New Graphics Card Time...

Winters

Ok, have been looking for a new graphics card for some time now, about two months.

There is a MSI GF5600 on komplett for €178 [Down to €175 or so from Monday on weekly offer]. Card looks good from reviews and also has a TV-In feature alswell as TV-Out.

Thing is though, for HL2 performances the GeforceFX chips are not performing. I know the ATI's are good with the HL benchmarking so im not sure weather to go for ATI or NVidia.

Anyone reccomend a card in the €200 or €250 price range. Mind you if there is something good in the pipeline i may wait for that to be released.

Kazu

I have a ATI RADEON PRO 128mb 9700 and very happy with it
runs Battlefield with everything turned up to the last

unkel

Yeah the 9700 pro would do nicely indeed

If you're thinking of buying new and spend a little less than your budget, Komplett had a Sapphire 9600 pro for €179 last week, now €198. They do have a cheap brand one for €175

AFAIK the 9600 pro would be about 10% less performance broadly speaking compared to 9700 pro and maybe 20% less compared to 9800 pro, so good value until your next upgrade

jesus_thats_gre

Get a 9600 pro over the FX.

El_MUERkO

The Radeon 9600XT is due shortly for a $200 or less price which means you can probably pick one up for €150, I'm going to wait till the 9800XT & 9600XT are released and see what they do to prices.

koneko

9700 Pro if you can get it. The 5600 is alright, but not great.

BloodBath

Originally posted by unkel
Yeah the 9700 pro would do nicely indeed

AFAIK the 9600 pro would be about 10% less performance broadly speaking compared to 9700 pro and maybe 20% less compared to 9800 pro, so good value until your next upgrade

Where did you get those figures from?

The performance difference between these cards is a lot higher than 10 and 20%. Hence the massive price differences.

I don't think anyone would pay 300 euro extra for a 9800 pro if the performance difference was only 20%.

It's more around 30% and 50% respectively.



BloodBath...

machalla

Winters,

I have that card that you're looking at. Its been fine for most things (Homeworld 2 looks very pretty with it).

I found though that for BF1942 there seems to be some odd bug with Nvidia cards that causes it to slow down and stutter. I saw mention of it on the Games 1942 forum.

Its either the card or the something up with machine and I doubt that (brand new machine with a solid spec).

I haven't gotten to use the remote control with it yet but it looked solid and sturdy. Software bundle was quite decent. Morrowind was part of it.

Anyway maybe thats some help.

unkel

Originally posted by BloodBath
The performance difference between these cards is a lot higher than 10 and 20%. Hence the massive price differences.

It's more around 30% and 50% respectively.

Granted I was only picking figures from my head. Looking at some benchmarks again shows you are much closer to the mark

The point I was trying to make is that you have to fork out 230% MORE to get say a 50% performance gain comparing a €179 9600 pro to a €410 9800 pro (komplett prices).

With cards changing all the time (XT on its way) one must be a pretty keen gamer to spend €500 - €600 every say 9 months on a royal class card and only retrieving about €300 selling the old one second hand. That's a depreciation of about €350 every year :eek:

Buying a €179 card every year (upper middle class) will only set you back about €100 per year

The budget was only €200 - €250 so if he wants to spend it all or even a little bit more, he might want to go 2nd hand 9700 pro, if he wants to stay within budget or below it, he might want to go 9600 pro

Let us know what you're getting winters

BloodBath

Yeah I know what you mean. I would normally go for a mid range card myself but I was seriously considering the 9800 XT until I heard about the bloody half life 2 delays.

The thing about buying the high spec cards is that you don't need to upgrade every year. A card like the 9800XT would give you at least 2 years of top performance before you had to consider upgrading again.

Still when your on a budet the mid ranges cards are the choice to go for. The 9600 is a good card but if you can pick up a 9500 pro somewhere then you should go for it. It outperforms the 9600 and is around the same price. Komplett don't stock them any more though.

Whatever you do don't get an FX card. They have serious hardware problems and Nvidea constantly updating their drivers is not going to have much of an impact on their poor performance especially with new dx9 games like half life 2.

ATI all the way baby.


BloodBath

Deadwing

TBH ive only ever used Nvidia cards, a Geforce Mx (64mb) and an FX now (128) and havent had any trouble with them whatsoever. I noticed a slight jerkiness on BF1942, but only on one or two levels of Secret Weapons, on the GF MX, but none at all now on the FX. And when you pick it up for 80 blips (off a fellow boardser, cheers very much ) you cant really complain.
Maybe when HL2 comes out ill get an ATI, but first ill see how itll run in the FX. Right now it handles anything i throw at it with ease, so im happy

Winters

Yes, its now got even harder with the HL2 delay. I was really lookign at a card that is capable of running HL2 and BF1942 well. But now with the HL2 delay I am wondering if it is worth waiting till next year, when prices have come down and a possibly new card.chip is on the market.

I may just wait

netman

nvidia cards have extremely poor support for DirectX 9.

and that is clearly shown on any new game benchmarks. not only that, but the rendering quality between dx9 and dx8.1 are huge.

if i were you, i'd try to get a cheap second hand 9700 or 9700 pro. if not, and you wanna have something right now, get a sappire 9600pro fireblade edition (comes with faster memory), you can clock it better than the other 9600pro cards.

if you can wait, get a 9600pro xt, which should come close to 9700 performance for the $200 mark. (so probably around 250 euro mark, going on the previous dollar-to-euro pricing)

j0e9o

yeah get a 9600pro i seen the 64mb verison on a laptop and it was smokin!!!