Topic: What Video Card Should I Get? (Read 381 times)

_SCaRfaCe · « **on:** January 07, 2004, 12:34:00 PM »

hey all, i think its time to get rid of the tnt 2 m64 as it's bottlenecking everything on my xp2600 and replace it with something good but cost effective. over the past 3 days ive been checking benchmarks, pricing, bla bla bla and unlike other situations... i don't know what i should get. i was thinking geforce fx 5600 or radeon 9600/9600se. anyone can recommend something really damn good.... for a good price.

J_Man61 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 07, 2004, 01:02:00 PM »

well on ebay for $99 you can get a ati 9600.

hotshot743 · « **Reply #2 on:** January 07, 2004, 01:08:00 PM »

I was looking into getting a new video card too

is this one worth it?

http://www.newegg.co...talog=48&depa=1

lebriznon · « **Reply #3 on:** January 07, 2004, 01:32:00 PM »

with the recent cards by nvidia and ATI, the ATI cards are far better both in terms of performance, quality, and price. for a nice and powerful card, the radeon 9800 pro/XT are great. i have an ATI radeon 9600 PRO...great card, wasnt too expensive when i got it ($250 CDN). i also have a 9600se by HIS. only cost me $125 CDN and i havent found any games that run better on my pro than the se

so it all depends on your budget. for high-end range, go for a radeon 9800 XT, for mid range, the 9600XT, and for even less money, the 9600se is incredible. i think u get HL2 free when it comes out if you buy a 9600/9800XT...

dont buy anything cheaper. i also have a radeon 9200, Geforce2MX400, and Geforce4MX440. all three of those are very shitty. thank god i got most of those free.....

DermicSavage · « **Reply #4 on:** January 07, 2004, 03:41:00 PM »

QUOTE (lebriznon @ Jan 7 2004, 03:32 PM)

with the recent cards by nvidia and ATI, the ATI cards are far better both in terms of performance, quality, and price.

i can agree on most of that, but price is iffy when it comes to the 9600 series imo

2 weeks ago i was able to personally compare a 9800 XT to a FX 5950, and the radeon came out on top

not only did it have better framerates, it could achive higher levels of quality(6x AA, and 16x AF, compared to nvidia's 4x AA and 8x AF)

also the radeon was able to achive MUCH higher framerates when using its max AA and AF to nvidia's max AA and AF

* illusion * · « **Reply #5 on:** January 07, 2004, 04:38:00 PM »

Get a 9600Pro, 9600XT, or GeforceFX 5700Ultra. Stay away from any 5200 card and you should be fine.

i.stole.this.name · « **Reply #6 on:** January 07, 2004, 09:38:00 PM »

no use now u can get a 9700pro for the same price of a 9600XT, thats pretty stupid.

still considering softmodding my 9700p into a 9800p....

personally id wait till the next gen comes out, the XT and 5950 are just transition cards...

The R400 and Nv40 Chips are said to be releasing soon, marking the 4th generation lines in both cases will summon a staggering drop in prices

* illusion * · « **Reply #7 on:** January 08, 2004, 06:01:00 PM »

I softmodded my Sapphire Radeon 9500 128MB.

tayior7 · « **Reply #8 on:** January 09, 2004, 08:35:00 PM »

i wouldnt recommend ati
i had alot of issues with mine and so did alot of other people
check this out
http://www.hardwarea...ent/topic/8596/
its like 60 pages of people!

weird thing is its working now after about the 7th time i reformatted

DermicSavage · « **Reply #9 on:** January 09, 2004, 10:15:00 PM »

i am runnin a radeon 9800 pro 128 and have foudn no problems with it, my freinds have had problems with theirs, but they are morons that decide to overclock their hardware to extreme measures without sufficient cooling, so i feel their opinions are nullified

also i would liek to mention that those complaints are referring to a driver that is rather old(catalyst 3.6)

all i have to say is that if it dun work, then the person didnt install it or soem other hardware correctly, but then again i never get those rare errors that just seem to happen to systems

i find it funny tho that they ignore the possibility it may be something else besides video, nvidia fanboys at work i guess

i.stole.this.name · « **Reply #10 on:** January 10, 2004, 02:33:00 AM »

i got a 9700 pro clocked to 380/350 (just over 9800pro) and im gonna flash a 9800bios on it soon

no problems, if anything the nvidia detonators suck more than ATI catalyst

i.stole.this.name · « **Reply #11 on:** January 10, 2004, 02:35:00 AM »

any clue what samsung e-die dram is? its sum vga ram, i think that 9700pro and 9800pro have exactly the same modules tho

LESTAT · « **Reply #12 on:** January 10, 2004, 03:26:00 AM »

QUOTE

still considering softmodding my 9700p into a 9800p....

you will get NO performance increase by doing this dude.
you may have seen me over at guru3d.com ive been hangin there for a while now and i did the softmod and had no improvements whatsoever. and anyone who did get improvements , it was only a slight improvement nothing worth bragging about.

flash your 9700 with a 9800 bios ? nah man no need the softmod does the same and is aLOT safer, ALOT safer.

as for what card to get ?

as the other gentleman stated the 9800 series and the 9700 series for that matter has continually smoked NVidia in almost all areas. not just benchmarks but realworkd results.
i would avoid the nvidia line
personally if you can wait, wait for the ATI nextgen ship and go all out, but if you cant wait and have the cash get the 9800xt.
you can also get a 9500pro and softmod it to a 9700pro which for the money is a big increase in performance for a cheap proce. but be warned here and now DO YOUR RESEARCH! there are many ati cards made by 3rd party companies that are not overclocking very well.
personally my 9700pro is a "MadeBy ATI" 9700pro and i have not had any problems.
i have a copper heatsink and fan with ram sinks too along with an extra 6000rpm fan on the backside of the card sucking heat off of it. if your gunna overclock dont do it with stock cooling. well let me rephrase that if your going to overclock more than a little, dont use stock cooling.
those guys who are pulling 350-380mhz on the GPU/VPU core i have no clue how they are doing it, because i can barely go over 335 before it starts giving me artifacts, even with all the extra cooling. same with ram i can only go to about 330-335 .

overall man id say a 9700pro i havent seen the 9600pro yet but its a budget card, not low line mostly midlevel and id say it dont perform as good as the 9700pro but i could be wrong.

just do your research bro and research prices too, youll find a good deal for your money.
dont forget guru3d.com has a superb forum for video cards.

lebriznon · « **Reply #13 on:** January 10, 2004, 07:02:00 AM »

QUOTE (LESTAT @ Jan 10 2004, 05:26 AM)

overall man id say a 9700pro i havent seen the 9600pro yet but its a budget card, not low line mostly midlevel and id say it dont perform as good as the 9700pro but i could be wrong.

youre right. the 9500 series was the old mid-level card, and now that its discontinued, they make the 9600 series. its just that the 9500 happened to be built so similarly to the 9700, and you could softmod some versions of it

so the 9700 is unquestionably better as its a higher end card, and the 9500 is also better than the 9600, but the only problem is they dont make those anymore and its really hard to find

* illusion * · « **Reply #14 on:** January 10, 2004, 08:49:00 AM »

QUOTE

let me rephrase that if your going to overclock more than a little, dont use stock cooling.
those guys who are pulling 350-380mhz on the GPU/VPU core i have no clue how they are doing it,

Believe it or not I got a great card for overclocking, mines clocked at 275/270 stock and I was able to push it as far as 351/310. This is all with no modified cooling.

Author Topic: What Video Card Should I Get? (Read 381 times)