Video Card Recommendations?

StickyMcGinty

I've had it up to my eyeballs with new games not workin so i'm gettin a new video card... which ones would you gamers recommend?

i dont know what speed AGP i have (nor do i know how to check) so if you could show me how to check that'd be brill!

And where to buy?? Ebay is nice and cheap so would there be any good??

Cheers lads,

Vinny

Batbat

this is a difficult question because its for gaming. So the question is what are your expectations?

If you want to play DOOM 3 with highest detail settings then you will have to buy the very latest card costing a bundle and even then DOOM 3 requires a crazy 512megs ram on the card for highest detail textures, Im not sure any cand even the newest has that yet.

If however you want to run everything else at almost top details with direct x 9 support then i would go for the best bang for your buck, ati 9800 pro 256 or 128 if your on a budget, and over clock it.

my only concern about ati is that hl2 is optomised for nvidia, but i honestly doubt that will make much of a difference, ati is far better card for the price

BKtje

What are ur basic system specs?

No point in getting a **** hot gfx card if it gonna be bottle necked by ur pc.

deckie27

What type of machine have you got
cpu, amount of memory, age?

Dec

StickyMcGinty

year and a half old, 512 ram, 45GB HD, already have S3 Pro savage 32 megs card....

i'm looking but i havnt a breeze what AGP speed i have

thanks for the fast replies lads

Batbat

bios tells you what AGP speed is? whats your processor?

StickyMcGinty

AMD athlon 1.7 GHZ

Batbat

1.7 AMD well I would not bother with any of the super high end GFX cards, your ram is also probably slowish too, get the ATI 9800 pro, if you want anything higher end then you would not get benefit without getting new motherbaord and cpu + ram

po0k

even a 9600Pro would make some difference.

Don't waste your time and money with the XT cards. They're just minorly overclocked 9x00Pros, cards which can be readily overclocked to XT speeds anyways.

from the nVidia range, GFfx 5700 or above.
Beware anything with "LE" or "SE" at the end of the name.

If you can pick one up, perhaps even a nVidia GF4 Ti4x00 series, where they go in the following order of muscle:

(Lowest) Ti4200//Ti4200-8x//Ti4800*
(medium) Ti4400
(highest) Ti4600


* these are all effectively the same chip, but the latter two (4200-8x and 4800) both support up to AGP 8x, the Ti4800 uses a smaller die process and as such might be a better overclocker.
The 4200-8x and 4800 can both be pushed up to 4600 clock speeds and generally the memory speed will get up there too, without needing anything like specialist cooling.

The Ti4400 and 4600 are the same as the Ti4200//Ti4800 but they're guaranteed to run at the higher clockspeeds within the temperature paramters. They're just the cream of the crop picked from the wafer.

Batbat

ATI 9800 pro is future proof the older nvidia ti cards are too old

po0k

Also, I'd be more worried about what Rev AGP slot you have, some of the newest cards are AGP3.0 which means they run with lower voltages and putting one of them in an older slot (3.3V) will kill them.

Look at your slot without a card in it.
Is the slot "divided" into 2-3 chunks by little plastic walls?
Which end of the slot is the wall closest to? (front of the slot is the side nearest the back of the case)

Look at pictures of the card you want to buy, look especially at the AGP connector.
How many cuts are made into the connector? none, 1 or 2?


If you want to find out stuff about your machine, create a report with AIDA32 Enterprise Edition and attach it to a post on this thread.

Batbat

Ill sell you a nvidia ti4200 for 50 euro if you want, its overclocked to almost 4600

po0k

Originally posted by Batbat
ATI 9800 pro is future proof the older nvidia ti cards are too old

Has he posted a budget?
I was going on what he could pick up for about €50-120

StickyMcGinty

yea budget is importent... back to college in september!!

what that nvidia ti4200 like?? megs ram with it?

MY AIDA 32 REPORT....

http://vinnyl2.tripod.com/report.htm

Stephen

They come in 64MB and 128MB flavours. I have a 64meg Ti4200 in my parents PC at the moment, it was my main card for 2 years until i got a 9800 pro about a month ago.

RuggieBear

I had a ti4200 for two years as well untill i got my hands on a 9800pro. The Ti4200 is a solid card but could well be struggling with new games (doom3/Halflife2). Having said that mine held it's own in Farcry but you really do notice the diference with the 9800pro.

I reckon the 9800pro is the best bang for buck but depends on the budget (as always!!)

p

Batbat

same for me pekelly, I had the 64meg ti4200

RuggieBear

Originally posted by Batbat
same for me pekelly, I had the 64meg ti4200

I actually had the 128meg but i believe the 64meg version was a quicker card...can't remeber why. Something to do with faster memory or something!!!!!!!!

p

Batbat

the nvidia ti line was nice and fast I only changed when Far cry chugged, everything else ran fine, so i went to ati 9800 pro as you said best bang for your buck, now far cry runs at max setting no prob

StickyMcGinty

as an example, what do you think of this card?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=40158&item=5109772087&rd=1

Batbat

as an example, what do you think of this card?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...5109772087&rd=1

Its an ok card, but it will struggle with battlefield for example and thats a year old

Bottom line, if you want to play games from this century then I wouldnt touch this card

Pacifico

I've a 9600Se if you're interested....

StickyMcGinty

whatcha think of this one?

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=122900&cks=SER

po0k

Vinny - it appears that you've got an onboard S3 Savage4, or at least the card shares your main system ram.
I'm saying this because you've got a single 512Meg stick of ram, of which windows sees 480 (512-480=32meg).
Oh, and

Integrated Graphics Controller:
Graphics Controller Type S3 ProSavage
Graphics Controller Status Enabled
Graphics Frame Buffer Size 32 MB

kinda sewed it up for me.

Are you sure you've got a physical AGP slot into which you can plug a card?
I forget if those VIA-based boards had the spare AGP connector and could disable the onboard and enable a plug-in card.

To see if you've got one, look at your actualy motherbopard, it'll be the brown one, slightly shorter than the couple of PCI ones you have (white) and it'll be closest to the CPU.

If you don't have an AGP slot you're up shit creek.
You'll have to buy a new motherboard.
Might be looking at anything from €20 second hand to €120 if you want to get a new machine core while you at it.

po0k

http://www.via.com.tw/en/ProSavage%20Chipsets/km133.jsp
That seems to be your board's chipset.
It mentions optional AGP interface slot for upgrading the graphics.
You may have a life-line yet
The PC133 ram isn't up to scratch though.

eyerer

i've got a ti4200 if you're interested

Creamy Goodness

Originally posted by Batbat
my only concern about ati is that hl2 is optomised for nvidia, but i honestly doubt that will make much of a difference, ati is far better card for the price

HL2 is optomised for ATi
Doom3 is optomised for nVidia

StickyMcGinty

Originally posted by SyxPak
http://www.via.com.tw/en/ProSavage%20Chipsets/km133.jsp
That seems to be your board's chipset.
It mentions optional AGP interface slot for upgrading the graphics.
You may have a life-line yet
The PC133 ram isn't up to scratch though.

thanks very much man, thats a great help!!

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=122900&cks=SER

i'm reasearching this card at the mo, seems to be a good card.

whats the diff between lite-retail and retail?

RuggieBear

i believe that the retail lite one doesn't come with games and stuff like taht

StickyMcGinty

yea sorry i JUT found the thread in comp..

my bad!

po0k

np