Need Advice for new Vid card.

[SniperXX]

Ok well I am planning to upgrade my video card finally with the set date of Doom III, plus its about time, lol. I dont have a big budget due to me just preordering Doom III and I had to buy a new HD after my 60GB died..

I have had both ATi and NVidia in the past so either brand will do for me. I just want the best bang for my buck.

Some of the games I play are FarCry, UT2k3 and 2k4, BF 1942, and C&C: Generals. I generally play mostly FPS games and the C&C series of games.

I also want to be able to play Doom III with ample speed and lots of enabled settings (the more high settings the better). I dont think there are any official system specs for Doom 3 but just give me your best guess/ honest answer.

Thanks!

 

[SniperXX]

Also if I were to go PCI express whats a good performance and good priced PCI-Express mobo? Same for whats a good PCI-Express video card?

Sorry, lot of quetions but I havent been keeping up with PCI-Express and new vids cards lately... Currently tho I prefer to know about AGP 4x or 8x vid cards. Thanks.

 

[SniperXX]

Can anyone help me here?

 

[100mbHD]

i would say radeon9800pro, best bang for buck. if u want pci express, go x800, but thats expensive.......

 

[rhino56]

i got a 9800 pro and it plays generals great.
i would definately recommend it, for the money you cant beat its performance.

 

[SniperXX]

In another thread a guy reccomended the 9800pro. My question now is will the 128MB version be good enough for a little while? I am a student and its not like I have alot of money to spend..

 

[micamica1217]

In another thread a guy reccomended the 9800pro. My question now is will the 128MB version be good enough for a little while? I am a student and its not like I have alot of money to spend..

if you don't have money, then PCIexpress is not for you...
no real prformance increase anyway as compared to AGP.

price wise....

not bad, 9800pro, about $220.00
great, 6800gt if you can get it for less then the x800pro
great, x800pro should be about $400.00, or a little more at this time.
killer, x800xt about $500.00, yet will beat anything out now.


mica

 

[bojangles]

I have seen visiontek x800 pros for around 330US and thats a damn good deal. That would run DOOM3 great. Is far as x800 pro vs. 6800gt..... get the cheaper one.

 

[SniperXX]

Ok, thanks for all the input guys! It really helped me.

 

[HousERaT]

i'm not sure what your budget is but the sapphire 9800pro 128mb is on sale right now at newegg.com for 195.00.....

 

[SniperXX]

Ya I just saw that. Thanks for the heads up tho!

 

[batboy]

I recently traded my 9800 XT 256 meg card to a friend for a 9800 Pro 128 meg card and another 9700 Pro (I had a third system that needed a better vid card than the GF3 that I was using). I'm now going to sell the third system to fund a new X800 XT. But anyway, back to the topic... I lost a few 3Dmark points going from the 9800 XT 256 to the 9800 Pro 128, but I do not notice the difference at all when I play Far Cry. My Pro can be overclocked to XT speeds. I've heard that most games don't require much above 128 meg of vid RAM yet. So, I would recommend a 9800 Pro 128 meg if you are on a budget, but want a decent card.

 

[tjr1973]

The only game you might even think of worrying about with only 128 VRam is Doom 3. It probably won't make that big of a difference, but we won't know until it's out. They recommend 500+ VRam for ALL eye candy. Just sounded like the more ram on the video card the better with that game. I just read your system specs and to me anything more than a 9800 series or 5900 series card would be bottlenecked by your computer anyways. I wouldn't bother with the new generation yet.

 

[Lat]

the thing is, if you actually invest the next-gen card, it'll last for quite a bit longer

the performance gain from 9800pro -> next gen card is really big

i'd say find a cheap 6800gt, if you could afford it

 

[SniperXX]

How about a Albatron FX5700U? Theres one in the classifieds I may be interested in.

This fall around Oct (my bday) I plan to sell this mobo/proc and upgrade. Since I know the system would be a bottleneck with a good new vidcard. I need a little more power now anyways. Plus it will help with games, but thats future so vidcard is top priority now. I wanna make the most of what I have, I also got more ram now too so I am at 1GB now too.