Dell & Video Cards

[Peon]

I was thinking of buying a Dell (no, I'm not cool enough to build my own ) and was trying to decide on components. Most of them are a given, but I was wondering about people's experience with Dell and the video cards they provide. They offer the following options for the Dimension 8300:

128MB DDR GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI
128MB DDR ATI RADEON™ 9800 Pro Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI (add $140 US)
256MB DDR ATI RADEON™ 9800 XT (add $390 US)

Now, I'm partial to ATI for no particular reason, so I figured I'd go with the ATI offering. I did a little homework on these boards, and found people warning against accidentally getting the Sapphire version of the 9800 pro becuase it was "nerfed" in that it was 128 bit, as opposed to 256 bit. My question then is, does anyone have experience with what Dell offers? Their website doesn't offer much in the way of specifics on the card, but it would be nice to know which version I was getting, if I decide to order from them. I'm specically interested in the 128 mb 9800 pro I mentioned above, since the third is far too expensive.

I'm looking for a card that can obviously play today's games well, and tomorrow's as well... I don't need 1600x1200 max settings, but a card that can play future games such as Halflife 2 (duh ) at a decent quality and framerate is desirable. Can the 9800 pro (specifically, from Dell) do this?

If anyone has any experience or insight into this, please let me know.

Peon

 

[anvilcrawler]

If I were in your shoes, I would call them up and ask some specific questions, I'm sure they have a toll-free number.

 

[Peon]

Thanks for the responses so far. I definetly plan to call / email them before I purchase anything, as it is a few months of still, but I wanted to get a feel for what knowledgeable people had to say about it (let's face it, the tech people don't always know their stuff 100% )

The 9800 XT sounds great, but of course, there is the issue of price; it still costs significantly more than that 9800. I admit I don't understand the meaning or purpose of all the benchmark tests but for my purposes, it seems like the 9800 Pro performed similarily enough to the XT, and for me, the cost makes the 9800 Pro (not XT) the winner. I'll keep it in mind though, as I won't be buying the system for a few months yet (no immediate games that I'm interested in)

Peon

 

[coolsquirtle]

nooo please not a dell. I dont want to see u going through the pain of being DELLED... go get an Alienware, they have cheapo versions too :S

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