Which Graphics Card?

[Jayo2375]

I have got £90 maximum to spend on a new graphics card. I would like one which has 256 MB of Video Memory. Can anybody please help me with my decision? I have been looking at some nVIDIA's and ATi's on www.ebuyer.com , also can anybody give me a good site with cheap prices. Thanks

[Nephewkp]

What is that in US currency?

[fac_29]

From that list, the 9600Pro 256Mb Card. Not a bad price that.

Oh, and in US, with the current exchange rates its about $150 or so.

[Jayo2375]

could anyone give me a link to that 9600 Pro on eBUYER?

[bchur83]

I would stay away from the 256MB cards unless you go with a 9800 XT, cuz the 256MB cards have slower Ram on them. There is really no use for 256MB anyway for current games. Get like a 9600XT 128MB or a 9600PRO 128MB, but stay away from 256MB cards.

[fac_29]

Here:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=59178

With Tax and P&P it works out at £94...

[fac_29]

Originally posted by bchur83
I would stay away from the 256MB cards unless you go with a 9800 XT, cuz the 256MB cards have slower Ram on them. There is really no use for 256MB anyway for current games. Get like a 9600XT 128MB or a 9600PRO 128MB, but stay away from 256MB cards.
Thats not always the case. The Ram on my 256MB FX5600 is the same speed as the 128Mb version and the price difference was only £3.
He's probably better goin for the 128Mb version of that card thou, theres quite a big cash difference too.

[Black_Paladin]

There is no point in buying a graphics card today with 256MBs of memory unless you are going to be using it for a workstation. The bigger amount of memory only helps with bigger textures and this can be useful for CAD/CAM work.

As it is right now, there are no *games* that make use of 256MBs of memory. Not even close... Moreoever, in the future, when you have games that will need 256MBs of memory to run optimally, any card you can buy today will be obselete.

Couple years ago they were selling GeForce ti200s with 128MBs of memory. These cards had *NO ADVANTAGE* (by this I mean not a *SINGLE* frame difference) over the 64MB versions then and they have *NO ADVANTAGE* over the 64MB version TODAY simply because a ti200 is not suitable to play any of today's DX9 games (because of its old architecture) anyway. Get my drift?

By the time your 256MB card starts using those 256MBs, it will be even worse than what the ti200 is like right now. This is because while the amount of memory is always doubling for graphics cards, the texture sizes for games are not doubling at the same rate. As a result, the amount of graphics memory on graphics cards stopped being a bottleneck a while ago.

Today, our games make use of the 128MBs of memory (altough notice that even then most games do *NOT* make use of the whole 128MBs, maybe 80-90MBs at most) so doubling this memory will do nothing. It's only the XBox that needs to double its memory because at 64MBs, it can't support the texture sizes the graphics cards for the PCs today can support (this is why Deus Ex 2, which they ported from the XBox looks like **** on the PC :mad: ).

Anyway, if you are looking for a very cheap workstation card, 256MBs would come in handy but not if you are buying this card for playing games.

[Strida]

A vast majority of the games out there don't even use 64 mb. There is no reason to go higher than 128. Hell, you only gain a few points in benchmarking programs and those few points equate to something < 5 fps difference.

At this time the 256mb cards are more of a gimmick and selling stat than anything else.

[Jayo2375]

ok.... if you had to chose out of these 4 graphics cards which one would you pick?

XFX GeForce Fx5600XT AGP8x 256MB DDR TV-Out DVI Retail Box

MSI FX5600XT-TD256 256MB 8x AGP Retail Box TV-Out DVI Retail Box

Mediamax/PowerColor Radeon 9600 PRO 256MB DDR ATI TV-Out DVI-I Retail Box

XFX Geforce Fx5200 AGP8x 256MB DDR DVI TV-Out Retail box

[Black_Paladin]

Originally posted by Strida
A vast majority of the games out there don't even use 64 mb. There is no reason to go higher than 128. Hell, you only gain a few points in benchmarking programs and those few points equate to something < 5 fps difference.

At this time the 256mb cards are more of a gimmick and selling stat than anything else.

Which is exactly what I said above. It's all marketing BS. Extra memory, AGP 8X and now the upcoming PCI express.

[Jayo2375]

oh... ok which 128MB graphics card would recommend me getting, i have got £90 maximum to spend on it?

[Black_Paladin]

Originally posted by Jayo2375
ok.... if you had to chose out of these 4 graphics cards which one would you pick?

XFX GeForce Fx5600XT AGP8x 256MB DDR TV-Out DVI Retail Box

MSI FX5600XT-TD256 256MB 8x AGP Retail Box TV-Out DVI Retail Box

Mediamax/PowerColor Radeon 9600 PRO 256MB DDR ATI TV-Out DVI-I Retail Box

XFX Geforce Fx5200 AGP8x 256MB DDR DVI TV-Out Retail box

The PowerColor Radeon 9600 PRO is the best card from this selection of choices.

Avoid the Fx5200 like the plague. It is SIGNIFICANTLY underpowered and ANY card at its price range would be a better buy.

[Black_Paladin]

Originally posted by Jayo2375
oh... ok which 128MB graphics card would recommend me getting, i have got £90 maximum to spend on it?

OK, converting 90 British pounds to US dollars makes 129.35 US dollars according to this chart: http://www.eslfocus.com/Conversions/usabri.html

In US, at this price, the best card you can buy is a 9600 pro with 128MBs of memory as it is going for exactly $125-130.

I do not know however, how these cards are priced in the UK. What are the prices on the cards you quoted above? Also, what are the prices on the 128MB versions of these cards?

EDIT: I am a moron as I realized that the chart that I linked to above is from September 2000. :o :o :o

[Jayo2375]

ok, the prices for the 9600 Pro are:

256MB £87.89 GBP / $162.624 USD

128MB £76.14 GBP / $140.89 USD

[Black_Paladin]

Originally posted by Jayo2375
ok, the prices for the 9600 Pro are:

256MB £87.89 GBP / $162.624 USD

128MB £76.14 GBP / $140.89 USD

OMG, I am an idiot!!! :eek: :eek: I realized that the chart I looked at was from September 2000! Geeeeez, sorry. I need to find a more current conversion chart.

OK, looking at the prices you posted, from the looks of it (at least as far as 9600 cards go), the cards in UK seem to be slightly more expensive than the ones in the US. Not by much though. Now, considering this price difference, you might also be able to get a 9600XT. In the US, the 9600XTs run at about $150, which would be very close to your price range if they run for $165-$170 in the UK.

As a result, I would say that a 9600 pro with 128MBs of memory would be the best buy today if you can not find a 9600XT for 90 pounds. A 9600XT is faster than a 9600 pro and is worth the price difference in my opinion.

[fac_29]

Its not that they more expensive in the UK its just that the Pound is a hell of a lot stronger than the dollar at the moment so for one Pound Sterling you can get about $1.70, thats why i nearly always Import :D You can get some unbelievable bargains.
And i suggest you Import too Jayo2375, its well worth the shipping costs for the money you'll save.

[Jayo2375]

just out of intrest which one of these is the better buy?

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=121421&view=detailed

http://www.dabs.com/uk/productView.htm?quicklinx=30RR

the sapphire or dabs value?

[tom10167]

The Dabs. If you're spending 116Pounds on a 9600 ANYTHING, when a 9800 pro, which is MUCH MUCH faster is only 160 Pounds.

[Black_Paladin]

Originally posted by tom10167
The Dabs. If you're spending 116Pounds on a 9600 ANYTHING, when a 9800 pro, which is MUCH MUCH faster is only 160 Pounds.

What if he doesn't have 160 pounds to spend on a graphics card? We are both gamers and would spend that money without hesitation but not everybody is like us. He might be an occasional gamer who just wants a decent card for his price range and might not care if he gets a card almost twice as fast for $50-$60.

[devilscow22]

i would go with the 9600pro or XT watever you do dont getthe FX 5200 i got 1 when i built my comp and it was horrible

[eMpAtHy112]

a 5900..u can find them for about 150 dollars..and 256 is useless now. no game..maybe 1 can use up all 256 mb's of memory on a videocard..other than that..its pointless..go with a 5900 if u can only spend that much money. u will be satisfied.

[Lunar Wolf]

Correct me if i'm wrong, But Call of Duty likes 256mb of Vid-Ram. You can't max out the graphics settings without it. The future of games is definatly 256mb.

[Black_Paladin]

Originally posted by Lunar Wolf
The future of games is definatly 256mb.

However, we are not living in the future. We are living in the present. At the present, no game actually needs 256MBs and I don't believe that a game like Call of Duty makes use of anything more than 128MBs.
Do you know what texture sizes are for that game?

[Lunar Wolf]

Originally posted by Black_Paladin


However, we are not living in the future. We are living in the present. At the present, no game actually needs 256MBs and I don't believe that a game like Call of Duty makes use of anything more than 128MBs.
Do you know what texture sizes are for that game?

Extract from CoD readme:

5. Recommended Texture Settings for Video Cards

If you are experiencing performance or graphical anomalies, use the texture guidelines above, or select "Optimal System Settings" in the Game Options menu. This may alleviate the problems you are seeing.

- Video cards with 32MB to 64MB of video RAM are able to use the Normal Character & General Textures settings.
- Video cards with 128MB of video RAM are able to use the High Character & General Textures settings.
- Video cards with 256MB of video RAM are able to use the Extra Character & General Textures settings.

* Video cards with 32MB of video RAM will see improved performance with the Low Character & General Textures settings.


Do you own CoD? do you have a 128mb Graphics card? Try the Detail setting above for a 256mb card and see how well your system does, the game may not "Need" 256mb but it looks nicer with it and it does use it. Be careful how you use the term "need" as i can run HAlO smoothly on a GF4 MX but it looks pretty plain, the Game dosent need my 9700 it just "Needs" a 733mhz CPU/128mb of Ram and a 32mb/3D T&L Video card but plays much better on a superior system.

So yes your absolutly right "we are not living in the future" the fact is there are games out there that do run better with a Card equipped with 256mb of onboard vid-ram so the future is upon us and with the upcomming releases of Doom3 & Half-life 2, if your upgrading now and the cost difference isn't much your better of buying a card with 256mb.

[Black_Paladin]

Originally posted by Lunar Wolf


Extract from CoD readme:

Do you own CoD? do you have a 128mb Graphics card? Try the Detail setting above for a 256mb card and see how well your system does, the game may not "Need" 256mb but it looks nicer with it and it does use it. Be careful how you use the term "need" as i can run HAlO smoothly on a GF4 MX but it looks pretty plain, the Game dosent need my 9700 it just "Needs" a 733mhz CPU/128mb of Ram and a 32mb/3D T&L Video card but plays much better on a superior system.

So yes your absolutly right "we are not living in the future" the fact is there are games out there that do run better with a Card equipped with 256mb of onboard vid-ram so the future is upon us and with the upcomming releases of Doom3 & Half-life 2, if your upgrading now and the cost difference isn't much your better of buying a card with 256mb.

No, I don't have CoD and I must say I am really surprised that a game like that has textures that big. If you remember a year ago, there was a leaked version of Doom 3 out. At the time, the rumor was that even Doom 3 used only 80MBs of textures. Most people agreed that the game looked really nice compared to everything else though. Forward to today, the game still hasn't come out yet and I'm sure it doesn't look any worse than it did a year ago and I wonder if the texture sizes have grown.

The reason I am surprised CoD has such gargantuan textures is because I thought it didn't look that much different than Medal of Honor (of course, all I have seen were screenshots and I doubt that any of the screenshots I have seen were taken with a card that had 256MBs) and the reason I compared it to Doom 3 was because I thought Doom 3 looked very nice from the screenshots I saw (that is to say, with really detailed textures) and I hadn't seen any games that looked that nice that used the Quake 3 engine. Well, just because a game is using an old engine does not mean that it can't have big textures but my point was that I would have expected a newer game with a newer engine (what we would a call "next generation" game) to have textures that size. After all, other WW2 games that use the Quake 3 engine like Medal of Honor, Battlefield 1942, etc. don't use nearly as big textures.

As a result, consider the possibility that what you quoted from the readme is a marketing plot. I am not saying that this is for sure but it sure could be, couldn't it? A plot just to make people spend money on 256MB cards. It wouldn't be very surprising either as game manufacturers always have deals with card manufacturers (I *HATE* seeing that "the way it's meant to be played" **** on games for instance, it's very arrogant and it's not even true that nVidia cards run those games any better than ATI cards).

[Lunar Wolf]

I'd generally agree with you, i do beleive in buying a card to run current games not furure releases, if i'd gone out to buy a Card when Doom3 was announced that would have been a bad move as a Ti4600 would still have struggled, but that said its still a good idea to buy somthing at a reasonable price which still has a degree of future proofing.
I don't think that the Readme file is a marketing ploy as Games Developers/Publishers want their software to sell, and sell alot of copies. That means making it accessable to as many people as possible, so the minimum system requirements are very important. However if i have a super uber system, its nice also if that same game is capable of some nice Video/sound effects also and games developers do love to so off their work. If it were marketing it would have been printed all over the Website, Games' Box and magizines that it was a "256 Vidcard Game" but it was just printed in the readme, which is where most people start looking if their getting really crappy performance.
Then there are games which are badly coded Like the infamous HALO which is a good playable game with good multiplayer fun but is sadly marred by its poorly coded graphics which waste memory resorces. An example is turning off "Specular" which improves framrates by about 5-10fps but results in no dicernable quality difference.

-my opinion of corse