posted
well i think its about time i bought i new video card (the one i have now geforce2 mx)and i thought there are some techy people here they might be able to help. the reason i want a new one is DX:IW(Deus Ex: Invisible War) , but money is kinda of a problem as in that i dont have a lot to spend so i need something low priced but that can run DX:IW. so if anyone has any suggestions throw'm in here
[ November 20, 2003, 12:04 AM: Message edited by: Wonko The Sane ]
Posts: 213 | Registered: Jan 2002
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You should be able to find a G4 Ti 4200 for roughly $75. If you look carefully, you might be able to find a Ti 4600 for $100.
Both cards have been out for a while, but the performance is still top notch for your buck (and it's alot cheaper than an ATI 9700 pro).
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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If you know what sort of card you want you can go onto www.fatwallet.com forums, hot deals and search for vid card deals, they tend to be more rare though... ...I'll try to post more this weekend...when I have time, at the moment I've got an essay due in 12 hours.... Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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If you're really lucky you might still be able to find a 9500 pro floating around. Radeon discontinued them but they're a really good chip.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Are the FX ultras below 100$? Because the vanilla FXs were heralded as turds by every review I ever read.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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On www.pricewatch.com you can get a GeForce4 Ti4200 with 128MB of memory for around 100$, or for about the same price you can get a Radeon 9600.
For a big step down in price you can get a Radeon 9200 for around $50 with 128MB or a GeForce3 Ti200 with 64MB or the GeForceFX 5200. I have the GeForce3 in my machine- it is a very nice video card.
The Radeon 9200 and the FX5200 have pretty similar performance. They are fairly good cards for the price and they support AGP8X.
A middle- of the road option would be the Radeon 8500 which is a very good card going for around $80.
Here would be my suggestions based on price:
Cheapest: get the Radeon 9200 with 128MB RAM
Middle range- Either the Radeon 8500 or the GeForce3.
Top range- get a Ti4200. It is hands down the best for the price.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:GeForce FX series is below $100 in a lot of places and significantly outperforms the GF4, which is a turd.
This is the recommendation of my game designer friend.
I don't know what model of FX series you're thinking of, but I can definitely say that my G4 MX440 out performed a FX5200 (I had them both in my system).
I've also talked to people about the higher levels, and you have to get up to the FX5900 series to start out performing a G4 Ti on a regular basis.
I've you're going to go for a 9500 Pro, try to look around and see if you can find the overclockable models. They can be hard to find, but you can supposedly turn a 9500 Pro/NP into a card that's comparable 9700 Pro/NP.
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I have a friend who is a game programmer, formerly of Gearbox, currently launching his own studio.
He says the GF4 is just a faster GF3, whereas the FX series has features that only top of the line Radeons have (this converstion was a couple months ago, so that may be outdated) and these features are going to be the important parts of tomorrow's games, not speed.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT GET A GF4 MX. The GF3 Ti is a better card in every respect.
[ November 20, 2003, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: T. Analog Kid ]
Posts: 2112 | Registered: Sep 1999
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The Geforce FX does not perform very well in directx 9 games, although I think it does perform well in OpenGL games such as quake III. All the reviews I have read recommend Radeons over Geforce FXs. If you can find a cheap radeon 9500 pro (do NOT get the non-pro version) go with that, it's a great card, if you can't find a 9500, go with a 9600 pro, if you don't need/can't afford a directx 9 card, go with the Geforce 4 ti4200, I was thinking about getting one awhile back, but then ATI pulled thir heads out of their butts and made some great cards that I couldn't resist. (I am currently in the process of building a new computer for my family)
Posts: 331 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Do you have an FX card? If so, I'd love to know what model it is.
The feature I'm assuming that you're talking about is the 8 pipelines that the Radeon cards have (9600 and 9800). The only FX card that currently has this feature is the FX5900 Ultra, which is over $400.
The other feature that you might be talking about is the Directx 9 support. So far, the FX cards haven't been able to fully utilize that feature (at least anything lower than a FX5950. I tried to play Halo on a FX5200, and it about choked (like 2 FPS), I could at least get 40 FPS on my MX 440 card.
If you're going for top of the line, do yourself a favor and go with an ATI card (at least a 9700 Pro).
If you're going to go with an nVidia card, I'd say go with a G4 Ti card - not a G3 Ti card (you have to admit that sheer power is going to win over almost any game out there at this point). You can buy a Ti 4200 for roughly $70, and can get a Ti 4600 for about $100 now.
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote: The feature I'm assuming that you're talking about is the 8 pipelines that the Radeon cards have (9600 and 9800). The only FX card that currently has this feature is the FX5900 Ultra, which is over $400.
The 9600 only has four pipelines, but it has a high clock speed to compensate for that. The 9500 Pro (9500 non-pro is a four pipe design), 9700, and 9800 are all 8 pipes, the FX5900 Ultra is actually a 4x2 design.
Posts: 331 | Registered: Oct 2003
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If you're going to be running Deus Ex 2, you might want an nVidia-line card since Epic (the Unreal Warfare engine developer) has some sort of agreement with nVidia. I havn't heard that the Unreal Warfare engine includes nVidia enhancements, but you have a somewhat better chance that DX2 will run without any release-date hardware issues (like Halo). I'm not saying "go nVidia all the way", I've been tending more toward ATI cards for their full DX9 compliance*, but it is something to think about.
*Which reminds me, if you're going to be playing Half-Life 2, do not get an nVidia card, if you do, expect as much as 40% lower performance than an equivalent ATI card. Apparently HL2 uses a lot of DX9-specific shaders that aren't supported on nVidia's DX9-generation hardware.
EDIT: TomDavidson: The 9800 ALLINWONDER is supposed to be a really great deal for what you get. Last I checked it was only some $50 more than the 9700 ALLINWONDER, but it has all the advantages of the 9800-line cards.
This fancy smancy new computer of mine as all the latest trappings, it could probably fly me to the moon...however, as I keep telling my husband, this dial-up service we have...still makes me want to throw it out the window. Posts: 3771 | Registered: Sep 2002
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