A few questions about GPUs

Hey all,

First of all, I want to buy a graphics card. I'm a little confused, since there are so many cards out there. I'm thinking of an Nvidia one, but ATI is fine to. I'd like to keep the cost to around $130. Could someone explain what the differences are between the Nvidia 8 & 9 series is, and what all of the letters in the names mean (like GT, GTS, GTX, etc..)? I was looking around on newegg.com, they seem to have really good prices. Here is one that I found that seems to have a lot of grunt for the price. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121251 Also, does it really matter what brand it is? Like PNY or ASUS, etc. I mean, it's still an Nvidia or ATI chip. Any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

ATI and Nvidia rarely manufacture their own cards. Manufacturers like Asus, PNY, XFX, BFG, Sapphire make the cards based on the chipsets. But if you're going for 130...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130318

Nvidia 8800GT.

Can't say there's any reason to buy anything else. It'll certainly blow anything else away at that price point.

Could someone explain what the differences are between the Nvidia 8 & 9 series is, and what all of the letters in the names mean (like GT, GTS, GTX, etc..)?

Also, does it really matter what brand it is? Like PNY or ASUS, etc. I mean, it's still an Nvidia or ATI chip. Any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

wehttam16

The lowest series is GS-GT-GTS-GTX-Ultra it refers to its pixel pipelines, the more the pixel pipelines the more faster, so GS has 4, GT has 8, GTS has 16...etc

The brand may refers to its stability and it's still nVIDIA or ATi chip...

Hey, I've got another question. I'm not sure that I'll really need a card like the 8800GT. I'll mostly just play some strategy games on the PC. I've got an Xbox 360 for games like Halo and Call of Duty 4. So I'm thinking like a 9600 GSO, or 9600GT. Which do you think would be the better option? The GT has a higher core speed and shader clock speed, and it's a 512mb versus 384mb for the GSO. But the GT only has 64 cores, where as the GSO has 96. So which do you think would be the better option? They're both about the same price. Thankswehttam16

9600GT it better... it has 256-bit while 9600GSO only 192-bit...