New graphics card - buy now or wait til Vista is out?

[Charge!]

My specs:

HP Pavilion A1630N
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor, 2GB RAM
230GB hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 6150LE, 256MB RAM
HP VS17" flatpanel monitor.

There's a BFG GeForce 7800GS Overclocked 256MB RAM GDDR3 *AGP* card at Best Buy for $250 (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7638318&type=product&id=1130987962424), and I have a 12% off coupon good only until Monday. I don't want to chance on replacing my NVIDIA with an ATI card.

But Vista will change a lot of stuff, and SLI-ready the above card is not. BFG does have its GeForce 8800 GTS with 640MB Ram, but that's way out of my price league. All I run on it are EA sports games, Football Manager 2007 and the occasional SW: Empire at War, Civ4 and ST: Legacy, which is slower than molasses, I hear, on a 6200. I don't want to spend any more than $250, if possible. Should I hang in there and wait until NVIDIA comes out with Vista-friendly cards? Thanks.

[Belgian guy]

Buy a decent one like the Geforce 7900 now. And wait untill Vista really implements DirectX 10, and then get a good DirectX 10 graphics card.

[DutchFootballRulez]

I've got an X360. SO I'm waiting till DX10 and Vista come out..

[Reis710]

My specs:

HP Pavilion A1630N
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor, 2GB RAM
230GB hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 6150LE, 256MB RAM
HP VS17" flatpanel monitor.

There's a BFG GeForce 7800GS Overclocked 256MB RAM GDDR3 *AGP* card at Best Buy for $250 (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7638318&type=product&id=1130987962424), and I have a 12% off coupon good only until Monday. I don't want to chance on replacing my NVIDIA with an ATI card.

But Vista will change a lot of stuff, and SLI-ready the above card is not. BFG does have its GeForce 8800 GTS with 640MB Ram, but that's way out of my price league. All I run on it are EA sports games, Football Manager 2007 and the occasional SW: Empire at War, Civ4 and ST: Legacy, which is slower than molasses, I hear, on a 6200. I don't want to spend any more than $250, if possible. Should I hang in there and wait until NVIDIA comes out with Vista-friendly cards? Thanks.

i got the 7800 GT and its great. havent had any problems with it and well considering what many computer companies are doing now which is when u buy a new computer and u register you get a free copy of vista... new computers do not come with video cards that good so i think really it doesnt matter when you buy. it all depends on how much you wanna spend. but i guess the longer you wait the better. most cards should be vista ready.. i dont think its as big a deal as people are making it out to be. but i guess just to be safe you should wait then buy the 7900 or 7950 when vista comes out im sure the price will drop on them by the time its out. or like you said wait till they get a vista friendly card. but i could only imagine its not gonna be a big difference.

[Scarecrow]

Well I will say what I say to everyone I know, don't even worry about Vista until either the first SP is released or at least 6 months til after the release.

Let the bugs get worked out, and let others be the ones to find what doesn't work. That or if you have a second PC that you can use as a test box then go that route. The shop I work for, we aren't even going to worry about Vista til June of next year at the earliest.

[Reis710]

well i supposidly get a free copy of vista and if i do i dont know what to do if i should try it or if i should just ingnore it so it doesnt mess up my pc

[Scarecrow]

well i supposidly get a free copy of vista and if i do i dont know what to do if i should try it or if i should just ingnore it so it doesnt mess up my pc

If you have a second PC and if you have Ghost, you could just pull an image of your PC and save it there, then do the upgrade to Vista and see how it goes. This way you have your old setup saved, and you are free to mess around with Vista and see what works and what doesn't.

[Charge!]

Thanks for all your input.

I decided on the BFG GeForce 7900 GS overclock card. It was $249, with a $20 instant rebate and a $30 mail-in rebate which expired today. Must've been meant to get it as it was the last one in my nearby CompUSA. :)

[CutePuppy]

From what I have read what Vista RC1 pilots had to say so far, I will wait at least a year before I install it on my computer or just get a Mac Pro:p

[fdp]

To the techs of the forum:

Whats your take on and integrated ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics card?

[patrickdavila]

I get a chuckle from you guys looking to drop a couple hundred dollars on a new video card just to get the Vista bling going. My advice, keep your existing hardware and setup a dual boot with Linux. You can get some pretty amazing effects with Compiz/Beryl on cheap video cards such as Intel and low-end NVidia. Is this enough bling for you?:
http://rcda.wordpress.com/2006/11/13/beryl-y-su-3d-world/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WKBwkjd_k0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3H6FW77HeE&mode=related&search=

Let me know where the windows dumpster is after you get new hardware to run Veeesta. I'm sure I can do something useful with the old parts.

[fdp]

To the techs of the forum:

Whats your take on and integrated ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics card?Techs of the forum...

[Boundzy]

Whats your take on and integrated ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics card?

Just for claification, the ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 is a chipset for motherboards that support AMD processors, not a graphics card. The integrated graphics processor for this chipset is based on the Radeon X300, which is on the low-end of the spectrum.

Whether or not this is a good buy for you depends on what you need the computer to do and your expectations.