Time to upgrade! I tend to do this every couple of years, but, I often get confused about what is the fastest, best chipset, best manufacturer, etc. I've bought ALOT of lemon cards in the past, the latest was some NVidea 8500gt thing...what a piece of crap..no offense if you have one, but, my Radeon 1650XT blows it away. Anyway, I decided no NVidea this time, even though I know they hold the record for best frame rates on Crysis and such, ATM, but, I wanted a more balanced card, something to fit more my style. After alot of research, I think I picked the right one. I'm getting this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102818
now, before you all start laughing, there are two main things that got me to pick this card, as an upgrade to that horrible NVidea card. One, is the fact it has a built in hdmi port, for direct connection to a hi-def TV. My next upgrade, which will plug into it, will be this:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10778775
thats a 32" 1080p tv, that will fit on my desk, with a 6.5 ms access time, a little slower than a 5ms regular computer monitor, for a decent price. Add in a Blue Ray drive, and I'll have a decent home theater pc, for not alot of money.
the second reason I picked this card is the low power consumption. Believe it or not, this card only uses 9 watts at idle, and 70watts at full load.
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=291&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=11
And, as an added bonus, its an overclocking monster. So, if I do decide to overclock, it can handle it.
My heart was in a 4870, then I looked at 4850x2's, but, after some thinking, I decided this would probably best fit my needs, since I', not a hardcore gamer, by any means, and I like the idea of the hdmi port. If it comes with the three games, as advertised, I'll be doing really well.
Something I learned about AMD, they always sneak something in now and then that can do better than what the specs say. Its almost like their best is maxed out, and their slightly less than best can be improved by overclocking. The Opteron 180 I have is another example.
So, I'm waiting anxiously for my new card, to get plugged into that dual core Athlon I built a while back, and do nothing with, to see if it will take the place of the trusty old Opteron.
