whats a reasonable price for you and what is it for e.g gaming, hd films, internet surfing this makes a differance what it is for as it will change how reasonable the price is. if you want a better GFX card for your money go for ATI as they are cheaper but then again some people don't like them cause of there drivers, personally i'm an ati fan
ATI drivers are a major letdown, the only ATI drivers that actually work are the ones for the FireGL series, and normal people cannot afford FireGL cards. Your best bet would likely be a high end Geforce 8 series (8800GT/GTX/Ultra) as these cards are able to play all current games on high settings, but have been succeeded by two newer series (9 series and 200 series). This is, of course, assuming you are a gamer. If you arent then you don't need such graphics power and you can go cheaper to say an 8600GT/8500GT or even a 7900. I would not suggest going below the 7 series, however the 6800s are dirt cheap now.
I have a 8600GT and am happy with it. I'm not a hardcore gamer that's why "highest" settings don't bother me too much. It plays all current games, although the latest ones need to be toned down a bit (but I can play Mass Effect for example on highest settings). It should last me until next year sometime when I will upgrade again.
I reached a conclusion some time ago: if you're a gamer, then use all your money to get an excellent GFX card (and you might need a new motherboard too). Of course it'll be expensive, but it'll last for many years and it'll play every game on the highest settings, as Loonylion said before. But if you want a GFX card for anything but hardcore gaming, then most of the other cards will do it. 7, 8 and 9 series (Geforce cards) with numbers between 400 to 700 will be perfectly good for you. You can always go ATI if you want. In fact, all of my GFX cards have been ATI, and I have nothing to complain about: they did what they supposed to.
ati drivers are horrible. i bought a 9800 pro a long time ago during the agp days and my god. don't buy anything lower then the 8000 series as you'll pay more for them. look around the net and you'll find deals. if you look at slick deals, sometimes they have graphic card sales where you can pay for a 9600gt for less than a $100. btw, melbourne?! as in california, usa or somewhere else?
bull i had a 9800 pro and it was awesome. you damn ati haters, you just don't know how to use them maybe i like ati to much but i still have not had any problems, my ati cards have always run better then friends nvidia equivilents and when i was fixing a mates pc the other day using its nvidia's advanced options where horrible and there was less choices i could make. and they are much cheaper and ARE better the point i'm making is if your an extreme gamer and have more money then sence and can't stand the thought of even the smallest of glitches now and then then nvidia is for you if you don't have alot of money and want better GFX for the money you spend then ati is the choice for you. also its fact ati are better for media centres its only my opinion but then i'm not a hardcore pc gamer i have my 360 for that but i do use my pc as a media centre.
I used ATI for years and I switched to nvidia because I got fed up of the radeon series drivers crashing for no good reason. Additionally catalyst control center is useless and unnecessary bloatware. The control panel tabs they used to have did a much better job.
Geforce 8600GTs are cheap, around $80. Thats for 512mb, but they are still damn good cards for the price. And if your motherboard can support it, cheap for an sli setup. Slighty more expensive is the 9 series which are more around $100. The 9400 is decent for its price, but it won't do much more than the 8600. I've seen 9600's for $130 in 512mb which is very good for that price. Then you could go the more expensive option of the 8800 or 9800. The 8800GT and 9800GT 512mb are around $170-$180. I may be wrong, but I think they are about $250 for 1GB. But then you could go the 1GB GTX's, which are considerably powerful, but the performance is there. Not sure how much you'd notice, unless you're comparing them with say an 8600GT. There are also some other GTX cards that go as high as $500, but I'm don't know much about them.
the cards that go up to $500 are the 2 series (probably the 280s) Those are the most current cards at this time.
Yeh. I just checked the MSY catalog. OH, btw icelol, if you want decent priced pc parts including gfx cards, go to msy. Theres one in box hill and another in clayton. They have good parts and they are pretty cheap. Thats where I bought all my parts for my machine. 8600s are $70 there at the moment
Sup! ATM, I have 8800 GT. Works like a Dream. Can play every game on high detail, and not that pricey either! If you're going for high-end products, hit up 9800 GTX and use SLI Mode with 2 of them... It's amazing. GTX 280 is Also good if you're on a big budget. It all depends on what you want!
http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx here is a graphics card for sale at a good price as well. it's only a one day deal though.
If you're pocket's big enuff, go for the 8800 GTS/GTX or GTX 260. If you're just looking for a 150 dollar card that plays almost all the games out atm, not on highest settings of course, but still works great.. I would go for 8800 GT or GS. Both are great, and all the 8 Series has PhysX.
