[danomite664]

Ok, i am going to be upgrading my computer some and i am not sure which video card i should get. I was looking at the Radeon 9500, because the price is just about perfect for what i have to spend. But, should i just spend the little bit extra and go with the 9500 pro, or would i be best off to go with an nvidia card? Also, im buying another 512 MB of crucial ram and a WD 120 GB special edition hard drive. Any suggestions on any of that?

[IR1]

use the search button... there are about 5 of these exact same questions a day.

[arabarabian]

I have been using NVidia cards for some time now and am throughly pleased. I really think you would love a GeForce4 once you got one. Crucial RAM is good. Western Digital is alos good. Looks like that will be a nice setup.

Thank You,
Daniel

[PreservedSwine]

Spend the extra for the 9500PRO, or even a few bones more and pony up for a non-PRO R9700...

[danomite664]

i have also always been an nvidia person, used about 4 of their cards, but have just heard better things about ATI cards

[Axion]

about the only thing i *can* comment on!

go ati - except for high end Fx Ultra's they are just better than nVidia's current lineup... cost/performance they are by far the winner

from www.mwave.com you can get the 9700np for $200 - a realy bargain and good o/c possibilities.
wd is a fine hard drive - maxtor good also
crucial is good, many also seem to like corsair.
ive heard very good things about the ocz pc3500 duel gold channel things... but i dont know anything about them myself


i am a converted nVidia-o-phile!

[danomite664]

well, i was looking at only spending about 150 on a video card, but does everyone think that i should spend the extra 50 bucks and go with a 9700? or is there not much of a difference between the 2?

[snyper1982]

im not sure about the 9500 never used one, but i have the 9700 np, and i cant tell you it is an awesome card, with a bios flash it can be running at 9700 pro speeds, but i havent seen a reason to flash it, it runs perfectly fine at stock settings.

[torchedlh]

Originally posted by Axion
about the only thing i *can* comment on!

go ati - except for high end Fx Ultra's they are just better than nVidia's current lineup... cost/performance they are by far the winner

from www.mwave.com you can get the 9700np for $200 - a realy bargain and good o/c possibilities.
wd is a fine hard drive - maxtor good also
crucial is good, many also seem to like corsair.
ive heard very good things about the ocz pc3500 duel gold channel things... but i dont know anything about them myself


i am a converted nVidia-o-phile!

you can get a 9500 non pro at newegg for $150 and a 9500 pro from newgg for $185 respectively. it's worth the extra $35 for the pro. go for that.

[danomite664]

but is it worth spending the extra 50 to go to the 9700np? (as opposed to the 9500np)

[Yuriman]

The 9700np is worth the extra cash.

[mark2kay]

personally,id say go with a 9000 pro.

only aroind 64 bux, i mean those expensive cardds play better at realll high resoulution,but who actually plays at that high resoulution? eaverthing is so damn small at that resoulution, and it hurts ur eyes.

[Yuriman]

wha-da-ya mean so small? Just more clear. On the desktop its smaller, but thats why you set your desktop res lower.

[bdw8]

You don't want to buy a 9000pro now. Its leaves you with no breathing room over the next six months. Its well worth the extra money for 9500pro, not to mention the 9700np...so I say definately go for the 9700np for that price. It may perform so good, you won't see a need to flash the bios (yet ). You won't regret it. This next half of the year is gonna put out some heavy games that you may be interested in and a 9700np will put you in the position you need to be to play it at higher resolution with good detail.

[PreservedSwine]

Frankly, I think it's worth the extra $50 to gran an R9700np.

I bought an R9500np, and if it hadn't soft-modded succeslfully, I had already made up my mind I would have traded it in for an R9700n.p.

As it is, I just saved myself $50, as it did the mod succesfully, but that was a flip of the coin.

I would not have been happy knowing that for a mere $50, I could have had an R9700.....

Just my .000000000000000000002

[danomite664]

i agree, i want at least the 9500, just so i can play new games that come out for the next while. All the video cards i have ever gotten were about 50-70 bucks, so they were already outdated, and i dont want to do that again.

[Jo-Jo]

if you check best buys. one of the 3 local best buys has them at close out for $149. yes that's the 9500pro. if your not using a 21" monitor at 1600 x 1200 res, you won't really need the anything faster unless you want 'future proofing.' you know there's really no noticalble difference between all the 9xxx series cards at the lower resulutions. the upper end cards are really meant for the bigger 21" screens.

[zabomb4163]

Originally posted by Jo-Jo
you know there's really no noticalble difference between all the 9xxx series cards at the lower resulutions. the upper end cards are really meant for the bigger 21" screens.

wtf did you get that idea?
heres a VERY good reason to buy 9700 over a 9500
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1735&p=12

and here is a link showing how much it sucks having a 9500np that didnt mod correctly when a 9700np was 50$ more

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardwa...0pro/page9.asp
and

this one in particular
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardwa...pro/page10.asp
1024x768 resolution (so you wont use the high resolution excuse)

9700 is more than 2x faster than the 9500np. if you use the higher resoltions the 9700 kicks the living crap out the 9500, getting almost 3x faster in many test.

[Disco_Stu]

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showth...0&pagenumber=2

Everyone SPAM this link. Good guide of which cards to buy, and more good discussion for those who bother to read. Take a look.