Trying to keep my system alive...

[nd4spdbh2]

OK so my deliama... BF2 is amazing... i want it... but i think an FX5200 wont cut it... What is a good card that i could get decent FPS (50+) @1024x768 or below (yes i kno thats low resolution but i sit pretty far away from my monitor so i usually run in 800X600 on a 17incher.) with settings say around medium. the card has to be AGP and prefrebly under 130$... OH and obviously an nVidia card

[Avg]

There is the 6600gt, but I don't know how much they cost though, also don't limit your choices because of brand loyalty, ATi has some good stuff too, specially if you run AA and AF.

[Romulox]

Newegg has some 6600gts for under 120 in the refurbed section.
they also have a refurbed 9800pro thats $85 but nvdia only ,oh well.

[t12an_peter]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130001

you get to keep a dollar! only 129bux ^_^

[nd4spdbh2]

lol.... YES A dollar... but booo by by cus of shipping... lol... ya i have never been a fan of ATi and will probably never will be. sry ati guys.

N e ways... will the 7300gs AGP be comming out anytime soon? cus the 7300gs PCIe are around a 100 bucks... now thats my price right there... ANY thing is better than a 5200 i mean come on... the fx5500's are in freakin cellphones now adays... MY COMPUTER IS BEING BEAT BY A CELL PHONE in the gfx dept.!!!! now thats sad!

[icedragn]

Get the 6600GT, also the FX5500 is NOT in a cell phone, mobile chips are different than their desktop equivilents... the 5500 cell phone is probably based on the fx5500(an oc'd 5200, with better memory) chip, it is doubtfully as powerful as the fx5500, which isn't that great to begin with.

[MeatTheEB]

There are essentially two GPUs you can consider.

The GeForce 6800XT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121206) is $132.65 after shipping.

The GeForce 6600GT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130001) starts at $133.69 after shipping.

Both cards will play anything you throw at them pretty well at 1024x768. There are a few key differences, which I will go over, between the two GPUs



The 6800XT has a 300Mhz core with 700Mhz DDR RAM, has 8 pipelines. The key point of the card is it's 256-bit memory bus.

The 6600GT has a 500Mhz core with 9000Mhz G-DDR3 RAM, with 8 pipelines. It only has a 128-bit memory bus, unfortunately.



Now some will argue, but here is what I consider to be the main difference. In benchmarks, both perform about the same, with the 6800XT typically being between 5 and 10 percent slower, than the 6600GT. So why would you buy it, you ask? Well, the 256-bit memory bus helps out immensely in Anti-Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, and higher-resolution (not an issue for you) situations. So basically, all this boils down to is if you use AA/AF. If you do, get the 6800XT, if you don't, get the 6600GT. Both are capable cards with similar performance. Both cards also over-clock decently, however the 6600GT's RAM will obviously go further (being GDDR3), depending on the ns rating of course.

The main thing to consider, however, is that while the 6600GT's RAM might be higher/OC even higher than the 6800XT's, the 6600GT is only on a 128-bit memory bus, so the bandwidth is significantly lower than that of the 6800XT.

As far as the clock speed is concerned, the GT *is* about 65% faster on the core, but the thing to be mindful of is the fact that the GT itself is being limited by the memory bus, and therefore the core speed increase is not very important. With that being said, most 6800XT cores hit 400+, which increases performance by 10-15%.

I appologize if this is a tad long, but to summarize: the 6600GT and 6800XT are the same for performance, if you use AA/AF, get the 6800XT, if not, get the 6600GT. Both are the same price (give or take two dollars), and both will definately get the job done.

[nd4spdbh2]

thanks man that really cleared up a BUNCH. no joke. what is AA and AF n e ways?.... never really used it cus my 5200 just wont run worth crap with eirther of them on.

[icedragn]

thanks man that really cleared up a BUNCH. no joke. what is AA and AF n e ways?.... never really used it cus my 5200 just wont run worth crap with eirther of them on.

AA = Anti-Aliasing, aliasing is the jagged edges around objects, AA, for example 2x would render the image twice and then blend them to smooth it out.

AF = Anisotropic Filtering, that makes textures look more realistic, aka add's detail.

You can google for AA/AF'd images compared to non AA/AF'd images.

[MeatTheEB]

Yes, what ice said. Basically Anti-Aliasing is a feature that is finally able to be used in most games by mid-range cards, or in the GeForce 7800GTX 512MB's case, every game ever at 1600x1200.

Essentially it makes games look better, it smooths the edges of items/buildings/people/etc out, and helps better distinguish your computer from, say, an Xhouse 360. While I'm not too sure you'd want to play around with AA (as with a card in our range, it usually can't be enabled ALL the time without some compromises), you will probably want/use AF. AF stands for Anisotropic Filtering, and basically just makes textures and surfaces very pretty. AF has more to do with sheer image quality than AA does, which is why you'd more likely notice/want, say, 8xAF on all the time instead of 2xAA. The other thing is that AA is much more demanding than AF to enable, so you'll lose more performance going with AA than you will with AF.

Like I said, it's up to you which card you want to go with, and for your situation I'm guessing a 6600GT is the way to go. I personally just ordered my 6800XT a few days ago, only to find that my card indeed was stuck with DDR-1, which will make it terribly hard to overclock. I'm kind've regretting that decision, but oh-well, it'll be fun to play with. :)

[nd4spdbh2]

i get what your saying about AA.... it just makes the edges less sharp thus makes everything looks smoother and more life like. on my fx5200.... its VERY demanding.

AF- im really not getting... does it just enhance the picture and textures.... time for google...

N e ways thanks for clearing that up... i hope someone comes out with a 7300gs AGP... im likin the cheap price and ok specs... will a 6600gt preforme better than a 7300gs? And will a 6600gt overclocked outpreforme a normal 6800?

[MeatTheEB]

i hope someone comes out with a 7300gs AGP... im likin the cheap price and ok specs... will a 6600gt preforme better than a 7300gs? And will a 6600gt overclocked outpreforme a normal 6800?

Anisotropic Filtering essentially makes the images look better, it improves the texture quality. It's a nice feature to have.

As far as the 7300GS... it's not a card you want. The reasoning? It only has 4 pipelines (half that of the 6600GT/6800XT), and a 64-bit memory bus (half that of the 6600GT, and one fourth that of the 6800XT). What this means is that memory bandwidth is lower, and is a large bottleneck. Think of it this way... the 7300GS and 6600GT clock speeds are about the same, however the 6600GT's memory bus is twice the width, and therefore has twice the bandwidth... this only improves performance. If the 6800XT's lower clock speeds (when compared to the 6600GT) are made up for by the wider memory bus, imagine how much better the 6600GT is when compared to the 7300GS, memory bus-wise. Essentially, the 7300GS is, in some ways, 3-4 times slower than the 6800XT (not literally, but in ways) and twice as slow as the 6600GT. Basically, I wouldn't buy a 7300GS. Ever.

As far as the 6600GT compared to the 6800NU/Vanilla ("regular"), the thing you have to remember is that you'd be comparing it to the AGP 6800, and the AGP 6800 is not very good. It runs, typically, 325 core and 700 RAM (about the same as the 6800XT), with the only discernable difference is that it has 12 pipelines (which can argueably be unlocked on the 6800XT). So really, the AGP version of the 6800NU is the same as the 6800XT, only with factory-unlocked 12 pipelines as opposed to 8. With that being said, the 6600GT and 6800NU are pretty close in performance also. The only areas where the 6800NU really pulls ahead are, again, bandwidth-intensive tasks, such as Anti-Aliasing, and Anisotropic Filtering. Like I said, you're probably best off with a 6600GT, and if you're feeling adventurous a 6800XT.

[ChonChon]

7300GS is out and it SUCKS more then a blonde on a good day! (hehe)!

[nd4spdbh2]

ya i was lookin at the 7300gs specs.... looks like a rebadged 6200 if ya ask me....

WOW the difference between no AA and even 4x AA is amazing.... i can get CS 1.6 @ 800x600 with 4x AA and 4x AF at a constant 85fps... unless there is smokes. makes everything look soo much better.

Also with my Fx5200 i did some benchmarking. With 4xAA and 4xAF on and 3dmark01SE i get a score of 3890. with it overclocked i get a score of 4740 (No artifacting) ... this is right about a 21% increase in score... is this good?

[MeatTheEB]

It's decent (the increase, and particularly the overclock) but the FX5200 itself is a terrible card. Of course, if you look at it from an overclocking perspective, the low end of the 5, 6, and 7 series is pretty damned fun for an overclocker. <3

[nd4spdbh2]

k cus im tryin to push out as much of this card as possible..... untill i either do a whole system update or stuff becomes more available and cheaper.... n e ways i re did the hs on the GPU.... the time b 4 i put WAY to much AS5 ... so this time a little over what is recommended.... a fat grain of rice. i also lapped the gpu hs and added a 92mm fan blowing at an angle to it so it vents the heat right out the back.

Hey also is there a limit to overclocking. cus i cant put my core above 314mhz when i got to test settings it always says i fail. (stock core 250 and this is with using coolbits.)

[twoeyes]

ok ok come on guys AF does not make your textures pretty what it does is fix the detail loss that occurs when a texture is "tilted" to or resized at an angle to make things look 3d, so floors, walls when you're looking at them from the sides,etc all look blurry without AF, but when its enabled they'll be just as clear as if they were facing you directly... heres a comparison i made using TESIII morrowind some time ago:

http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=af8cr.gif

[nd4spdbh2]

ya i figured that out... lol... man it is amazing what a diff i can get if you put an hs on right.... heres the story.

A while a go i started to get into ocing my gfx card so i put some as5 on the bottom... it turned out to be way to much thus hurtin my temps and i was barly able to get to 300core (250 is stock) ... today i took the hs back off lapped it and put the right ammount of as5... a little more than a grain of rice, then added an extra 92mm fan blowing on the hs.... now i can get 325 core with out any artifacting and im still going... on to test 330. (if you think of it @ 325 thats a 30% overclock!)


OK well i got her all the way up to 330 with minimal artifacting.... 1 seen had a little snow. I went all the way to 338 but major crazy artifacting 340 wouldnt even run it. so i brought her back down to a good stable 325.... now i have some good image quality in cs with 4xAA and 4xAF

[MeatTheEB]

ok ok come on guys AF does not make your textures pretty what it does is fix the detail loss that occurs when a texture is "tilted" to or resized at an angle to make things look 3d, so floors, walls when you're looking at them from the sides,etc all look blurry without AF, but when its enabled they'll be just as clear as if they were facing you directly... heres a comparison i made using TESIII morrowind some time ago:

http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=af8cr.gif

Considering the vast majority of textures are viewed at an angle, it is safe to say that Anisotropic Filtering, essentially, makes your textures "prettier", as it relates directly to image quality itself.

As for overclocking... the speeds you can attain are directly related to a) the ambient temperatures (temps of your room, for instance), b) your card's cooling, and c) your card's components themselves. If you get a good core you can go very high, but you could very well have a "dud" which goes no where as well... all depends on luck of the draw, basically.

[nd4spdbh2]

ya i actually put a thermal probe on the corner of my GPU core (not interfering with the hs.. and with the hs lapped, proper ammount of AS5, and a 92mm fan blowing on it temps never get over 90*F.

[mystfied]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_filtering

Ah, I love Wikipedia.

As for deciding between the cards: either Pretty or Fast.

[nd4spdbh2]

well... im thinking... for the games i play now i get great fps.... also soo much new stuff is comming out right now... including the AMD M2 so i may just wait and do a whole system upgrade.

[Kenshiro]

Have you considered about the X800XL? You may be able to find a used one on ebay for $170 shipped. I know it is a little more expensive, but I think it is definitely worth it to spend and additional $50 over the 6600gt.

[nd4spdbh2]

ya.... i have never been a fan of ATI... no beef with them... its just i have used nVidia cards all my life so its like what i grew up on.lol