new vid card

[AFIsoldier]

have no clue what to get, i am spending money on a vid card since it is my bottle neck and i guess i have a 200-300 dollar limit...what is something that will habdle mid-intensity settings on halo and maxed out bf1942?

[Sir Barton]

it all depends on what you wanna go with, if you want to spend bare minumum of $200 and get the best performance, id suggest a 5900 non ultra. just dont get any of the EZ or SE versions or anything like that, they usually come crippled with 2.8ns memory. a good one that comes with 2.2ns is the XFX 5900 non-ultra, they have it at newegg for $199.99 with free shipping. then you could take your left over $100 and get yourself an nF2 mobo or some better memory or a better heatsink and put a little more umph in your processor too.

[CamH]

Do you have to have an nVidia card? If not, look into a 9800NP. You can get them from Circuit City for $250. It'll do better than any nVidia card.

[AFIsoldier]

na, it can be an ati..so 9800np..is 250 best price or just at circut city?

[Sir Barton]

fanboys :rolleyes: if you want to save some money and possibly upgrade a little more of your system, go with the 5900. im just showing you the bang for the buck route. of course everybody will recommend ATi, because we all seem to be under attack in our little nvidia section here. BTW cam, if you look at the aquamark 3 benchies youll see the top 5 are nvidia cards :) also the 5900 has alot more headroom for OCing.

[Kenshiro]

For Radeon video cards, I heard the best manufacturers are ATI themselves. That is why usually the ATI Radeons are usually more expensive than their other manufacturers. Otherwise you can go for the Sapphire too. Don't get the powercolor. I heard their Radeons has stability issues.

[micamica1217]

Originally posted by Sir Barton
fanboys :rolleyes: if you want to save some money and possibly upgrade a little more of your system, go with the 5900. im just showing you the bang for the buck route. of course everybody will recommend ATi, because we all seem to be under attack in our little nvidia section here. BTW cam, if you look at the aquamark 3 benchies youll see the top 5 are nvidia cards :) also the 5900 has alot more headroom for OCing.

yep, and with tho's top scores you'll also have missing shadows, AF that looks so bad, it may be turned off.....and last but not least, missing objects.:eek:

now put the 42.xx drivers on your rig, and you'll get all the eye candy, plus the "real" scores.

get educated.

mica

[Kenshiro]

Originally posted by micamica1217


yep, and with tho's top scores you'll also have missing shadows, AF that looks so bad, it may be turned off.....and last but not least, missing objects.:eek:

now put the 42.xx drivers on your rig, and you'll get all the eye candy, plus the "real" scores.

get educated.

mica

Just a little curious here. Why use 42.xx drivers, which are over a year old, to validate the benchmark scores?

[micamica1217]

Originally posted by Kenshiro


Just a little curious here. Why use 42.xx drivers, which are over a year old, to validate the benchmark scores?

starting with the 45.xx drivers, the cheats were added for this benchmark......sad, real sad.

mica

edit: sorry, I should have said 44.xx should be used.

here is a quick link to only one of many that show the IQ of some drivers with aquamark. (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030918/index.html)

[CamH]

Originally posted by Sir Barton
fanboys :rolleyes:

I had three nVidia cards in a row before I got my 9500 and 9800. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Sir Barton
im just showing you the bang for the buck route. of course everybody will recommend ATi, because we all seem to be under attack in our little nvidia section here.

I don't think you can really call it attacking... The ATi solution is just better right now. Faster with better IQ.

Originally posted by Sir Barton
BTW cam, if you look at the aquamark 3 benchies youll see the top 5 are nvidia cards :)

After having a lot of the image quality slaughtered. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Sir Barton
also the 5900 has alot more headroom for OCing.

I don't know about that. I've seen that most 9800's can easily get over 430MHz on the core. Mine can do about 450MHz. Stock. Also, if he is lucky and gets a card with Samsung RAM, that'll overclock well also. If he gets Infineon, he will get something that does 330-340. The 9800 overclocks just fine.

The 5900 isn't a bad card, really. It just isn't what the 9800 is for just a bit more money.

[SpaceRangerJoe]

i should thro my vote in for a 9800np as well. i am far from an ati fanboy. i have had several nvidia cards before (what i wouldnt do to have my 4600 back). if you are looking for a good long term investment in the video card arena, ati cards are the way to go right now. they will match or beat the performance of nvidia cards for todays games, and will almost certainly have better performance in the next generation of games (such as hl2, if it ever gets released :rolleyes: )

if i were to spend my own money on a card today, i would go with a 128meg 9800np. i would check ebay, they have had some pretty good prices recently. of course, going with an ati card will most likely cost you a little more, but in my opinion, it would be money well spent.

[AFIsoldier]

ok, ati 9800np...where should i buy and what brand(saphire, etc..)

[CamH]

Well, if you get it at Circuity City, the only option, I think, is BBA (Built By ATi) which is a quality card.

[SpaceRangerJoe]

there are some good deals on ebay (am i allowed to post links to it?). they have one that is at 182.50 right now, for a 9800np with samsung ram. there is like 7 hours left on the bidding right now. then there are a whole bunch of 9800 pros for sale for 219. they have several days left on them, but they are only "buy it now." but its still a pretty good deal.

[Kenshiro]

i think you can go ahead and post the link.

[CamH]

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2 F&krd=1&from=R8&MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&query=radeon+9800

Does that link work? :\

[AFIsoldier]

the link worked...any of those inparticular to get? or any/all of them good cards

[CamH]

As long as you stay away from black NP's and SE's, you should be set. Espeically jump on a NP if had has Samsung RAM, though. Those are the best overclockers.

[blurry]

even though the 9800 shines ATM, the 5900 is actually more future proof and designed beyond dx spec (i.e. VS 3.0..). plus with dx9.1 these cards will get a tremendous boost to the current performance.

the 9800 is still a good solution as long as you dont mind spending more overtime.

[SpaceRangerJoe]

blurry, i dont understand what you are talking about. it is my understanding that the 5900 (along with all the other nvidia cards) is not capable or performing dx9 operations with any speed. ati cards on the other hand seem to do very well with them.

i think that the 9800 would be a much better long term investment. if you can get a 9800np with the fast ram, then do that and over clock the sucker. with the money you save over a pro, you could probably even get better cooling for it and beat the 9800pro speeds by a fair margin.

[CamH]

Yeah, I'm not sure where Blurry's coming from either. The whole FX line was developed beyond Dx9 specs... But in a bad way. They have to use either 16 or 32bit shaders, while the Dx9 spec calls for 24bit shaders, like ATi cards use. Since FX cards are too slow, they can't even run in 32bit mode. All shader operations are done in 16bit. ATi cards are very capable of running in the required 24bit mode, and they will never do any less.

[micamica1217]

Originally posted by blurry
even though the 9800 shines ATM, the 5900 is actually more future proof and designed beyond dx spec (i.e. VS 3.0..). plus with dx9.1 these cards will get a tremendous boost to the current performance.

the 9800 is still a good solution as long as you dont mind spending more overtime.

first off, in DX games....nVidia is only able to run in 16bit FP's.
this is not even DX9.0 compliant.
yet it can run in 32bit FP in OpenGL...yet, way too slow for even todays games.

yes the FX cards do have VS3.0 support....yet it could never be used in any way once DX.10 comes out.
again, way to slow....yeah, you really want to play a game at 3fps?

now as to DX9.1......so far, not even the industry leaders and programers know anything about any new DX.
if they have not gotten a beta of final by now, do you realy think it will ever come out???
I say it's just another nVidia FUD campain.

mica

[AFIsoldier]

can someone give me an exact card to buy, i don't wanna grab a piece of crap card because i'm still a little fuzzy on what to look for

[AFIsoldier]

bump...

[CamH]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2768758315&category=40158

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2769228346&category=40158

[Kenshiro]

Originally posted by AFIsoldier
can someone give me an exact card to buy, i don't wanna grab a piece of crap card because i'm still a little fuzzy on what to look for

If you want to make sure that you have no problems running any games in the future (directx 9 games), get the ATI 9800 non pro. It should be around $250.

FYI, I owned a FX5900 non ultra.

[YellowDart]

Originally posted by CamH
Do you have to have an nVidia card? If not, look into a 9800NP. You can get them from Circuit City for $250. It'll do better than any nVidia card.

Circuit City just dropped the prices for the BBA 9800 np to $199! So tempting......

Dunno if it's a nation wide thing, but here in Phx, AZ they just dropped this weekend to $199.

[AFIsoldier]

no price online and idk when or if i will be going to charlotte for a best buy...grr