graphics card compatabillity

[syn]

ok...i have a dell xps 720 h2c,running on win xp (home),witch comes with a dual 768mb Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card,i also have 4gb of DDR2 ram,recently my graphics card "fried n died",so it needs replacing,have been recomended the Ati hd4870 witch only comes with 512mb ram but the procesor aparently is pretty cool....can anybody advise me weather i can use this card in my p.c. without any problems or should i stick with Nvidia...am unsure and dont want to waste money on a product i may not be able to use.....

[maynardvdm]

Hi

 

By dual do you mean two Nvidia cards? If yes did both die?

 

You cannot use 1 Nvidia and 1 ATi cards together, you have to use 2 Nvidia or 2 ATi cards.

 

Also the motherboard needs to support SLI for Nvidia and Crossfire for ATi.

[Dalo Harkin]

Nvidia and ATI cards use the same interfaces PCI-E there are various versions of PCI-E though so you may want to check that in the MOBO manual.

The 8800GTX was a good card a while ago, but they were power hungry so you should have a large enough PSU to cope with any card.

You have a HUGE selection of cards available from the Nvidia side you could go the 260GTX, 275,285 or if you have lots of money 295

ATI wise you can go for the 4870, 5850, 5870 but it does all depend on budget and what you use the PC for, as you have an 8800GTX I will assume that you either play games or do video editing (as thats mainly what the higher end cards are for)

You need to have a price bracket in mind and then we can go from there

[kevh]

Hi Syn

 

Just to add i have the Nvidia 1 gb GTS250 which is basically the 8800gtx renamed and a little less power hungry i believe. It handles crysis pretty well on a 22" LCD on MED/HIGH Settings.

 

Cheers Kev :cool: