2007

One of them has 1 gig of RAM but that is completely unnecessary especially since you are running XP (I assume 32-bit). Higher clock means more performance, but really not that much more.

Originally Posted by johnross2007

If you get that 1-gig card and Vista make sure you get Vista 64-bit so it will recognize all of the ram. The 1-gig is a little overkill and you might be better off getting a 9800GTX, though I don't really remember what your budget is. There's a reason the best single-GPU card only has 512MB of ram; 1 gig isn't necessary or even very useful yet. Not to say you won't see improved performance, but I doubt it would be worth the extra $80.

edit: oh and about PCI Express 2.0. don't worry about it; it is ahead of its time. It doubles the bandwidth between it and the motherboard, but the GPU STILL doesn't fill up the current generation system. It would be nice to know what motherboard you have though.

Whats running WinXP 32 bit have to do with having 1GB of memory on the card & not being able to use it? it will use it no matter what...

but you are right that its not really necessary, the only advantage of having that much ram on a card right now is for larger/more textures on screen as well as larger insane resolutions... in which case the 9600GT will slow to a crawl by that time... depending on the game being run of course.

but as to a 32bit OS, if your running 3GB of RAM & a 1GB card, most likely what will happen is the OS will use less than 2GB of system memory & use the full 1GB on the card to best of its abilities.

to my knowledge, I've never heard of a 32-bit OS (at least of Windows) limiting the Graphics cards useable memory to less than 1GB... especially considering high end 512-640+ MB 3D Animation cards have been on the market for a Loooooooong time now, long before gaming cards got that high, & back then most people used 32bit windows as well...



anyways, yeah if he's going for the 9600GT just grab one of the 512MB models, it'll be good enough, just try to buy one of the fastest factory OC'd models you can for your money. (usually eVGA, XFX, BFG, or MSI these days, though Zotac & a few others have been producing some nice factory OC'd models lately too)

[ShyguyXPC]

sorry damn double posted, clicked submit & it didn't do it, clicked again & had two posts of the same thing

[johnross2007]

It sounds to me like you would like the 9800 GTX for ~$300. It will last you for a very long time compared to the 9600. You could get an OC'd 9800 but that would be pushing your budget. Its fast enough so that it doesn't need to be OC'd, though you can do it yourself easily enough for free.

And I think your PSU should be able to power a 9800 just fine. hmmm.... does anyone know if the GTX requires two 6-pin connectors or just one? And to homrok, how many 6-pin connectors does your PSU have?