PNY GeForce 9 9800GT

I bought this card as a big upgrade to my 8400gs, the 8400 didn't play games very well, and i was considering getting crysis and so it seemed appropriate to buy a more powerful card, and although i needed something more powerful i dind't want to pay more than £100, i managed to find this for £90, so it seemed an ideal candidate.

After getting it home i was dissapointed to find that it was basically just a rebranded 8800GT, but either ...
...it for £90, which, when i did some research was a pretty good deal.

looking at the specs its got an ok amount of memory with 512mb, a clock speed of 600mhz and a memory clock speed of 1800mhz. when you compare these specs to more expensive cards they pale a little but when i put it to the test i was pleasently suprised.

The first thing i tested was crysis, and being confident i cranked it up to 1280 X 1024, not the highest ... more

I bought this card as a big upgrade to my 8400gs, the 8400 didn't play games very well, and i was considering getting crysis and so it seemed appropriate to buy a more powerful card, and although i needed something more powerful i dind't want to pay more than £100, i managed to find this for £90, so it seemed an ideal candidate.

After getting it home i was dissapointed to find that it was basically just a rebranded 8800GT, but either way i dind't mind too much because i had bought it for £90, which, when i did some research was a pretty good deal.

looking at the specs its got an ok amount of memory with 512mb, a clock speed of 600mhz and a memory clock speed of 1800mhz. when you compare these specs to more expensive cards they pale a little but when i put it to the test i was pleasently suprised.

The first thing i tested was crysis, and being confident i cranked it up to 1280 X 1024, not the highest of resolutions but i made up for it by putting textures and shadows ect all on high. it ran great, it was smooth and didn't really lag at all, only very slightly when i got into massive fights with many enimes in dense jungle, but it wasn't bad at all. I then put 4 X AA on, but the game started acting strange so i pushed it down to 2 X AA and it was great, it still didn't lag and the game looked great.

All the other games i have thrown at it it can crunch easily, prey, unreal tournament 3, left 4 dead and world of warcraft worked flawlessly. i know that although i am happy with it now i will possibly upgrade by christmas because more games will be coming out requiring more graphical power, and i also would like to try and get a better monitor then my current 17inch samsung syncmaster 741mp so a better graphics card will be needed to cope with the higher resolutions and bigger screen, however at the moment i feel it is a brilliant purchase.

Temperature seems to be quite warm around the graphics card but it wouldn't compare to bigger bulkier graphics cards so it isn't really something i worry about, because i have a fan positoned directly above it sucking the warm air from it, and the graphics card seems to be quite stable.

Overall i would say the performance is great, it will most definatly run most of the latest games to date at a good setting, but if you want to see really good performance, no lag and a nicer looking graphical experience, possibly you should look at getting a more expensive card, but on budget this is an ideal candidate and you should be pleasently suprised.

 

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