7950 GT or 8600 GTS

[frosty satan]

so 8600 GTS out of those 2.
one more thing, if i wait another month id have enough money to pick up an 8800 GTS 320MB for $424, would that be a way better choice than the 8600?

[Panda Man]

:P haha, I love ruining things!

Originally Posted by frosty satan

so 8600 GTS out of those 2.
one more thing, if i wait another month id have enough money to pick up an 8800 GTS 320MB for $424, would that be a way better choice than the 8600?

Indeed it would, assuming money is out of the equation. I don't know all the specs, but the 8800GTs should have it beat in everything, clock speeds, memory bandwidth, pipelines.

[Tyreal]

I have an 8800 GTS 320mb and it performs extremely well. I can play just about every game on the market at high settings. Unfortunately, there is still some lag because I only have 1 GB of memory.

After looking at those reviews/previews that Blake posted, I don't like the 8600 at all...

[polobunny]

Stay away from Albatron brand, honestly. That's all I have to say.

[frosty satan]

Originally Posted by polobunny

Stay away from Albatron brand, honestly. That's all I have to say.

hi polobunny
is there something wrong with albatron? coz thats what i was thinking about getting...

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by frosty satan

hi polobunny
is there something wrong with albatron? coz thats what i was thinking about getting...

Nothing but horrible experiences with Albatron. And this is comming from far, GeForce 4 days. Maybe they improved, I wouldn't know, but I wouldn't recommend it until i've tried a few myself.

I stopped buying Asus videocards recently. I've seen quite a high come back on this brand and not only on nVidia series. They really lost the touch in my opinion, on motherboard and video cards. Worse is that their stuff is overpriced.

I have no problem with Gigabyte but I don't sell enough to make a profile out of them.

I don't like XFX and BFG much either, though apparently they have improved alot over the years. Wouldn't know, don't sell alot of those.

Leadtek and MSI are my prefered vendors at the moment, though MSI seems to be a bit more problematic than Leadtek (again only in the video card), I have to do more RMA's for MSI than Leadtek. Both nVidia and ATI based video cards from MSI are rather good performers.

More on the ATI side, I like Sapphire though you have to look out for 'Advantage' cards which are downclocked versions of the regular cards.

Powercolor proves to be a so-so choice, I never really liked TUL corporation from the start. Their bundle are rather pathetic and their card "bland". Alright, the sticker on the cooler doesn't make the card perform better, but sometimes a bit of 'bling' doesn't hurt.

I don't have easy access to other manufacturers selling ATI video cards such as HIS. Sadly enough though, because HIS often put their 'proprietary' cooler on cards and they do look awesome.

[gvblake22]

With still only a 128-bit memory bus, the 8600 series cards are very mid-range and will probably only do well on new games with resolutions at or below 1280x1024 or 1440x900 with little or no AA or AF. If that sounds fine to you, then go for it, but if you want a little better performance for more/better image quality at slightly higher resolutions (up to 1600x1200 or 1680x1050), then something like the X1950 Pro or 7900GT might be be more worth a look. If you want to be able to play games at really high resolutions (1600x1200 or 1920x1200) with all high quality and AA and AF, then a 320MB or 640MB 8800GTS would be worth your while. If you only need very midrange performance, don't care about DirectX 10 quite yet and don't want to spend as much as the 8600 cards cost, then look into a 7600GT or 7900 GS would be good alternatives with great prices.

[Tyreal]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

With still only a 128-bit memory bus, the 8600 series cards are very mid-range and will probably only do well on new games with resolutions at or below 1280x1024 with no AA or AF.

Good thing I went with the 8800

[JazzyJake]

at left click we sell mostly leadtek and eVGA cards.
the eVGA cards are to those who want performance, and the leadtek cards are to those who just want to see beryl run smoothly.
neither of those companies have disappointed us yet

[frosty satan]

so polobunny likes leadtek and MSI, does anyone have an albatron 8800 GTS 320MB they can vouch for?

edit:what do you mean by horrible experiences polobunny?