QUOTE (okandroid @ Jul 14 2004, 03:25 AM) |
Alright to prepare for the release of Doom 3 I've decided to opt for a new video card. But the problem is ATI or Nvidia. Ive been looking at the Radeon 9800 Pro and the Geforce FX5900. I can't decide. I have no clue which is better, and most of all I have about 200 bucks to spend, maybe a little more. I want to be able to play doom 3/half life 2 and I have
AMD XP 2000+ 512 MB DDR2700 RAM Geforce 4ti4200 64mb. ECS K7S5A Pro Motherboard.
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first of all, let me admit i do have a partial bias towards ATI. but as a proud Radeaon 9800 pro owner, ill do my best to help
i got the Sapphire Atlantis ATI Radeaon 9800 Pro w/ 256 MB DDR memory.
this can be flashed to run as a 9800XT.
also, make sure you have enough psu juice to power the nvidia....it uses a lot more power then the ATI, and will take up two slots, a pci slot which it will cover, and obviously the AGP slot.
the ATI takes up one slot, and beats out the nvidia card in *most* gaming benchmarkers. i think the nvidia however does have a slightly better pixel shader 2.0 support, im not sure. probably, since nvidia's forte is their pixel shaders.
the ATI cards tend to come with more freebie's too. ATI is also, from my experience, more accepted among gamers/geeks alike. nvidia will just get a nod of the head, and ATI gets an "awesome" well, thats an exaggeration, but you see what i mean. plus the card is red which is a contrast to nvidia, who keeps the green color you see on every other pc component. so if you have a window, you may want to choose the ATI for apperance purposes.
did nvidia switch to coloring their cards blue? im not sure, but im pretty sure the FX5900 is green. anywho, its not like that really matters. both have DX9 support, so you get the fancy lighing effects.
you may want to step up the processor and ram a bit if you want to play H2 and D3 tho. what you have will barely cut it.
and let be suggest a gigabyte mobo with the nForce2 chipset if you are going with a 32-bit processor. gigabyte usually has very good products, and the nForce chipsets tend to be very stable, especially when overclocking.
for the ram, you may want a high-quality company like corsair, or if you dont have the $$$$$ get kingston. a lot cheaper, but still very good quality.
"RAM should be the exact same type, maker and speed"
it all depends on the motherboard chipset, and a few other factors. there is no doubt it will work better, if it is all the same type, maker and speed, and will run far more stable.
if you want to take a wild chance, try different ones, sometimes it will work. on dual channel though, everything had better be the same speed. maker shouldn't matter terrible on dual channel, but like i said, depends on the chipset you are using.
most often, like 67thRaptorBull said, its a lot better to stay with the same type, maker, and speed.
also something to consider, if you do a lot of video editing/mapmaking/modmaking, etc., where you load a lot of info from the HDD, you may want two chips, and running in dual channel if possible.
also shop newegg. that shipping rate is horrible. newegg has free to extremely cheap shipping and is very realiable. all my stuff from there has always come at least a day early then expected. its fedex express saver, and nothing has come damaged, and its fast, normally about 3 days.
and apart from free shipping, if you dont live in CA, TN, or NJ, there is no tax.
and always lower prices then anywhere else i have shopped.
hope this helps.