New video card suggestions

[Skiz]

I'm gonna get a new video card, but what kind should I get. I don't know alot about them. Right now I have an ATI Radeon 8500. Here is the rest of my specs. I'm thinking about doing this to stay ahead of pc game requirements.

[tesco]

9600pro, 9600xt, 9800, 9800pro, or 9800xt.
anything higher is a waste of money imo.

or if you want nvidia:
one of the 5700 or 5900's.

[Virtualbody1234]

What's your budget?

[Mr. Elmo]

if you want to "stay ahead of pc game requirements" than its going to be a 9800 or higher. or the 5900 line up for nvidia.

my friend has a 9600pro and he can barely play CS:Source at med setting on 8x6. hes getting around 50fps.

[kaiweiler]

The thing is that no matter what card you get, the second you take it out of the box it will be "old"
One can never keep up with computer hardware....

[tesco]

if you want to "stay ahead of pc game requirements" than its going to be a 9800 or higher. or the 5900 line up for nvidia.

my friend has a 9600pro and he can barely play CS:Source at med setting on 8x6. hes getting around 50fps.

That's not even a bad frame rate.

[Mr. Elmo]

i dont know about any other games, but 45-50 fps in cs is kinda choppy, it itsnt very smooth. I know the whole thing about human eyes detecting things at 30fps and movies being at 29.97 and blah blah blah, but in cs, at least for me, 45-50 fps is hard to play in

[kaiweiler]

i dont know about any other games, but 45-50 fps in cs is kinda choppy, it itsnt very smooth. I know the whole thing about human eyes detecting things at 30fps and movies being at 29.97 and blah blah blah, but in cs, at least for me, 45-50 fps is hard to play in

agreed. In cs I got 100fps constant because that is what the game's max was, now in css I get anywhere from 75-110.
I have experienced playing on sub-50 fps in cs on my friends comp though and it is definately noticable.

[Skiz]

What's your budget?

Gonna ask for it for Christmas, so kinda hard to tell.

The game I'm into playin right now is Call of Duty United Offensive. I play that on 1280x1024 and keep most of the graphics settings on 'normal'. I'd like to turn those setings past 'high' and on to 'extra' for example.

Also, is there anything else you guys see up there that needs upgrading?

[Mr. Elmo]

to me, that whole theory of human eyes only detecting 30fps is a whole bunch of crap.

anyways, back to the topic, skizo, if you want to play games with everything past high and onto "extra" , you definately dont want anything less than a 9800. cheapest one on newegg is $173usd, at retail store such as bestbuy....its prob more than $250 (seeing how they have the 9600xt at 199.99 )