Best video card for the money?

I just got a new motherboard and am building my next computer. I have been out of the loop for a while so far as video cards are concerned. What is currently the best video card for the money right now?

I really don't want to spend anything over $200 (exceeding that price range is just insane IMO) but if you can get a hell of a lot more for maybe $220 or smth I'll possibly consider it. Modding a video card is preferred if I can save money and get a better card. I don't care if it is ATI or nVidia, but I do want it to be a dx9 (or better, dx10 if those are around?) card. Also, my new motherboard has one 16 lane PCI-express slot (as well as 4 PCI and 2 1 lane PCI-express slots) and it doesn't have an AGP slot.

Would it be better to get a gddr3 128MB version or a 256MB with conventional graphics memory?

BTW, how does this one compare to the radeon x700? It seems to be in the same price range.

fivefeet8 said:

Get the 6600gt PCI-E. You can SLI it with another 6600gt another day.

Click to expand...

How so? I only have one 16xLane PCI-express slot. I did notice the little bridge adapter it has, but my guess is they intend that for another 16xLane slot. I do have two 1xLane PCI-Express slots, but somehow I don't see how that would work, unless theres a different 6600GT that is designed to work on a 1xLane slot?

I can't seem to find the 6600 GT with 256MB of vram, although I can find a 6600 with 256, but it doesn't have the "GT" (whatever that is.) Anybody have any idea how differently those two would perform? I just don't like the idea of going with only 128MB of vram.

I did notice that the X700 has a 256MB GDDR3 configuration available...

fivefeet8 said:

The 6600gt doesn't have 256 megs. Most are 128 megs. From the benchmarks though, it doesn't look like having 256 megs will make that much of a difference in real world gaming for the 6600gt. I'm sure some of Nvidia AIB partners will bring out a 256 meg 6600gt sooner or later. The 6600(non gt) can be found with 256 megs, but is lower clocked and probably costs the same as the 6600gt/128meg...

There are 2 versions of the x700 cards. The X700pro with 256 megs of ram, but are clocked slower. The x700xt card has only 128 megs of ram, but is clocked faster.

Click to expand...

Well, with a 6600GT 128, there are frequent long pauses in doom 3 at 800x600. An older card (GFFX 5700 I think) with 256MB doesn't have this problem (although the sustained framerate is quite a bit lower.) I suppose it is possible that this is due to low system memory (only 512MB in this case) but usually pauses like what I am seeing are due to texture memory being shuffled around in the video card. (the sound actually keeps going while these pauses happen, which doesn't usually happen when virtual memory is being shuffled.)

Nah, the only boards that do this are for high end xeon'ish configurations. If I were to do that then I would have to replace all of my current parts with far more expensive versions, probably more than doubling (or even trippling) what I have paid so far. The speed gain wouldn't be worth it. As it is my computer is already faster than the majority of those out there, which means I am pretty well set so far as games are concerned for quite a while. Hell, Doom 3 already maxxes out in its framerate even in ultra setting (except for the long pausing,) and that is more than I ever wanted.

FWIW, here is what my system is probably going to look like:

P4 550 (Running at 3.4Ghz) w/Intel D915PBL Motherboard.
1GB of 4200 533mhz DDR2 memory.
Geforce 6600 GT 128MB, PCI-Express.
Realtek ALC880 HD Audio (this is a very good sound card, excellent sound quality and one of only a few that supports true digital surround in games)
Seagate 160GB HDD, 8MB Cache and 8.5ms access time.
Sony DRU-500a (2.4x/2.4x/8x DVD+RW, 4x/2x/8x DVD-RW, 24x/10x/32x CD-RW)
Scorpio 868 case (seen nya except mine came with more fans than that one)
19" Envision monitor.
Logitech mx500 mouse.

By the time I am finished, I'll probably have spent around $700. (not counting the monitor, mouse, and dvd drive which I took from a previous computer)

Heres a little update in case anybody is interested: Doom 3 seems to now run flawlessly in Ultra Quality mode at 1024x768 on my GF6600GT PCI-e now that I have upgraded to dual channel DDR2 memory, even with generic 4-4-4-4 memory. I guess this depends more on how you configure the rest of your system vs just the video card itself, because some 6800 Ultra users have told me that they can't even do this. Even during the boss battles or when you find yourself ambushed by a whole bunch of NPCs at the same time, it is able to sustain a steady 60FPS. No major pausing or anything.

I'm not quite sure why ID software says that you should have 500MB of video memory for that mode. My new card only has 128MB and it works fine. This is one kick ass card for only $179, and it supports all of the same 3d features as the $500+ cards. No point in going the SLI route and buying expensive motherboards for that either, as this card is clearly capable of doing everything that any modern game can demand.