cheap nvidia card recommendations?

i would definitely go with nvidia geforce 6800 GS

 

While they aren't ALL there is to performance, I consider them to be a good rough indication of performance. Obviously, there are other things that will affect performance.

The higher-end FX series did just fine in a lot of cases; however, its poor PS 2.0 performance is what killed it in many games and benchmarks ... Same can be said about ATI's poor OpenGL performance. The lower-end and mid-range FX series wasn't even good on paper

 

yea... these numbers only give a rough thing to expect, but everything has its ups and downs...


so, what card is to choose?

 

6800GS hands down. best power for your money ratio and it creams the x1600 competition.

 

yeah

again, as many people have said, price for performance the 6800gs beats the x1600's NO PROBLEM.

here is a link, its german but we all can read graphs and frame rates in any language. http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2005/test_nvidia_geforce_6800_gs/16/

if you didnt care which you got, ati or nvidia, i would personally get either of these 2 cards before i would get a 6800gs because performance to price ratio is even higher in these 2 cards:


x800gto2 (can unlock the pipelines and overclock tremendously)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102634
here is the link to overclock and unlock the x800gto2:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/127/2

or this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102579
16 pipes, 6 vertex shaders. 256 bit mem and 512 mb video memory make this card along with is awesome silent cooler "the ****".

but if you are an nvidia geek or want sli the 6800gs is by far the best deal currently.