Graphics card search in Off Topic

ID:182140
 
Dec 7 2008, 10:35 am
Me and three of my flatmates recently got Left 4 Dead, and it runs 'fine' on 3 of the computers (mine and 2 laptops, the lappies are running at like lowest settings) but on my other flatmate's PC it blue screens after about 10 mins of play. He has a NVIDIA 6600 so I'm thinking that's the problem since it only just meets the minimum requirements and the rest of the PC is fairly solid (decent P4, 1GB RAM etc). I was going to try one of my 9600GTs in his PC, but it's about 1cm too long to fit (motherboard power supply gets in the way).

So, what would be the best low to mid-range, Left 4 Dead playing graphics card which isn't as insanely long as a NVIDIA 9-series?
#1 Dec 7 2008, 10:44 am
No idea.. However, I do know newegg has dimensions listed on their video cards, so you could just search around.
#2 Dec 7 2008, 11:23 am
As long as the rest of the PC is decent, a geforce 8600 GT will handle Left 4 Dead pretty well.

It's smaller than my geforce 8800 GT, and I'm going to assume your 9600s are about the same size as my 8800.
#3 Dec 7 2008, 12:48 pm
What kind of motherboard positions a video card slot next to the power supply?
#4 Dec 7 2008, 12:57 pm
In response to CaptFalcon33035 (#3)
I had a case that did that. It put the PSU at the front of the computer, so warm air would blow out the front, and out through the back, and intake was through the top. Was a very nice setup, but you did have to watch the dimensions on the gfx card:)
#5 Dec 7 2008, 2:43 pm
In response to CaptFalcon33035 (#3)
It's not next to the PSU - just the plug/socket where the PSU plugs into the motherboard.
#6 Dec 9 2008, 2:12 pm
In response to Elation (#2)
Elation wrote:
As long as the rest of the PC is decent, a geforce 8600 GT will handle Left 4 Dead pretty well.

It's smaller than my geforce 8800 GT, and I'm going to assume your 9600s are about the same size as my 8800.

What he said. I ran L4D on my old 8400 on medium settings surprisingly smoothly. I'd recommend the 8600 though, for a little more power.
#7 Dec 9 2008, 3:41 pm
In response to AmonR (#6)
Plus the 8600 GT is about the best 'bang for buck' card in the 8 series, I believe.
#8 Dec 10 2008, 2:41 pm
In response to Stephen001 (#7)
Stephen001 wrote:
Plus the 8600 GT is about the best 'bang for buck' card in the 8 series, I believe.

Yep, I recently bought one for cheap and it runs a lot of games pretty smooth like HL2 Episode2. So your best bet is probably getting a 8600GT.
#9 Dec 10 2008, 3:16 pm
In response to Stephen001 (#7)
Stephen001 wrote:
Plus the 8600 GT is about the best 'bang for buck' card in the 8 series, I believe.

Depending on the original poster's brand loyalty, I would much rather suggest the Radeon 4670. At $80, and having a heck of a lot better performance than the 8600GT, it's a steal.

I would suggest more research on benchmarks and features that you want before you purchase a new video card, as you probably would prefer not to realize that you bought an outdated GPU. I'd also suggest to take the amount of money you're willing to spend to account, as recently there has been a huge amount of price/performance competition between AMD and NVIDIA in the GPU market.
#10 Dec 10 2008, 6:43 pm (Edited on Dec 10 2008, 6:56 pm)
In response to Unknown Person (#9)
Yeah if you look at the tomshardware's 3DMark benchmarks, the 4670 smokes the 8600gt. I would say the extra 20 or 30 dollars is definitely worth it. Your best bet would be to see how much money you have and look through tomshardware vga charts and search for the measurements.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ gaming-graphics-charts-q3-2008/ 3DMark06-v1-1-0-3DMark-Score,794.html