What graphics card do i really need?

Being someone who wants more than they need, id love to have the latest graphics card and etc. However i want to know what i really need, and whether getting the new nvidia 8000 series is necessary.

I play games such as football manager, fifa and other sports games, and various strategy games like age of empires and war and peace. I don't really play FPS games or anything like that, so what graphics card would be fine for my usage?

Also, is it worth getting the latest NVidia DX10 cards simply to plan for the future? If so, would the 8400 be fine, or is it worth getting the 8600?

Thanks,
Tim

 

Well what is your selection? Right now the 8600m gt is the best bet for dx10 but the 8800m will be released in a few months.

 

i would say atleast a 8600GS but for the games u play a 8400 is ok.

 

ok, so the 8400 is fine for what im doing, but a 8600 is recommended?

 

Age of Empires III or Supreme Commander for instance, are quite demanding in higher resolutions of what i know... and i think more and more strategy games will come in their likeness... so in your place, considering also the FIFA series i would go for at least for 8600GS... However the GT seems a little more future-proof choice.

 

8400 is functional for all of the games you listed. 8600 GS or GT if you want to try and max out settings and keep higher frame rates. Just keep in mind that you never NEED higher than 8400, most games will play. It is all a matter of how advanced the graphics are, I.E. Supreme Commander vs Starcraft, and what level of FPS (Frames per second) is comfortable for you.

 

8600GT seems like a good, solid, future proofed choice in my opinion.

 

ok thanks, yea future-proofing is what i was worried about, because i guess the 7000 series cards are our of date now right?

 

No not out of date the 7950 gtx is still the most powerful laptop gpu. But if benefits of having a DX10 card for DX10 games is proven then you will the 8 series become more prominent. We won't know that till official DX10 games come out this fall, as early as September. Not to say that 7 series is will be phased out but in terms of performance the 8600 gt outperforms the 7700 by a good margin and hangs on par with the 7900 gs which many consider the low-end of the high end of the last generation. Still 8600gt still has premature drivers and DX10 is sitll in its infancy stages considering no DX10 games are out yet and theres no denying the 8600 has a good performance/power consumption when compared to the 7 series.

 

THe 8600m GT seems to be really good. It's one of the best at the moment.

Reasons- DX 10 graphics card.

Or, you could go with a Toshiba laptop that has the 8700m GT...

 

Its true, the 7950m GTX that you can get IS actually the most powerful laptop videocard you can get. Some computers actually manage to run them in SLI mode, which is pretty cool. The problem is that any computer with the 7950m will have to be a 17 inch or above.

For true mobile use (15.4 inch screens and below), the 8600m gt is currently the most powerful card available. If you don't care much about size or weight, go ahead and wait for the 8700m gt or even the alleged 8800m gt and you'll probably get nice results.

 

No doubt 8600m gt is very good graphic card, I have also this graphic card,
so mate buy this card and used this. Actually when i was downloading hollywood movies wallpaper my system was creating problem, then i installed this card, now my system is working properly.