Video card recommendation

[Tril]

I just ordered an iZ3D monitor. I'm currently using an NVIDIA 8600 GT video card. It's not very powerful but it can usually play most games on medium settings at 1280x960 (that's the resolution I usually use on my crt monitor). The iZ3D monitor uses a resolution of 1680x1050 and it renders two eyes so I'm going to get a performance hit.

I'm wondering what video card (form AMD/ATI and NVIDIA) people use and if their are satisfied with their video card.

Maybe I'll upgrade my video card and I'm looking for recommendations. I know that the most recent video cards from NVIDIA are the GTX 260 and GTX 280. The previous card is the 9800 and it's said not to be worth the upgrade compared to a 8800. If I upgrade with NVIDIA, I'll probably skip over the 9800. On AMD/ATI side, I've got absolutely no idea what are the recent video cards. It's been more than a decade since I bought an ATI video card (I always bought NVIDIA up to now, especially after I first tried their stereo drivers).

I don't mind staying with NVIDIA or switching to AMD/ATI. I'll just go where the performance is better and the price lower.

[da_giz]

Well if you are looking at prize/performance I guess ATI is a little better than nvidia.
If you want the most power in a single chip gfx card, then I think nvidia is better.

I myself bought a GTX280 a few weeks ago, before that I was using a 7800GT from Nvidia.
The 7800GT was good enough in 3D for games like Battlefield2, Counterstrike:source, Stalker, Lord of the Rings online.
Since your 8600 performs better than my 7800 I would say depending on which games you are playing it's sufficient.

The GTX280 just rocks every game I played so far with full details in 3D.
eg. COD4, Company of Heroes and Left 4 Dead

I can't say anything to any other card and comparing my old card to the new is not even fair game

The GTX280 performs beautiful in 3D that's all I can say.
Perhaps someone with an ATI can tell you something about ATI since ATI and iZ3D have some partnership now.

[lnrrgb]

scan your local craigslist for a bfg 6800 agp card, (actually there are a few cards worth looking for - see the link), and if you find one for a decent price... then go hit here - http://www.bfgtech.com/freeupgrade.aspx

[Tril]

Offer good for U.S. customers only.

I'm in Canada. So it's ruled out but thanks, it could work for someone else that reads your post. After thinking about it a bit, I think I'll wait before upgrading the video card. With the exchange rate as bad as it is between the US and Canada, the iZ3D is going to cost more than I thought.

I'll look into upgrade programs from other companies. I have a few old video cards. Maybe I could find one that can be exchanged and upgraded to a better one for a small fee. The thing is, I'm not so sure those deals are that good because you have to pay to ship the card and that's expensive.

[Tril]

I was not getting the performance I wanted with my video card. I bought GRID a few weeks ago. My 8600 GT could not render high fps in GRID at minimum settings at a low resolution (that's with the iZ3D driver deactivated). Even without S3D activated, the game was unplayable as the fps was too low to allow me to control the cars. I was also getting low fps in other recent games (Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway, Call of Duty: World at War). Because of that, I only played games without S3D since I got my iZ3D monitor.

I bit the bullet and bought a new video card. I got an ATI Gigabyte Radeon HD 4850 1GB. This card is amazing. I can play GRID with S3D activated at 1680x1050 with all the settings maxed (except shadows and blur that need to be disabled for S3D to work properly) and the fps stay high.