Quote: "anyway, get an xfx card. even better get two - two 6600gts in an nforce 4 is almost as good as a 6800 ultra"
and the new Gigabyte 3Di Dual 6600 GT, actually out-performs every card on the market.
it all depends on how much your willing to spend really, here Gainward aren't that much; but anyways:
Albatron, PNY, and Gigabyte are the best in the current card producers. A number are alright, I would just suggest don't buy the budget cards; as the developers skimp a bit on features.
FX 5700LE, not worth it. Make sure if you get a 5700, it's Standard, or Ultra. I've heard ALOT of bad things from the ones named after the Radeon symantics... LEs perform horribly and don't support alot of what the cards should, XTs generally perform the same as the Ultra's however they use budget parts and cause alot of compatibility issues. Even heard a few cases of Burn-outs.
(of course comsumers blame NVIDIA's hardware, when the chip is fine.. the manufacturers are the ones screwing witht eh forumula for bigger profit.)
I would strongly suggest a few things when buying cards:
- Only purchase those with GPU Names: GeForce 4 FX, for example is often a bad sign (especially considering FX is Series 5)
- Do NOT purchased the cheapest you can find, generally they have budget / low-grade parts or heating solutions.
- Always use trusted manufacturers. Visit card websites to find list of these.
- Make sure to read up on the system requires for the card prior to purchase; nothing worse than hearing some idiot trying to use a PCI-X card in a PCI slot and then wondering why it burnt out.