Computer Science Canada

Help me buy a graphic card...

Author:  Homer_simpson [ Thu Jan 01, 2004 6:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Help me buy a graphic card...

ok here are my options...
ATI CHIPSET RADEON 9200SE 128MB DDR for 99.99$ cdn
ATI. RADEON 9000 CHIPSET 128 DDR W/TV OUT for 119.99$ cdn
ATI RADEON 9000 CHIPSET 128DDR W/TV OUT for 99.99
GEFORCE 4 128MB SDR W/TV OUT for 99.99
GEFORCE FX5600 AGP/128M/DVI/TV-O 139.99


which one u think is better with my money i'm willing to spend from 100 to 130-40 bux on this?
or maybe you guys know any place with cheaper prices...

Author:  poly [ Thu Jan 01, 2004 7:56 pm ]
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the Radeon 9000 is a pretty good graphics card (i got the 9000 64mb) and i cant really complain.
Quote:
ATI. RADEON 9000 CHIPSET 128 DDR W/TV OUT for 119.99$ cdn
ATI RADEON 9000 CHIPSET 128DDR W/TV OUT for 99.99

You realize both these are the same cards?

ANyway I would probably say go with the RADEON 9200SE 128MB. Its a bit of an improvement from the 9000 and if both cards (9200 & 9000) are the same price go with the 9200.

Author:  Homer_simpson [ Thu Jan 01, 2004 9:51 pm ]
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appearantly they are :S...

but my friend just got a radeon 9200 SE 2 days ago and it fucked up his system he's got a pentium 4 3.6 ghz 512 ram and when i setup the graphic card for him and installed drivers and everything it was really slow Sad i dunno why :S

Author:  poly [ Thu Jan 01, 2004 11:05 pm ]
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really. hmmm did you put the cat3.9 drivers in?

Author:  Homer_simpson [ Fri Jan 02, 2004 3:45 pm ]
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what the hell is cat 3.9 ? the only drivers i installed were the ones that came on a cd along with the card...

Author:  PaddyLong [ Sat Jan 03, 2004 3:56 pm ]
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go to ati.com and get the newest drivers... ati is known for shipping with shitty drivers when a card first comes out.

Author:  Homer_simpson [ Sat Jan 03, 2004 5:15 pm ]
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well what i want to know is which one is better? ATI radeons or Geforce?

Author:  Andy [ Sat Jan 03, 2004 5:24 pm ]
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radeon is better, get a 9800xt if u can or at least a 9800

Author:  poly [ Sat Jan 03, 2004 7:54 pm ]
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or even the 9700/9700PRO is good. You never said so, but Im assuming your a gamer?

Author:  poly [ Sat Jan 03, 2004 7:55 pm ]
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or even the 9700/9700PRO is good. You never said so, but Im assuming your a gamer?

Author:  PaddyLong [ Sun Jan 04, 2004 12:38 pm ]
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"or even the 9700/9700PRO is good."

haha when only a few months ago the 9700PRO was the best card out there

Author:  Homer_simpson [ Sun Jan 04, 2004 4:08 pm ]
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well the prices of radeon 9700+ go over 150 :S
how bout a radeon 7200? will i have any problems "gaming" with it?

Author:  Catalyst [ Sun Jan 04, 2004 5:25 pm ]
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of those there 5600 is ur best bet
if ur willing to pay more get a radeon 9600 or 9700 pro

Author:  LovelyCrap [ Sun Jan 04, 2004 8:21 pm ]
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Catalyst wrote:
of those there 5600 is ur best bet
if ur willing to pay more get a radeon 9600 or 9700 pro

Agreed. As far as speed goes, the 5600 has everything else on that list beat.

The 7200 = non-gamer card. Unless the only game you play is CS and Quake 2/3... this is not the card for you.

Quote:
GEFORCE 4 128MB SDR W/TV OUT for 99.99

I'm guessing by the price thats a GeForce 4 MX and not a Ti...

My recomendation is to get at least a Radeon 9600. The 9600XT is probably the best bang for your buck right now.

Video Card Buying Rule #1:
Anything made by nVidia with the letters MX in or anywhere near the name is bad. Rolling Eyes Believe it or not, thats the truth. heh
The GeForce 4 MX series are not actually "true" GeForce 4's and are actually based on ancient GeForce 2 technology (bad).

Video Card Buying Rule #2:
Any video card that costs less than $100 is not fit for modern 3D applications unless you bought it from a store closing sale and it was 80% off.

Video Card Buying Rule #3:
Brand does not make a difference. There will always be fanboys who say one brand's products are superior to another, but in the end, who cares? As long as it lets you do what you want it's all good right?

Video Card Buying Rule #4:
Buying online is always cheaper. Unless you bought it from the previously mentioned store closing sale.

Video Card Buying Rule #5:
Make sure the video card you picked uses DDR RAM, fits into a AGP slot and not a PCI slot, has a 4X or higher AGP transfer rate, has at least 64mb of onboard RAM (128mb highly recommended) and was made in the last 4 years. Anything older = crap for modern gaming. No exceptions to this rule.

Warning: video cards with 256mb onboard RAM are not economically viable and only offer a very small performance increase compared to video cards with 128mb of onboard RAM.



Basic rundown of available video cards in order of stock speed (descending):
Ati Radeon 9800XT
nVidia GeForce FX 5900
ATi Radeon 9800 PRO
nVidia GeForce FX 5800
ATi Radeon 9800
ATi Radeon 9700 PRO
ATi Radeon 9600XT
ATi Radeon 9700
nVidia GeForce FX 5700 Ultra
ATi Radeon 9500 PRO (out of production)
ATi Radeon 9600 PRO
nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4600 (out of general production)
nVidia GeForce FX 5700
ATi Radeon 9600
ATi Radeon 9500 (out of production)
nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4400 (out of general production)
nVidia GeForce FX 5600 Ultra
nVidia GeForce FX 5600
nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 (out of general production)
ATi Radeon 9100 (Relabled 8500)
ATi Radeon 8500
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
ATi Radeon 9000 PRO
ATi Radeon 9200 PRO
ATi Radeon 9000

Note: the positions of some items on the above list are debatable. Some cards may be better at certain applications than other cards. The position of the cards in the above list were chosen on the general performance of each card and not the card's performance with any single application.

The SE versions of the 9800, 9600, and 9200 are slower than the regular non-PRO versions of the same cards.

Any cards not listed on the above list are either too damned slow/old to be considered a gaming card and/or is not currently available in stores (Canada).

Everything in this post are the (somewhat edumacated) opinions of LovelyCrap.

Author:  Homer_simpson [ Sun Jan 04, 2004 10:21 pm ]
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Homer_simpson wrote:
well the prices of radeon 9700+ go over 150 :S
how bout a radeon 7200? will i have any problems "gaming" with it?

ummm... that 7200 was a typo i meant to say 9200... how do u think that'll work for me...?(plz comment on that one)

and thx for the advise crap... it had some good tips in it Confused have +bits

Author:  PaddyLong [ Mon Jan 05, 2004 3:36 pm ]
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my radeon 64mb ddr > Ati Radeon 9800XT

Author:  LovelyCrap [ Mon Jan 05, 2004 6:35 pm ]
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Homer_simpson wrote:
Homer_simpson wrote:
well the prices of radeon 9700+ go over 150 :S
how bout a radeon 7200? will i have any problems "gaming" with it?

ummm... that 7200 was a typo i meant to say 9200... how do u think that'll work for me...?(plz comment on that one)

Well, as you can see from the list I wrote, the 9200 isn't all that great. Your better off with a similarly priced 9100 (8500) or a 9000 PRO. I personally would not recommend the 9200 since it's slower than the 9000PRO and often more expensive too.

The 5600 beats all of these however and $140 is a decent price for it.

Go to www.VibeComputers.com for some great deals on comp parts. I've ordered from them many times and their service and prices have always been great. Vibe is a Vancouver based company (which is a good thing if you don't live in B.C. cause that means no PST!).

Author:  Homer_simpson [ Tue Jan 06, 2004 9:05 pm ]
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are those prices in cdn dollar?

Author:  LovelyCrap [ Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:58 pm ]
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Homer_simpson wrote:
are those prices in cdn dollar?

Yes.

Check out the 9500 (non-PRO) they have at Vibe. It's going for an amazing $111CDN. The only drawback (minor) is the use of only 64mb of onboard RAM. However, $111 for a card as fast as this is rediculous. 9500's are out of production so this deal won't last too long.

Vibe also has a 9600SE for $140DN which is also a decent deal.

Author:  Homer_simpson [ Wed Jan 07, 2004 8:43 pm ]
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but doesn't se in front of the card name mean it sux?

Author:  Maverick [ Wed Jan 07, 2004 9:21 pm ]
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No, that's "MX"

Author:  roer [ Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:25 pm ]
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Programmers dont know much about hardware it seems...
Don't buy anything with an SE no matter how tempting it sounds. The 9800SE can sometimes be flashable to a 9800PRO but usually its best not to take that risk. If thats the G4Ti4200 then that would be the best on the list if your going to O/C..if not then go for the 128MB 9000 PRO. Im pretty sure you can find a 9500NP somewhere for that money though...some 9500NP are flashable to 9700's and can get up to 9700PRO speeds and beyond Very Happy

Author:  LovelyCrap [ Wed Jan 21, 2004 9:03 pm ]
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roer wrote:
Programmers dont know much about hardware it seems...
Don't buy anything with an SE no matter how tempting it sounds. The 9800SE can sometimes be flashable to a 9800PRO but usually its best not to take that risk. If thats the G4Ti4200 then that would be the best on the list if your going to O/C..if not then go for the 128MB 9000 PRO. Im pretty sure you can find a 9500NP somewhere for that money though...some 9500NP are flashable to 9700's and can get up to 9700PRO speeds and beyond Very Happy

Radeon SE's aren't as bad as you make them sound. A 9600SE is a decent card. 9500NP's capable of softmoding (not flashing) into a 9700NP haven't been sold for months now. They were discontinued over 6 months ago and good luck finding anyone still carrying them.

Ti4200s are nice but they are expensive and for that price you could buy a much better card.

The only 9500NP's that can successfully be softmodded into a 9700NP by unlocking the disabled pipelines have 128mb's of onboard RAM and the RAM chips are physically places in a L shape on the PCB. This was because the 9500NP and 9700NP used to share the same PCB. However, ATi have long since developed a seperate PCB for the 9500 series and this version is not softmoddable to a 9700NP. You can tell the difference between the 9700NP PCB and the 9500 PCB by the way the RAM is placed on the PCB. The 9500 PCB's have RAM placed in a stright line rather than in a L shape like the 9700.


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