Grafix card question

My trusty Nvidia 8500 died this afternoon so I need to get a replacement card quickly. I have a look at what I can afford and there seem to be a few Nvidia 9500's and some of the newer 210 or 200's. Which would be the best type to go for? I'm on a very tight budget so price is a main factor for me. Whatever card I but has to come in under £50 including postage. Recommendations please...

I don't know what they would cost in the UK but you can get great deals on 9800GTX= in the states right now I picked mine up for 110USD free shipping from new egg I think(maybe it was tiger direct)

great card but it is big

For the low end Nvidias, I would go with a GT 220, then a 9500 GT, then a 210. The 9500 has twice the processing cores that the 210 has, and also has 128 bit memory bus, as opposed to 64 bit on the 210. The 220 GT has the same bus width as the 9500, but has more cores and higher clock speeds. But if you can find a reasonably priced 9800 series, it will outperform any of those three.

I was really pleased with my BFG 9800GT - and it was pretty cheap.

Hmn....I had the exact same card and it died 12 days ago--despite being only 18 months old.

Maybe that doesn't mean anything. But on the other hand, it would be interesting if a lot of people with that card found it had an unusually short life...

When looking for a replacement card, be sure to check the power requirements (and know the limits of your current power supply) - I have seen too many people run out, buy a new graphics card and pop it into their systems only to have the power supply, motherboard, or new graphics card go poof because of inadequate power.

That being said, the series of the card, ie: 8000, 9000, or the newer 200 (I hate when they change the number schemes!) generally reflects the technology within the card and newer technology support.

If any one run a ATI Radeon 7500 ? i can run my on high runs good i ask becus it not listed .

I just bought the NVidea 285 GTX its supposed to arrive today. I will post when I get it installed and let you know how it works in SL.

I spent about $300 bucks on the card not sure you want to go that high though.


Edit: I am replacing dual ATI 1950X cards which pretty much melted in less than 2 years for me running SL.

The new card requires a 450 power supply. Since hte one in my machine is a 700 I figure I am good to go. My only worry is how to completely remove the ATI drivers. I remember having some trouble doing this about 5 years ago.

If its working for you great. ATI and SL have not had a good history as happy companions. Be very careful about the heat in your system ATI cards typically run hotter than NVidea and I have fried many components including the video cards themselves due to SL heat issues and ATI.

Seconded! This is a hugely important issue to consider when looking at graphics cards.

Download Driver Sweeper at http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

Thanks for your replies. I downloaded driversweeper. Had a look at a few 9800's but they were way too expensive for me and found a deal on a Palit nvidia GT220 for £52 including next day delivery. I have a 650 watt power supply (the fan even has tacky go-faster blue LED's!) so that should be sufficient. Not sure what happened to my 8500 card. It was working at lunchtime, switched the computer off, came back a few hours later.... dead. It did have some weird lockups the day before but other than that it worked perfectly.

The 220 should be fine, but the power supplies with the red LEDs are 5% faster than the blue LEDs.

TYVVM I am still sitting here waiting for the delivery truck but THAT will come in very handy and maybe save me alot of grief once it does arrive.

Dark
I installed a new Nvidia gtx 250 and SL stated it didn't meet min requirements - lol
thought I'd let you know

Linden Lab hasn't updated the list of graphics cards SL recognizes in a while. I don't know why they didn't bother to do it when they brought out 1.23.5, since it would only take a few minutes.

The system requirements say GeForce 6600 or better. 250<6600, so it shouldn't work. It's just like all these people complaining about Windows 7 not working. 3.1<7<95, and you can't run SL on Windows 95, so why would 7 work?

I have heard of people running the 285 and 295 successfully though. They are newer cards than the 6000 series from what I understand so I am figuring with a little fiddling it should go ok.

I have run SL before on NEW cards SL didn't yet "support" with no problems.

50 minus DKP!

Sorry, I didn't have "humor" tags around my post. If you get annoying messages when logging in, go to the shortcut for SL and right-click to get "properties" and at the end of the shortcut add "--noprobe" to stop SL from looking to see what video card you have. It will launch with everything set to low, and then you just have to move the sliders to where you want them in the custom video settings. If you have a desktop GTX 285, than something like all the way up will work...on a far less powerful GTX 260m, I have everything on high, all the effects boxes checked, and have 4x AA turned on.

No I should apologize for coming off in a panic. I have been living with Dying ATI 1950X cards for a month. The delivery truck hasn't arrived yet. The last time I did a video swap it was about 4-5 years ago on a ME machine and it was a 12 hour nightmare of arguing with drivers. I kinda panicked a bit when you said the card wouldn't work. I do apologize and TY for the help.

I got the 285 GTX I know it is no longer the top of the line but it is as much card as I can afford right now.

Card installed

With AA set to 16x

Graphic settings to High

90-115 FPS



Graphics settings on Ultra

50-55 FPS


I am SOOOOO loving this

Edit:This is MAINLAND

can run it all night and befor the last big up date stay on for hrs on hrs log in . but i keep it in mind thanks for info. never have touble out it one the few lucky ones i guess
tc

Well to be honest I'm a lil confused
2.4 ghts duo-core, 2 gig ram
I removed an 8600gt 512 ram
and installed the gtx250
no improvement whatso ever, did I do something wrong?
you folks seem pretty knowledgeable about these things, what should I check?

Also running Vista, debating whether to go back to XP or move up to Win7

Since SL isn't automatically detecting 200 series cards, you might try playing with the "advanced" graphics settings in the preferences menu. As I recall, the 8600GT should default to medium settings...the GTS 250 should be able to handle Ultra with 4x AA turned on.