Need help with bying a GFX card...

[(TKC)-o]T3[o]

ATI cards are much more energy efficient and are able to run fast if not faster without using more power then a air conditioner.

What about the energy the fire department used to put out the fire started by my old Raedon card? Nah.. after seeing that the card was actually on fire, I'll stick to the more pet friendly Nvidia because for my money, nothing buys my loyalty more than a product that won't burn down my house, kill my family, and leave my pet with 3rd degree burns.

I used both cards and in my opinion...

Nvidia-costs more, performs slightly better, runs hotter,used to have better drivers
ATI/AMD-costs less performs slightly worse, runs cooler,has fairly good drivers

ATI cards are much more energy efficient and are able to run fast if not faster without using more power then a air conditioner.

What about the energy the fire department used to put out the fire started by my old Raedon card? Nah.. after seeing that the card was actually on fire, I'll stick to the more pet friendly Nvidia because for my money, nothing buys my loyalty more than a product that won't burn down my house, kill my family, and leave my pet with 3rd degree burns.

that's fine! i had so many issues with nvidia cards i can't believe i did not switch out faster. first card i had was a 6600 gt which was dead on arrival, next was a 6800GTX which died after a year. then i switch to two 7900 GS, first was dead in 6 months and the last one took a year. my cousin was the opposite. he had a ton of issues with ATI cards. he had 2 cards fail, on one of them a capacitor failed on the bored or rather popped and caused a ton of smoke and killed his motherboard as well! currently though he has a HD4870 X2 and i have a HD4870 both overclocked and running on 24/7 rigs without issue for over 2 years. it all depends on preference. if the nvdia card works better for you and you feel safer then fine use it. but as i said company's product quality changes very rapidly and its hard to know what kind of quality your truly going to get. before you buy something, find a review on it first!

also liked to again point out the importance of a good quality power supply. my cousin bought a ULTRA 500 watt modular power supply. after 3 hours of running his case filled with smoke and his computer stopped running. when we replaced the power supply it still did not work. the only thing left working in that computer was the ram, not even the cd-roms or HDD survived that mess.

[(TKC)-o]T3[o]

Nvidia-costs more, performs slightly better, runs hotter,used to have better drivers

I have a GTX 460 SE and I've never had a card that runs cooler. That includes both ATI and Nvidia.

Nvidia-costs more, performs slightly better, runs hotter,used to have better drivers

I have a GTX 460 SE and I've never had a card that runs cooler. That includes both ATI and Nvidia.

he's talking about the high-end cards. those things are freaking ovens. lol. My 6870 runs at 28C idle and ~60C full load, and that's overclocked.

[(TKC)-o]T3[o]

he's talking about the high-end cards. those things are freaking ovens. lol. My 6870 runs at 28C idle and ~60C full load, and that's overclocked.

Well no.. he said "Nvidia" runs hot. Not high-end. So if you're going to make a blanket statement, you better be very specific about what you say. No where did he said 'high-end run hot", so please read it again. And if you have a way of reading his mind, please let me know how you do that because I could probably improve my relationship with a lot of people with that skill.

he's talking about the high-end cards. those things are freaking ovens. lol. My 6870 runs at 28C idle and ~60C full load, and that's overclocked.

Well no.. he said "Nvidia" runs hot. Not high-end. So if you're going to make a blanket statement, you better be very specific about what you say. No where did he said 'high-end run hot", so please read it again. And if you have a way of reading his mind, please let me know how you do that because I could probably improve my relationship with a lot of people with that skill.

ESP is soooooo overrated. I just stare into people's souls

[(TKC)-o]T3[o]

And I stare at goats.. so watch out.

ATI cards are much more energy efficient and are able to run fast if not faster without using more power then a air conditioner.

What about the energy the fire department used to put out the fire started by my old Raedon card? Nah.. after seeing that the card was actually on fire, I'll stick to the more pet friendly Nvidia because for my money, nothing buys my loyalty more than a product that won't burn down my house, kill my family, and leave my pet with 3rd degree burns.

that's fine! i had so many issues with nvidia cards i can't believe i did not switch out faster. first card i had was a 6600 gt which was dead on arrival, next was a 6800GTX which died after a year. then i switch to two 7900 GS, first was dead in 6 months and the last one took a year. my cousin was the opposite. he had a ton of issues with ATI cards. he had 2 cards fail, on one of them a capacitor failed on the bored or rather popped and caused a ton of smoke and killed his motherboard as well! currently though he has a HD4870 X2 and i have a HD4870 both overclocked and running on 24/7 rigs without issue for over 2 years. it all depends on preference. if the nvdia card works better for you and you feel safer then fine use it. but as i said company's product quality changes very rapidly and its hard to know what kind of quality your truly going to get. before you buy something, find a review on it first!

also liked to again point out the importance of a good quality power supply. my cousin bought a ULTRA 500 watt modular power supply. after 3 hours of running his case filled with smoke and his computer stopped running. when we replaced the power supply it still did not work. the only thing left working in that computer was the ram, not even the cd-roms or HDD survived that mess.

Actually, with Nvidia, it really depends who you buy your card from, Ive heard really good reviews about asus, and the newer EVGA cards are great, but the older ones were known to die (from EVGA) plus EVGA offers life time warrenty now. And apperently now, all of the BFG cards are dying...lol..but thats another story...
Also, the GTX 480 is known to be an oven, but Nvidia tweaked it a bit, the new GTX 500 series is really great, its more power efficient and greater cooling.

True, there is noting more to say.

ATI cards are much more energy efficient and are able to run fast if not faster without using more power then a air conditioner. as for clock speeds that's another thing intel shoved down are throat with the Pentium 4 processors. higher clocks do not mean its faster. the GPU's architecture does. so when selecting a graphics card you have to around at multiple benchmarks cause some sites like to pad their results. then move to what resolution you play at, the higher the res the more on-board memory you will need (512gb-1gb is plenty) and again look at how much power that card is going to use and how big your power supply is. its good practice to get a PSU that has the ability to put out twice the amount of power you will be using on a regular bases. a PSU working at 50% load for 100% of the time will last twice as long as a PSU working at 100% load 100% of them time (stay away from multi railed PSU!) just my opinion but i think a HD6850 is perfect for your application.

Tom's just put out their "Best Graphics Cards For The Money: February 2011" article today, might be helpful in finding a card in your price range.

Personally I've never had a gpu card burn up on me, tho I have had a PSU pop a capacitor and spew molten silicone & smoke everywhere, heh. In my experience, ATI's drivers used to be terrible, and nVidia cards have always seemed to be more stable, however ATI has really gotten a lot better in the last few years in every way. Performance, stability, and drivers have all improved greatly and give nVidia some real competition thankfully.

Having thought alot of this, I have figured out that I want the GTX 560 Ti "Super Overclock" @ 1GHz. It looks amazing, and I have got the money for it due to the fact that I had my birthday recently. I am not entirely sure of if I want the GTX 460 or the GTX 560 Ti( I am quite sure that i will take the GTX 560, but u never know, right?), but I am quite sure it will be a Nvidia, because I have always been a Nvidia fan, and always will

Having thought alot of this, I have figured out that I want the GTX 560 Ti "Super Overclock" @ 1GHz. It looks amazing, and I have got the money for it due to the fact that I had my birthday recently. I am not entirely sure of if I want the GTX 460 or the GTX 560 Ti( I am quite sure that i will take the GTX 560, but u never know, right?), but I am quite sure it will be a Nvidia, because I have always been a Nvidia fan, and always will

excellent choice. They say that the 560 Ti is the "new" 8800 GT. 3 Years ago, the 8800GT was the best bang for your buck. and they suppose that the 560 Ti is going to be like that too.

I actually was talking about the high-end cards just wasn't too clear.

Now its the 3rd time I order my CPU and mobo. The other times, something has gone wrong. Along with those, I have ordered myself the GTX 560 Ti.
I cant wait! :D