New Graphics Card. Suggestions?

I'm thinking about upgrading my graphics card sometime soon. I currently have a 256mb nvidia geforce 6600.

The main question is buy a 7900gs or an 8800 series card

I'm looking at the gigabyte 7900gs, because i have a gigabyte motherboard i'm guessing this would be better for compatibility. Anyways out of the 4 brands of 7900 my local store sells, the gigabyte is the most overclocked and feature packed. I can pick this one up for $235 australian dollars.

Now, the 8800 has the cheapest prices as follows for each different mb version



I'm leaning towards the cheaper 7900, but is it worth the extra cash for the 8800? Should i wait for the 8900?
If anyone asks about looking at the ati series i've been using geforce cards since i got my first pc, i wouldn't change now because i'm very happy with the cards performance.

Also while i'm on about graphics cards, if i plug a new card in, my current nvidia forceware drivers should detect it so i won't need to use the microsoft drivers first, right?

Thanks
-HellFire

 

 

 

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Is your 6600 a GT? because if so, you should be able to sell it for a decent secondhand price. The 7900 seems good, but I think the MSI 8600 GTS is also an attractive option. I have a 7900GS MSI card, and it's got the features for overclocking. though i can't afford to do it here first because i don't know much about it, and second because with the voltage fluctuations it already runs on a hairline. But waiting for the 8900 isn't going to be much help if you're looking at the cheaper options. If you plug a new card in, your current drivers should probably detect it, but you might need to upgrade/ install the fresh drivers that came with the card, to get all the features available.

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Ahh yeah what I would do is go for a mid-range 7 series, and then see how much you can sell your old one for (or keep it for spare/backup), just to make sure you got something and it's working before kicking the other one off lol.

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I'm not that sure, but if not mistaken, the full power of Geforce 8XXX series can only be unleashed by DirectX10, which means you'll need to be running Vista, as there's currently no installable DirectX10 for XP. Well, just hope that i'm wrong

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I'd keep your 6600 until ATI comes out with its R600 DX10 card.

xboxrulz

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Well.. I will probably get a cheaper card for now, up to the $200 range until i see another good card released, i'll probably be watching the next in the geforce 8 series and the R600

Thanks for the replies
-HellFire

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I would suggest that you invets on those DX10 card if you are planning to use vista because DX10 will have support for DX9 cards below in software layer only.and that means that it will emulate your video card not truly run it. DX10 is not like DX9 that like DX9 it supports DX8 cards below in a hardware level. so its your choice if you are going to stick to XP for quite some time then I would suggest that you choose 7900 but then if you are planning to use vista for like next weed (",) then choose 8800

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Yeah personally i've worked with my friends vista laptop and all i can say is.. Hey it's nice buy the compatibility is a REAL letdown. You couldn't even jump on the net because the xp drivers were saying it was installed, though it wasn't.

Anyways...
I've checked the specs on the gigabyte 7900gs which is overclocked quite a bit and in benchmarking it actually meets and sometimes performs better than the 7900gt which is a few hundred $$ more.

-HellFire

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