General

[melkson]

so i'm finally upgrading my system after 3 years, and have been offered a video card that I thought i'd ask y'all about.

I currently have a Nvidia 8600GT (1GB), and it barely runs Skyrim and other high end games.

I have been offered a Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) for $150. However I don't find this card on any of the 'recommended' video card pages for gaming.


Other system specs:
AMD Athalon 64 x2 Dual Core 4800+
2.41 GHz 3GB RAM
running Windows XP Pro

I've just Upgraded the RAM to 8GB ddr2-800 and will be installing Windows 7 pro (64 bit) this week.

New Motherboard and CPU (quad core 3.2) will be in the next few months.

[mrmag11]

I was in your shoes back in September, I had an 8600 GTS and bumped up to a GTS 450 for $90 after rebates from CompUSA. It can't run many games I would like to play (Skyrim) but that's mainly because my processor is slow. Check out this link for a tier of cards... I couldn't find a Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 listed so I can't help with that card.

Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart : Best Graphics Cards For The Money: January 2012

[philosophia]

Umm, while the Quadro FX 4800 isn't that great (benchmark), it's actually a workstation graphics card, not a gaming graphics card. I'm not really sure what the difference is, but I can tell you that workstation graphics cards are expensive. Really. Freaking. Expensive.

Maybe buy it and see if you can flip a profit? I'm not sure if there's much of a market for them though.

[Curt]

Quadro cards are mainly used in graphic design. I'm not sure on the gaming end of things but it should work just fine. I found a chart once that showed all the differences, but I'm at work and can't really search right now, I will look later if it's still needed. But at $150 take it, these cards are worth in the thousand + dollar range when new.

[chrislognshot]

Originally Posted by melkson

so i'm finally upgrading my system after 3 years, and have been offered a video card that I thought i'd ask y'all about.

I currently have a Nvidia 8600GT (1GB), and it barely runs Skyrim and other high end games.

I have been offered a Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) for $150. However I don't find this card on any of the 'recommended' video card pages for gaming.


Other system specs:
AMD Athalon 64 x2 Dual Core 4800+
2.41 GHz 3GB RAM
running Windows XP Pro

I've just Upgraded the RAM to 8GB ddr2-800 and will be installing Windows 7 pro (64 bit) this week.

New Motherboard and CPU (quad core 3.2) will be in the next few months.

well the first thing we need to know is what lv of power supply you have. second this is that card you where offered is what they said workstation graphics card. you need to find out what your lv of power supply is before you go out and get new card since anything over AMD Radeon™ HD 6870 Graphics will want a 600 watt power supply and 6900 series you will want a least 800 watt power supply not sure want it is for nivida cards are since never used there cards but one integrated on motherboard

[cdrinkh20]

HD 6870 is great value for price. Avoid the factory overclocked models, however, as they cost (usually) a great deal more for very little performance gains. They can be good if they have additional cooling and you plan on doing your own overclocking (as the greatest limit in overvolting anything is how hot it gets), but make sure you CAN overvolt them if you plan on that. For example, I have Gigabyte OC and SOC edition cards, but only Gigabyte's proprietary software can even detect the voltage, and it can't detect my second card in Crossfire...it also hard-locks my computer at idle -_-

In any case, trying to flip that card for a profit could be worth it.

And remember: high-end graphics cards can be CPU-limited. Make sure you get a good CPU first or you may be limiting your GPU.

[CCM Photographer]

The Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 is a workstation card. AFAIK, that model has been discontinued. Workstation cards generally have high specs but in most cases they game worse than the mainstream GPUs.

[melkson]

well, after checking e-bay, I can sell this for $500 or so used, figure a $300 profit margin. With that in mind, what video card can I pick up for $300 or less that is recommended by you fine folks?

i've got a basic 650W PSU, Chiefmax I believe.

[cdrinkh20]

Can you get more specifics on the PSU? Cheaper ones tend to have iffy ratings sometimes (perhaps someone can explain better than me?). For example, they may be rated at a certain wattage but only have half of it on the 12V rail. Also, you need enough Amps on your 12v rail for the card.

If it's decent, you could look at an HD 6950. Essentially, it's a 6970 with a (partially?) locked BIOS. I've read about plenty of people flashing it with a 6970 BIOS and getting the same or better performance for $70 less. I'm afraid I'm not knowledgeable about recent Nvidia cards, but had no issues with my old 8800 GTS.

(I am running 2x 6870s in Crossfire)

[Jinx]

Newegg.com - MSI N560GTX-Ti 448 Twin Frozr III PE/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 448 Cores (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

I have that one. It runs battlefield at the highest settings. Also, isn't Skyrim a console port?