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So, my laptop died the other day :(

I dont need a mobile platform anymore- so I found a pretty good deal on an AMD quad phenom(2.6ghz, and 6g of ddr3).

Its got an onboard ati 3200, but Im pretty sure thats not gonna do much video or graphics wise.

So, Im not an FPS player that need to squeeze 5000fps out of my machine, but Id like to be bale to play stuff and have it look decent without dropping to like 2fps.

Anyone have any recommends in the 100$ range? Im just gonna be hitting the rts/rpg type games, and likely SC2.

Graphics cards in general these days will cost you more than $100 to get a good one.

Try new egg. They have sales often and they might be having one on GTX200's or the ATI equivalents (don't know much about ATI, so sue me).

SCII's system requirements will likely be low though. Most RTS games take up less juice than lets say, Crysis. A lot less juice. If that game is enough for you, you'd probably be fine with an older Nvidia 9800 series or their ATI equivalents.

For this sort of thing it's best to shop around online and see what you can find. Computer hardware is never cheap, especially GPU's, but you can find places with sales and deals that can save you money.

I second the Nvidia 9800.

I think I'm running a 9600 right now and that seems to play sc2 fine. I have an even lower end ati card that can play sc2 so the 9800 should be more than enough.

In the Ultra-High end market ATI trumps Nvida hands down.

For a cheap but good card look into the ATI HD 4850 or a GeForce GTS 250, they rate about the same as far as benchmarking goes and the both go for around $105 the biggest difference is that the ATI card uses alittle less energy.

If your looking for something that is going to remain usefull down the road, I would recommend picking a card that is Direct X 11 compatable, in that area the best bang for the buck goes to the ATI Radeon HD 5750

Hope this helps, if you need more info on this stuff the people over at Toms Hardware are a knowledgeable bunch and offer some great reviews.

Hmmm Nvidia 9800-9600 Graphics cards have let me down in the past when it comes to some RTS games Like company of heroes full graphics and empire.

So go for something better like a Radeon 5000 Seris card.

Cost more but worth it

I had an Nvidia 250, which I only had a few months before turning it over to my brother. It still works well with high-end apps. We both play Armed Assault 2, so that does give it a workout.

I think the 250 is comperable to the late 9000 series, and is probably a little less power hungry.

ZF-

Zad Fnark wrote:I think the 250 is comperable to the late 9000 series, and is probably a little less power hungry.ZF-

That's because the 250 is another name for a 9800 GTX

Which is just another name for the 8800GTX IIRC...
Still the 250 is a better card as far as I know, the 9XXX nVidia cards were pretty underwhelming.

If you wanna spend a bit more cash, the GTX460s just came out at around the USD200 mark, current generation DX11 card that *should* last at least 2 years before it starts getting sluggish for your purposes, otherwise id probably recommend either the 5770 or 5750, but I'm not very well versed on the Red teams offerings anymore

Thanks for the feedback guys ^_^

I ended up finding a really good deal on a VAIO with a ati 4650/512mb on board. So, not super uber but I'll be able to play most anything I want at a fairly decent setting.

And watch/burn blurays too

LordofHats wrote:
That's because the 250 is another name for a 9800 GTX

Yeah, I figured they just reset their naming scheme at that mark. I only tend to follow this stuff when I'm acutally looking for a new one.

I spent the bucks on a 285. I didn't realize I needed another power input for it, plus it barely fit into the case. I wound up upgrading my power box to a 750 Watt one.

Designations aside, it's cheap, and I could run ArmA2 fine on it.

ZF-