what graphics card is better for..?

Question

should i get a 256 mb nVidia 8600 gts or the 256 mb ATI Radeon x1300 pro, for watching hd movies and viewing everything crystal clear (Windows Vista), no hard core gaming (maybe some online games but no call of duty, etc.) and is a 375 watt power supply good enough for the 8600 gts?

Dell XPS 410
2.4 ghz
2 gb Ram
375 watt power supply
20"-22" screen

*Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 ghz

Answer 1

8600gts. Or if you want, you can wait for the new Radeon cards to see if they'll be better. And a 375 watt should be enough for the 8600gts

Answer 2

The 8600GTS appears overpriced. The GT is the more cost effective choice. The 8600 is just a 47watter and may possibly run w/ a 375W power supply that has a hefty +12V rail (18amps). BUT it could run HOT because the +12V rail is at FULL load. A better and cooler option would be at least a 430W w/ dual +12V rail like this one:
http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?LT=english&Language_s=2&url_place=product&p_serial=RS-430-ASAA&other_title=RS-430-ASAAiGreen%20Power%20430W
The bulk of the wattage is on the +12V rails.

The x1300 Pro is a DX9 card which is just an overclocked version of the x1300 budget card. It is slow as it has only 4 pixel pipelines. It can not compare w/ the performance of the hi-tech 8600 series.

Answer 3

I would buy whichever card you can get cheaper. For the requirements that you stated you won't come close to using the power of either of those cards.

Since you said you are running Vista you might want to do some checking into the compatibility of those cards with HDCP. Basically HDCP is the protocol that both your monitor and your video card must allow for you to be able to view copyrighted content in Vista.

Example:
I have a Media center PC and non- HDCP compliant hardware. I recently upgraded from XP MCE 2005 to Vista Ultimate and now I can no longer watch any of the recorded movies (recorded by my system from my tuner card via my cable tv connection). It tells me that my system is not authorized to allow playback. Bummer! This would be the same case if I was trying to watch a HD DVD because of my non HDCP compliant hardware.

Answer 4

the power supply is definatly border-line, i'd pick up a 500 watt one to be sure. and Personally id go with the 8600 for hd

Answer 5

go for the nvidia. nvidia video cards are for high quality graphics and viewing everything crystal clear. and is much better than ATI radeon. and 375 watts should be good enough for it.

Answer 6

nVidia is better anyday man, I would probably go with the 8600, i heard the 8800 has some problems, so i would hold out on buying it. But yeah go nVidia, its great quality

Answer 7

go for ATI!

for me it renders images 2d and 3d better than nvdia
images are more crisper than nvidia

NVDIA is so dependent on dx9/10 software, yeah it claims to be good in terms of clock speed and all that blah stuff.. but for me it does not produce crisp images unlike ATI.. all it does is BLUR images.. its overdoing FSAA(full scene anti-aliasing)