Video Card Purchase

[Walt W]

First off i would like to say hello. This is my first time on the forums and have a question, i would appreciate your opinions.

I am going to purchase a video card in the near future. I have read that different hardware reacts different to each individual computer. So my question would be what video cards should i be looking at for my pc. My pc specs are as follows.

Dell Dimension 4550
768 Mb DDR Ram
Windows XP
64 Mb nVidea MX 440 (may be MX 420, im not sure)
2.4 Ghz Pentium 4 - 533 Mhz FSB
AGP x4 (pretty sure it will not support a x8 video card but i may be wrong)

I will be looking in the $200 range, however if i am better off spending the extra money i will do so (Ill just put off buying the card to a later date).

All i really use the card for is playing Battlefield 1942 and watching video clips online. I would like to be able to run Battlefield with high resolution without any quality loss. A friend of mine has a nVidea ti4600 and the game looks great. I was considering a ti4600 or possibly a ATI series card unless I am better off getting something else. So what would you recomend?

Thanks for you time.

-Walt

[funnyperson1]

All the AGP8X cards are backwards compatible. Rather than the 4600 I would recommend the Radeon 9500Pro because along with the high res you coul play with Anti Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering which would make BF1942 look much better.

Look here for more info:

http://oc3dmark.octeams.com/cardguide.html

[NiTrO bOiE]

For $200 I would get a 9500Pro and flash it to a 9700 card.

[Evnas]

Originally posted by NiTrO bOiE
For $200 I would get a 9500Pro and flash it to a 9700 card.

And that will get you what? Nothing except a 9500 Pro reading as a 9700, heh

[DarkOneX]

For $200 you will LOVE the LeadTek WinFast A310 FX 5600 Ultra 128MB. I sold my Ti4600 for $150 and bought this for right over $200 at Newegg.com just thinking it'd be fun to play around with the DX9 demos and such until NV35/NV40 came out. I have now decided to skip the NV35 & NV40 as I'm so incredibly impressed with this new card. It beats my scores in everything over my Ti4600 by a good margin and it's one he11 of an overclocker, I'm overclocking it from the default of 350/700 -> 375/925 with no added cooling or mods. I'm dead serious, buy this card now if you are looking to spend $200, you won't regret it one bit. Check out my 3dmark 2k1 score of 14305 with this badboy @

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6561481

[pip]

Originally posted by DarkOneX
For $200 you will LOVE the LeadTek WinFast A310 FX 5600 Ultra 128MB. I sold my Ti4600 for $150 and bought this for right over $200 at Newegg.com just thinking it'd be fun to play around with the DX9 demos and such until NV35/NV40 came out. I have now decided to skip the NV35 & NV40 as I'm so incredibly impressed with this new card. It beats my scores in everything over my Ti4600 by a good margin and it's one he11 of an overclocker, I'm overclocking it from the default of 350/700 -> 375/925 with no added cooling or mods. I'm dead serious, buy this card now if you are looking to spend $200, you won't regret it one bit. Check out my 3dmark 2k1 score of 14305 with this badboy @

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6561481

The 9500 pro will beat this card into the ground when utilizing AA and AF it will also (most likely) OC alot better

EDIT: it's also cheaper

[Walt W]

Thanks for the responces. After reading some of your suggestions i was set on a 9500 pro, however when i went to newegg to get one they had none in stock. I checked the local shops and they wanted 220.

After some deliberation i just spent the extra money and ordered a 9700np. For now i am not going to overclock it. I want to do some reseach and read the forums before i take the risk of damaging the card.

Thanks again for the replys, i appreciate it

-walt

[Kronos138]

too bad about the 9500pro but nice choice none the less...
by the way WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!!!

[OC Noob]

Originally posted by Walt W
Thanks for the responces. After reading some of your suggestions i was set on a 9500 pro, however when i went to newegg to get one they had none in stock. I checked the local shops and they wanted 220.

After some deliberation i just spent the extra money and ordered a 9700np. For now i am not going to overclock it. I want to do some reseach and read the forums before i take the risk of damaging the card.

Thanks again for the replys, i appreciate it

-walt


If you get into any next gen games like Doom III, Half Life II or Far Cry you'll be glad you have the extra power of the 9700. Considering you only play BF1942 the 9500 pro would have been ideal, but who knows. Maybe you will play some of the next gen games.

[FrozenFears]

Agreed, the 9700 will keep you happy with the next gen games, whereas a 4600 probably would begin to fall behind. I have an OCed Asus 4200@327/640 which spanks my friends Leadtek 4600, but even so I still plan on getting either the FX5900 or the 9800 256Mb when Half Life 2 and Doom 3 come out. Been saving my money for the last 4 months, but getting a 9700 in my opinion is the smartest ATI to buy right now, the 9800 is not a HUGE increase in performance from the 9700, but its price tag is almost double. I mean yeah its better, but the 9700 is an awesome card and should be competetive for a long time. So too bad on the out of stock 9500s but I like your choice anyways ;)

[SlyJavi]

The Sapphire 9500 Non Pro 128MB 'L' Red Board is the 9500Non Pro that turns into a 9700Non Pro.


KiLLuMiNaTi, TheNameLessOne, and I have all purchased a Sapphire 9500NP from www.allstarshop.com in the past week and successfully turned them into 9700's by opening up the 4 disabled pipelines with a patched driver.

The Sapphire 9500NP 'L' Red Board is one of the only ATi cards to have an unlocked BIOS so they will OVERCLOCK right of the box. TheNamelessOne and I managed to overclock ours past 9700Pro speeds by simply using RivaTuner or Rage3Dtweak and with the 8 pipelines enabled it means we have better than a 9700 Pro.


They have them for $144 with FREE shipping --------> http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product.asp?dept%5Fid=339&pid=6538&sid=6R9F38SUMTR78GXB852SNQ2VCD4XCHG6

This is the best deal on the market right now in my opinion.


I listed these in order from slowest to fastest (all are stock speeds except for mine):


------------------------------------- 9500NP R300 128bit 4 Pipelines = 275/540

--------------- Sapphire 9500NP 'L' Red Board R300 256bit 4 Pipelines = 275/540

------------------------------------ 9500Pro R300 128bit 8 Pipelines = 275/540

------------------------------------- 9700NP R300 256bit 8 Pipelines = 275/540

------------------------------------ 9700Pro R300 256bit 8 Pipelines = 325/620

My Softmodded Sapphire 9500NP 'L' Red Board R300 256bit 8 Pipelines = 378/620

------------------------------------ 9800Pro R350 256bit 8 Pipelines = 380/680

[Walt W]

I am pretty much just into BF 1942. However i can see getting into some of the newer games since i will have the card to enable me to play them. I should be recieving my card in a day or so.

I have had an intrest in computers for a while now, just not the hardware aspect of things (was into programming for a while). I am going to build a pc as a hobby. So chances that i will become one of the regular question posters is pretty good. Thanks for the welcome.

ill keep your suggestions in mind for the pc to come ;)

[Walt W]

My 9700 arrived today,

Was my first hardware install (besides ram) and it went smooth. It didnt come with instructions (wasnt aware that with bulk items you didnt recive and paperwoork) but all went well.

The card is working and the fan is turning. So is there anything that i should keep an eye on for the next few days? Or am i good to go?

Also, the smartshading, ect... is that automatic or can i tweak it somewhere? I havent seen anything about adjusting the settings and i cant really read up on it since i didnt get any instructions.

Thanks

[TechnoNRGKid]

cant say much in this thread, but you should find a online manual for your card easily at the companys site.

[Kronos138]

if you didn't install the ATI's control panel you can easily download it. it's definately worth it. all the smartshading options and everything is in there

[Walt W]

Thanks for the replys,

In the driver cd there was a setup for the controls and a manual. I didnt notice it because i just installed the lastest drivers from ati rather then using the cd.

[Formermac]

Good call on the Radeon 9700, by the way...I just ordered a Radeon 9800 from Newegg for my machine...

Right now, ATI cards are without a doubt clear leaders in performance and image quality when compared to nVidia video cards...

...and now with the new revelations that nVidia wrote their drivers so as to cheat on the benchmarks, it's going to be a while before they recover.