Gfx card question

[MacKilvenny]

Hi, recently had a case fan fail on me, and it took me a while to work out what was causing the crashing, unfortunately while I was working this out my gfx card died, so I'm now looking to grab a new one. Thought I'd ask for opinions here as most of what I do on my PC is EQ and if there’s any known issues with EQ and a card I'd rather not get it.

don't have much cash to splash, and although I don't need a high end card I always try to get the best I can for my cash in case I decide to play something more visually taxing.

my rig currently is:
Asus M2N68-CM
AMD64 AM2 LE01640 (2.6GHz)
2GB Crucial 800MHz/PC2-6400 Balistix
Hiper 580W Type-R Modular PSU
Antec Sonata Case with a new AKASA 120mm Amber rear fan thanks to the Antec one burning out

Have always used nVidia cards, the only ATI I ever tried out never worked, but am considering this card:
Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate Edition http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158546

really the only other competitor that I have seen is:
XFX 9600GT http://www.ebuyer.com/product/170256

however I really don’t like the fact that nVidia decided to drop the core clock speed by 50Mhz so am leaning towards the ATI card. Would appreciate opinions on these cards, or indeed other
suggestions.

Cheers.

[Silthrix]

I have an ATI simply because it was the highest end AGP card still made (didn't feel like a MB/CPU upgrade). It works fine. I think it's the 3650 or something like that. Remember, ATI is in the Xbox 360 so they can't be all that bad

[Varalla]

Either of those cards will easily handle EQ.

EQ doesn't tax the graphics card much at all.
Go cheap

[Rildoan]

EQ is primarily a memory hog, more RAM will be better than a faster Gfx card.

[MacKilvenny]

cheers for the replies, since there's been no one saying not to go for ATI think I will do just that although I have now seen this one http://www.ebuyer.com/product/171659 so think that's what I'll go for.

Originally Posted by Rildoan

EQ is primarily a memory hog, more RAM will be better than a faster Gfx card.

aye, unfortunately since I'm still running XP fairly limited use in more RAM although if I can ever get EQ running in Ubuntu I will be saying tata to Microsoft (although come to think of it I'll have to check if I have the 64 bit version or not)

[wulerdar]

eq runs pretty good on wine i hear

[Yelt]

About RAM I find the site http://www.crucial.com pretty helpful - they have a database of RAM limits for most computers and even a system recognizer download. I am very confident in the NVIDIA product line and just like ATI to keep NVIDIA trying their best - which they do. With DX10 capable cards running on Vista I see some sort of enhanced textures download option appears on the EQ opening screen - but I haven't dared to get them as it's probably hard to reverse that move and the consequences in raids is unknown.

[Varalla]

Although I have to admit I also tend to go with nvidia and also know nvidia is the current champ, I have both a Radeon 4870 X2 and a laptop with a GeForce 260 GTX.

I really cant say either company is shit anymore.
Both have quality products and who is on top at the time usually is a random roll of the dice.

So yeah ATI is a fine choice
Only thing I dont like about that video card in question (The link) is that it is DDR3 and not a variety of GDDR that I always get.

Anyone familiar with graphics cards with just DDR3?
I don't want to give the green light on something that I haven't used.
DDR3 seems slow for graphics... then again were talking about EQ, not a hardcore graphics cruncher.
The original link had 512 megs of GDDR3.
1 gig of DDR3 Vs. 512 of GDDR3.
Tough call

EDIT: Just researched this one as it baffled me.
Go with the GDDR card over the DDR card.
That 1 gig of RAM would be preferable if you were running a high res 30 inch monitor, but something tells me you are running a standard 19 or 20 inch monitor at non-insane resolutions.

You will get more bang for your buck with the first ATI video card you linked.

RE-EDIT: Jy just schooled me that the nvida card you linked is also DDR3.
Sorry I missed that. LOL

This be the winner of everything you linked just to stop any confusion.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158546

[MacKilvenny]

lol, cheers for the post Var, hadn't even thought about the GDDR/DDR good to know, unfortunately that card is now discontinued, oh well, the search continues.

Edit: short search - think I'm going for this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169828 seems to tick all the boxes even if ebuyer seem to have mislabled it as DDR not GDDR (at least they got it right in the description)

[MacKilvenny]

Originally Posted by wulerdar

eq runs pretty good on wine i hear

think I've got to fanny about with gfx drivers (will obviously need to wait till I get the new card) can get it to run fine untill char select then as soon as I try to enter game it crashses out, haven't had a look in a couple of months though, so will have to get back into it MS is pissing me off more and more these days.

[Crashbomba]

Usually if game crashes when you enter the world then there is something that is causing a conflict in your UI.

[MacKilvenny]

Originally Posted by Crashbomba

Usually if game crashes when you enter the world then there is something that is causing a conflict in your UI.

this the case even without custom UI? haven't gotten around to getting custom ones sorted out after all these years.