Graphics cards

The Troll

I don't have an iota about graphics cards, hence my posting here. I was wondering if anyone had either a Radeon 9550 or an ATI X550.

Both are on sale in Maplins for circa €80. How are these cards for games such as BF2, HL2, COD etc? I'm currentl using a Radeon X300 and was wondering if one of these would be an upgrade?

Thx

Khannie

You're better off buying online. Check the useful websites sticky for places to check. Komplett.ie is an obvious first place to look. I would suggest that a 9550 or equivalent is not gonna play BF2 very well.

tom_ass19

try www.dabs.co.uk aswell, good site...

The Troll

But what are the important features of a graphics card? What should i be looking for in the spec?

Khannie

Have a squizz around for benchmarks. There's a useful websites sticky which has links to loads of reviews.

jozi

Dont be fooled by Gfx cards that have loads of ram and dont cost an arm and a leg.
Cheap Gfx + Lots of ram = NOT NECESERALLY A GOOD GFX CARD

The Troll

jozi wrote:

Dont be fooled by Gfx cards that have loads of ram and dont cost an arm and a leg.
Cheap Gfx + Lots of ram = NOT NECESERALLY A GOOD GFX CARD

I've been trawling through a few sites while *working* and have a better understanding of the workings of GFX cards now. I'm gonna start looking at specs of different cards now so that I can examine the differencs between them.

TerrorFirmer

Hi,

I assume you are using a Dell PC and that its a 128mb x300.

That card is better then the 9550 which would play Battlefield 2 quite poorly.

I also assume if its an x300 its also PCI-E.

I currently have a 128mb pci-e x800 for sale. IT plays Doom 3 and Half Life 2 on Full and Battlefield 2 on medium-high...

But your x300 will be fine For Half Life 2 and COD2. Might not be the best for games like Battlefield 2 or FEAR however...

The Troll

MobileInfantry wrote:

Hi,

I assume you are using a Dell PC and that its a 128mb x300.

That card is better then the 9550 which would play Battlefield 2 quite poorly.

I also assume if its an x300 its also PCI-E.

I currently have a 128mb pci-e x800 for sale. IT plays Doom 3 and Half Life 2 on Full and Battlefield 2 on medium-high...

But your x300 will be fine For Half Life 2 and COD2. Might not be the best for games like Battlefield 2 or FEAR however...

Yes, it's a Dell 8400. 2GB RAM, 3.2GHz Processor. It's a 128MB X300 alright. The only games i've played on it are Call of Duty 1 and Counter Strike and both run fantastically.

TerrorFirmer

The Troll wrote:

Yes, it's a Dell 8400. 2GB RAM, 3.2GHz Processor. It's a 128MB X300 alright. The only games i've played on it are Call of Duty 1 and Counter Strike and both run fantastically.

The x300 is a very capable card. I have almost the same computer as you, except its 3.4 but only 1gb ram. It came with an x800 128mb, a bit better then the x300 model, but i've since replaced it with a sapphire 256mb x800.

Doom 3, Half Life 2, Call of Duty 2, will all run lovely on the x300. Its only the newer games such as FEAR and Battlefield 2 that won't be perfect. That said you'll still be able to run them at a decent level.

I wish I could recommend you buy my x800 lying around but to be honest it's not that big an improvement on your x300 to justify it. I wish somebody would friggin buy it though....

I'd say go with a 256mb x800, or a 6800. You can get both pretty cheap second hand, and they will run the newest games very well.

If you don't actually plan on playing any brand new games though, and are sticking with older ones like Far Cry, Counter Strike, Half Life 2 and Call of Duty, just stick with what you have. You can always upgrade later.

I used to play Soldier of Fortune 2 online for a year. For that reason I never bothered upgrading my card. Its only recently that I got into Battlefield 2 that I wanted to upgrade...

astrofool

the x300 is only slightly better than the 9200/fx 5200, and an x800 is far faster.

Canis Lupus

This will help in some respects for pci cards, by the by Mobile Infantry has it wrong, the x300 is a pile of poo, I assume he is mixing his cards up.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050524/index.html

Basically mate while people look down on benchmarks the rule of thumb is the higher up the rankings the better the card, also an €80 euro card is not a gaming card. In fairness you want a decent gaming card your looking at at least €200+.

In fairness the rest of the important specs in your system are nice, why skimp on a ****ty card. Pay the money and buy a 6800gt which should keep you motoring nicely.

conzy

I agree with Canis Lupus, the 6800gt is a vey nice card but even a 6600gt would do, but if you are a ATI fanboy:rolleyes: , the x800gt is just as good and was designed to outperform the 6600 gt

here is a direct comparison of the 2 of them and a few benchies

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODA5

The 6600gt has 25mhz advantage in core clock, and 20mhz in memory which is only a slight difference, 6600gt wins by 1fps in doom, x800gt wins by 6 fps in hl2, so they are very close at the end of the day and the choice is up to you.

But the x800gt gets 47fps (10fps more than 6600gt) with 2*aa and high af in BF2 which is very respectable so it gets my vote

The Real B-man

save an extra €35 & get this http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=312683&cks=PRL Bargin!

TerrorFirmer

Canis Lupus wrote:

This will help in some respects for pci cards, by the by Mobile Infantry has it wrong, the x300 is a pile of poo, I assume he is mixing his cards up.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050524/index.html

Basically mate while people look down on benchmarks the rule of thumb is the higher up the rankings the better the card, also an €80 euro card is not a gaming card. In fairness you want a decent gaming card your looking at at least €200+.

In fairness the rest of the important specs in your system are nice, why skimp on a ****ty card. Pay the money and buy a 6800gt which should keep you motoring nicely.

Well, I have a friend who has an fx5200, which is absolute, as everyone knows, ****e. It runs nothing well. I also have a friend who has what he told me is a Dell X300SE. It seems to run games pretty well from what I can see, just a bit under my old X800SE, which could run Doom3 and HL2 at full, as well as games like FEAR on medium.

I don't know, perhaps he told me the wrong model, but he is adament he has an x300 card. I'll check next time I'm at his house...

I was basing my comments on my friends performance, which is good, and he told me its an x300, so.....:D

btw - quick question - I no longer use my old x800SE but why an earth does it seem to be never included in either hardware reviews or in game manuals??? Seems no one wants to know the x800SE exists....? :v:

DemonOfTheFall

The X300SE is a really weak card. Theres no comparison with the X800. The X800 would probably be about 10 times faster.

With an X300 you're looking at 800x600, most things on low. With an X800 it's 1280x1024 most things on high.

I'd call that a pretty big difference...

The X800SE is a very cut down X800 though, cut in half pretty much. It's about the equivalent of an X700/ 6600gt/ 9800pro.

Fanny Cradock

6600gt is an excellent budget card that will run BF2, doom 3 ect. perfectly well