Best semi-cheap video card?
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Vincent Volaju
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You can get a 9800 pro on Newegg for right around two hundred bucks. I don't know what the Nvidia equivalent is but it's probably even less - meaning you can get a slightly hotter Geforce for the same money. I don't know anything about Nvidia cards though, so you'll have to look all that up yourself.
voodoodoctorx
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i agree if your on a budget you cant go wrong with the 9800 pro
Tung Fu Rue
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The 9800 pro is still good but now you can get better cards for the same, or even less money.
Nvidia 6600gt - a bit faster than the 9800 pro and cheaper too. Also comes with free prince of persia and splinter cell games. Link
Ati 9800 Pro - Ati has more modern cards that this but they are all Pci express so you probally wont be able to use them. This one is fairly cheap but doesnt include any games. link
These two are the best value for around 200 in the AGP market right now, if you want to spend a bit more I would recommend either the Ati X800 XL or the Nvidia 6800 GT .
Both of these cost abit more, but will give about 2 times the performance of the above listed cards.
Hope this helps.
Nvidia 6600gt - a bit faster than the 9800 pro and cheaper too. Also comes with free prince of persia and splinter cell games. Link
Ati 9800 Pro - Ati has more modern cards that this but they are all Pci express so you probally wont be able to use them. This one is fairly cheap but doesnt include any games. link
These two are the best value for around 200 in the AGP market right now, if you want to spend a bit more I would recommend either the Ati X800 XL or the Nvidia 6800 GT .
Both of these cost abit more, but will give about 2 times the performance of the above listed cards.
Hope this helps.
RiotoftheBlood
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If you have an AGP motherboard I'd think twice before dropping even $200 on a card for it. AGP is going to get phased out this year in favor of PCI express. If you can I'd look into getting a new board & proc. with PCI-X and SATA.
I've got a 6600 GT myself, and I'm quite happy with it. I run Doom 3 in 1280 x 1024 in high-quality mode with no anti-aliasing and it does well overall, although once in awhile it does get choppy. That antisotropic filtering, sweet Jesus does it make Doom 3 shine. I choose to run in 1280 x 1024 because that's the native resolution of my LCD monitor; if I were running a lower resolution I'd think the few minor choppiness would dissapear or all but dissapear. It's hard for me to justify spending more than around $200 on a video card considering how quickly video card hardware evolves. The 6600 GT is exactly what I was looking for.
Athlon XP 3200+
1 GB (512 M x 2) dual-channel DDR400
nForce 2 Ultra 400 chipset
I've got a 6600 GT myself, and I'm quite happy with it. I run Doom 3 in 1280 x 1024 in high-quality mode with no anti-aliasing and it does well overall, although once in awhile it does get choppy. That antisotropic filtering, sweet Jesus does it make Doom 3 shine. I choose to run in 1280 x 1024 because that's the native resolution of my LCD monitor; if I were running a lower resolution I'd think the few minor choppiness would dissapear or all but dissapear. It's hard for me to justify spending more than around $200 on a video card considering how quickly video card hardware evolves. The 6600 GT is exactly what I was looking for.
Athlon XP 3200+
1 GB (512 M x 2) dual-channel DDR400
nForce 2 Ultra 400 chipset
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Tung Fu Rue
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RiotoftheBlood said:
Sorry I hate to be an ass, but this is one of those nitpicky things that bothers me, The official abbreviation for pci-express is Pci-e. Pci-x is a completly diffrent type of interface that is used mainly on servers for disk controller cards and such.
But I think RiotoftheBlood is on the right track here, what kind of system do you have right now? Because if the rest of the system isnt up to stuff there isnt any use dropping extra money on a video card that wont give any benefit due to a system bottleneck.
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RiotoftheBlood said:
Not within this year, already we know the next generation of ATI the R520's will support AGP so it's not dead yet. About 95% of PC's still have AGP so graphics card compaines aren't going to want to abandon the market that quickly, espically when most people only replace their pcs every 3 - 5 years.
Anyway for $200? A 6600GT would be a good solid bet, if you can expand up to $299 a Radeon X800XL would WIZZ through any game just about at 1280x1024 with AA and AF (depending on the speed of the rest of your PC)
A 9800XT can be had for about $200 I'm sure, but it lacks the lastest technology the Geforce 6 series has like SM3 (basically makes effects run faster and look nicer in games that support it) and is more future proof.
bumbachief
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GEFORCE FX 5900 PERSONAL CINEMA 256MB DDR (PAL)
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bumbachief said:GEFORCE FX 5900 PERSONAL CINEMA 256MB DDR (PAL)
Yeah sure, if you don't want to run Half Life 2 or CS source
The FX series are okay - I had a FX 5800 Ultra just for (almost) the same price a Mid range Geforce 6 like the 6600 or 6600GT would own it in Direct X9 games
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realgameplay said:
They should be cheap, but I sold one on ebay a month ago and got £60 for it (idiots)
It is a good card, just lacking the eye candy DX9 offers. Still a solid gaming workhorse.
RiotoftheBlood
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AGP won't be "dead" yet or anytime very soon. But it will be replaced by PCI-E (thank you TFR). My point is simply that continued significant (I'd consider $200 significant) investment in an AGP machine may not be the best choice in the long run. AGP is going to be replaced by PCI-E just as AGP largely replaced PCI for video several years ago. And since AGP is exclusively for video, it will be phased out even more easily.
What it really boils down to is that AGP is a bottleneck, and PCI-E is the solution.
What it really boils down to is that AGP is a bottleneck, and PCI-E is the solution.
madmanjock said:
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RiotoftheBlood said:
I'm afraid it isn't, AGP cards even run faster apples to apples compared to their PCI-X16 counterparts (maturity of AGP drivers). Also, current cards don't even use all the bandwith AGP x8 provides, I doubt even the R520 will. Do you remember the fuss of AGP 8x over 4x but then benchmarks proved no difference? The same thing is happening here. So far graphics cards get little to no benefit from PCI-X16 over AGP X8, heck they even suffer a negative effect (but PCI-X16 does of course offer SLI which AGP cannot).
JHendrix said:
Word.
RiotoftheBlood
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OK, I agree. But AGP will be a bottleneck. Given the rate of advancement in the video card technology, I believe it's inevitable.
madmanjock said:
Highlander67
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madmanjock said:
Mad is right. AGP models of Video cards are on par with any PCI Express version of a similar card. This is largely because AGP drivers have been tweaked and optimized to run as good as PCI-Express can. In the future, PCI-Express will be the leader, but were talking a few good years before that happens at least.
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RiotoftheBlood said:
I'm sure it will be , but by that time current graphics cards will be as useless as a GF4MX IMO