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Help an ignorant fool buy a new ATI graphics card
Squirminator2k
they/themNorth Hollywood, CARegistered User regular
they/themNorth Hollywood, CARegistered User regular
I currently have a GeForce 8600 GTS. It's alright, it's good enough for my needs, but recent driver updates have disabled a crucial feature - Scaling with Fixed Aspect Ratio. It's a wonderful little feature that used to allow me to play 4:3 aspect ratio games at 4:3 with black bars at the side. However since an update a few months ago, if I select the option and click "Apply" it automatically disables itself.
My monitor is compatible with the feature, and it's connected via DVI. The feature just decided it doesn't want to work anymore. I'm not the only one having a problem with this feature, and numerous attempts to contact NVidia have been met with silence or decidedly vague responses about how they'll look into it, if they feel like it. One email I received was basically a Corporate-Talk translation of "Quiet, kid. You're making us look bad."
Rolling the drivers back doesn't work either, because when I do so the NVidia Control Panel (which I need to enable the feature in question) says the drivers are incompatible with the build of the Control Panel I'm using. I can't downgrade the Control Panel for some reason.
So I've come to a conclusion: Fuck NVidia. They don't want to help me? That's fine. I'll give someone else my money. I have an ATI graphics card in my laptop that works beautifully, so I'll give them my desktop business.
The problem is that I've been using NVidia cards for years and I have no idea what is comparable to NVidia's stuff. Ideally I'd like to find an ATI card that is equal to or better than the 8600 GTS. My budget at the moment is anywhere between $70-100. Can anyone else?
tl;dr: Recommend me an ATI graphics card under $100 that's similar to or better than the GeForce 8600 GTS.
edit: For those of you thinking, "Well, clearly his monitor/card/whatever doesn't actually support that feature," if I set the screen resolution to something 4:3 and enable Scaling with Fixed Aspect Ratio, it works. It just disables itself when it detects that it's using a non-16:10 resolution. Because NVidia are dicks.
My monitor is compatible with the feature, and it's connected via DVI. The feature just decided it doesn't want to work anymore. I'm not the only one having a problem with this feature, and numerous attempts to contact NVidia have been met with silence or decidedly vague responses about how they'll look into it, if they feel like it. One email I received was basically a Corporate-Talk translation of "Quiet, kid. You're making us look bad."
Rolling the drivers back doesn't work either, because when I do so the NVidia Control Panel (which I need to enable the feature in question) says the drivers are incompatible with the build of the Control Panel I'm using. I can't downgrade the Control Panel for some reason.
So I've come to a conclusion: Fuck NVidia. They don't want to help me? That's fine. I'll give someone else my money. I have an ATI graphics card in my laptop that works beautifully, so I'll give them my desktop business.
The problem is that I've been using NVidia cards for years and I have no idea what is comparable to NVidia's stuff. Ideally I'd like to find an ATI card that is equal to or better than the 8600 GTS. My budget at the moment is anywhere between $70-100. Can anyone else?
tl;dr: Recommend me an ATI graphics card under $100 that's similar to or better than the GeForce 8600 GTS.
edit: For those of you thinking, "Well, clearly his monitor/card/whatever doesn't actually support that feature," if I set the screen resolution to something 4:3 and enable Scaling with Fixed Aspect Ratio, it works. It just disables itself when it detects that it's using a non-16:10 resolution. Because NVidia are dicks.
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Squirminator2k on
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Otherwise, see what prices you can find for 56xx or 57xx cards. The 5770 in particular has been getting some very good reviews lately.
I used to be a big fan of nVidia, but they seem to be swinging for the fences lately and leaving the midrange in the lurch. ATI has been cleaning up as a result. Plus, ATI's chips are proving to be competitive with nVidia in the high end despite being on the market for 1-2 years (the 4870 and 4890 are still amazing top end cards).
Some sites to check for prices:
Newegg
TigerDirect
Directron
You can do price searches at www.pricewatch.com for some other sites, but be wary of their reputations.
I was in exactly the same place, looking for a $100-ish video card and was specifically looking at the 5670 as it was in my price range and was rated very well regarding power consumption. I was convinced in the computer build thread to cough up the extra $50 for a 5770, and I'm very happy I did. At $100 and no more, the 5670 is supposed to be a great card.
The price difference between the 512 and the 1 GB cards on the 5670 is pretty minimal, too. I don't see a reason not to get a 1 GB card for only $10 more or so.
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Then again this is only $30 more.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
After shipping you're only spending $8 less than some of the 1GB versions. XFX sells a 1GB 5770 for $160.
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