that time again... Video Cards with best bang for the buck?

[Tsakali]

Seems like my 9800gt crapped out ( 1 long 2 short beeps) and to be honest with you it was holding up ok being that I haven't played any games lately. But now that I have no choice but to get another video card, I figured I would try to make a sensible purchase that would keep my rare tendency to play new video games as an option yet not make me feel like I spend too much on something that hardly gets used.

So I would say anything around the neighborhood of 150-225 bucks would be my aim. For nearly 10 years now I've been a happy NVidia camper and I would like to keep it that way becaue I trust their products' solid performance and compatibility. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that Radeon has been notching up the competition lately, so I wouldn't mind jumping ship if it's well worth it.

so any recommendations / reviews / benchmarks would be appreciated.

---------------------------
fyi, the rest of my system seems to still be holding up with what's out there:

GIGABYTE GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128397

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGIBOX

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ ( should I get an extra 4gigs or ram? or is this enough for even new game releases?)

OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ600MXSP 600W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC ...

[Deathshroud]

Check out this article...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gam ... ,2782.html

[Tsakali]

nice

for those who are curious, I have decided on:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814127510

[Captain]

Nice, I got the n470 that comes with the Twin Frozr II cooler. MSI is solid

[Tsakali]

do you know of any good dx11 demos floating around?

[Captain]

Is this what you meant?

As far as games go; Dirt 2, F1 2010, and Battlefield Bad Company 2 look very pretty in DX11.

[Tsakali]

yes that's what I mean, but also i might be picking up that f1 2010, i didn't know it was dx11 , that's interesting

[Tsakali]

so i got my new v-card in today. I put it in, I power on, I run that dx11 demo for about 10 min, and all of a sudden my pc shuts down. Tried to turn it on but the system wont power up at all, as if it is unplugged. I remove the video card (which requires 2x6 pin power connectors) and the system powers up just fine.

So wtf. did my power supply or mobo decide all of a sudden that it can't push the vcard ? could the vcard had fried? it should still power up if it did yes/no?

[SoM]

what type of PSU u got?

it prolly not supplying enough juice

[SoM]

also check that the fan cable on the GPU isnt blocking the fan

[Tsakali]

this is the one I bought a year ago:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817341017

surely it's not high end, but it specifically came with 2 pci-e connectors ... I figured it could handle just one modern card
and being that I'm sure, not sure though about the issue I'm going to be forced to buy locally

[Tsakali]

update: so I get a new power supply I plug it all in ,I power it up, and there are flames and smoke coming out of the video card ...now it has a burned component at the bottom rear...fuck my life

[SoM]

yikes, that sucks bro

RMA that fucker and read the user comments on the page where u bought the card.

[Tsakali]

yeah RMA'd right after my post...
there are some negative comments but the number of reviews and score overall say it's a good card

[^Ghost]

kind of off topic, but i was researching gpu coolers... whats good for a nvidia gtx 275?

the zalman 3F3000N looks the most promising, but what do you guys think?

[SoM]

r u gonna OC ?

if not then stock cooler will suffice.