Upgrading my graphics card.

My shiny new Samsung 22" monitor is indeed lovely but playing at the native resolution of 1680x1050 exposes the age of my 7600GT graphics card. Time to upgrade I think.

Shiny new DX10 graphics cards are getting cheaper. I could get a 256MB Radeon 3850 for around €150 (buying online and including shipping). I am concerned about the longevity of a card with only 256MB memory. 512MB cards cost at least €30 extra and that is more than I want to spend so soon after the extravagances of Christmas. Also I wouldn't get the benefit of DX10 until I upgrade to Vista and I intend to hold out on that until I do a major system upgrade in 2009.

This thinking leads me to the second hand market where it appears that I can pick up a very fast DX9 card from the 7900 family for around €100. Not future proof certainly but it will see me through until next years upgrade. As an added bonus it appears I can flog my 7600GT for around €50 making the entire upgrade considerably less painful to the wallet.

That was the thought process anyway that led me to buying a second hand 7900GTX on Ebay for £75 (about €100). Less stress on the wallet certainly but far far more stress on the sanity. Time for another post I think.

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