Good video cards at a sensible price

[xekushnr]

It's time to upgrade again. I currently have a Radeon 9600 that is in desperate need of being replaced. So I'm looking for the best card that money can buy in the $100-150 range. If possible, give me the best one around $100 and the best around $150.

[Sil40_Mayhem]

$100Nvidia 8600GT Nvidia 7600GT

$150ATi X1800XLATi X1950 Pro ($160)ATi HD2600XT

That's what I came up with after a quick pricing job on http://www.pricewatch.com and hardware comparison on http://www.tomshardware.com . Hope that helps, and best of luck!

[xekushnr]

That's a good start, thanks. I'll take a look at the ones you listed.

A little more info: I have no preference over ATi or Nvidia, I've owned both in the past and had no problems with either (I did kill a Geforce but I would buy another)

I dont need HD. I dont use the computer as a TV or to watch movies. In the future if I get an HD capable monitor I might use it to play my 360 on it, but that has nothing to do with the video.

The computer is used for gaming. I've been way behind the times with my current card, and I want to get back into playing PC games. I haven't been able to run many of the demanding ones over the past few years. I just upgraded my RAM, so now its time for the VC.

[Sil40_Mayhem]

I see. Unfortunately, it's hard to find a 'decent' gaming card when you're on a budget, relatively speaking. I suppose it all depends on what your requirements are (or, more to the point, which games you will play the most). From my understanding, TF2 will run fairly well on low to mid range graphics cards. CoD4 and Crysis, however, don't even think about it. Most jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none cards seem to price between the low $200's to mid $300's.

With regard to brand, ATi vs nVidia, sometimes the difference comes down to who has the better device drivers. Company X my release updates more quickly, but Company Y may have less bugs. Also, some games are coded (programmed) in ways where they make better use of the features of one card versus another. My best advice is to take a good look at which games you're most likely to play, and do some research on which cards handle those games the best (whether you go to Tom's Hardware or some other hardware review site; most compare performance on popular games as well as regular benchmarks).

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. I'm not the avid gamer I used to be, and I, myself, still use an archaic 9600 Pro. So I'm not the foremost authority on gaming hardware, but I know enough to be dangerous.

[xekushnr]

Dont be sorry, that's great info. I will investigate a little more into the games I play/will be playing. I dont really think my computer would be ready for Crysis even if I spent $500 on a VC, so that game is probably out. In order to really get the most out of it, I might just end up saving another $50-100. I would rather spend $200-50 on a good card than basically waste $100 on something barely better than what I've got. Oh well, I'll research a bit and figure out what to do. Thanks again.

[Jager]

x most games you will play can be done on an 8600gt fine. if you can afford it always get the higher numbers cards from the company, not that the performance is a ton better, but that you are dx10 compatible(vistas direct x 10 is slowly going to be in more games as time goes on)

i can help alot more knowing what size monitor you run and whether its an lcd or CRT and the resolution you play games at. (crt does not matter nearly as much as the LCD as LCDs have a sweet spot resolution you should always use.)

if you can afford 200-250 dollars the ati radeon 3850 and 3870 are the flagship cards of ATIs kline and cost 200 and 250 respectively. Nvidias offeringas in that area are the 8600gts at 150 (much weaker card ) and the 8800gt with the g92 core(approximately the same power stock).

[xekushnr]

Thanks for the info Jager. I currently have a **** 17" CRT. I want to replace it sometime this year, but I dont know if I want to go LCD or stay CRT. I just want whatever has a higher refresh rate and low response time. I play most of my current games in 800x600 just to keep the framerate high, but I'll run them as high as they can go while maintaining a high and steady framerate. I'd like to be able to play all of my games at at least 1024x768. What's the deal with the sweetspot on LCD monitors?

[MinisterofDOOM]

Since you have a 9600 I'm assuming you're running AGP. That's going to put a damper on things. A lot of the cards people are going to suggest don't come in AGP, especially from Nvidia.

ATI's HD2000 series cards all come in AGP. I JUST got a 512Mb HD2600 (upgrade from my POS GeForce 6800). Great card. It certainly won't eat any new games alive, but it's decent and I have no nitpicky complaints about the card or software like I did with the Nvidia. It'll be a massive step up from the 9600 at any rate. It does support DX10 if you decide to run Vista. HD2600 should run you right about $150.

You're not going to find any high-end cards in AGP. About the best you'll be able to do is a 512Mb Radeon HD2900. Nvidia offers the 7800 in AGP, too.

By the way "HD" is just the name. All decent PC resolutions are high def. ATI just moved to sticking HD at the beginning of their card names this round (before it was "X").

[xekushnr]

Yeah, I'm using 8x AGP. It's either that or good old PCI, and AGP is much better than the original PCI. A full system upgrade (or just building a new computer) is somewhere down the road, but as of now I really dont want to buy a new mobo to support a video card, especially since I JUST bought some RAM for this mobo. After upgrading I would have no use for this PC3200 RAM. So yeah...video cards must be AGP

[Jager]

x you could look at the socket 939 systems they still use ddr memory but have pcie slots, most are very cheap these days.

other options are the motherboards that use both agp and pcie slots they are 939 as well but come with a daughterboard that plugs in to let you use socket am2 cpu and ddr2 memory down the road. definatly not a powerful unit but for transitions its not bad.

CRT monitors have no response time its instant. lcd you want a response time that is less the 12ms. most decent LCD monitors are 8 or 5ms these days. if you have agp pick up the 2600 or the 7800 either or will be about the same, read a few reviews on them and compare the benchmarks but i think the 7800 is more powerful, but only dx9 where the 2600 is weaker but dx10.

gl on your choice.

[Sil40_Mayhem]

Ah yes, good ol' AGP. Yeah, that does limit the options a bit. Also, if you want your black not to be a medium shade of gray, consider LCDs with a higher contrast ratio (preferably, 1000:1 or better). Again, this is not an issue with CRTs.

Also, FWIW, consider the cost difference between an upgraded mobo (& memory, maybe) and an LCD. Jager brought up a good point, in that a newer board would bring with it a higher ceiling for future upgrading (while supporting a wider range of increasingly PCIe only video cards now). Food for thought.

[brizanden]

idk if ur still looking for a card, but dude get a 8800 Gt monster for the money it kicks the **** outta the gts's except in shaders

[xekushnr]

Just a little update:

One of my buddies that I havent seen since high school got a hold of me earlier tonight. I never use AIM but I have been for the past two days, same story for him so it was kind of odd that we were able to talk. Anyways, his 21st birthday is coming up soon and he wanted to know if I wanted to go out with him that night. I told him that I definitely would. I cant miss out on a 21st birthday party.

We got to talking about games, and I remarked that my computer cant play new games worth a ****. He told me that he picked up a fairly new 9 series GeForce of his buddy for $50 (his buddy was low on cash). He said he would give me his old 8600GTS for the low low price of a couple beers at the bar. Niiiice.

Now I just need to shop around for a new mobo and some other things and I'm set. What should I look for in a new mobo? I just need something with PCI Express. Can I still use my old 478 socket P4 with new mobo's or do I need something like the Core Duo? I am planning on updating my CPU sometime soon, I just dont have the money for it now.

[brizanden]

well any new nice mobo is gonna take the 77 (i cant remeber the last number) socket for intel. so i would just buy like a cheap one of those while your at it. i got a 2.4 duo for 140 i think from new egg, and that was like 6 months ago so they could be cheaper now. Then i just oc'ed the **** outta it.

[szh]

Yeah, I'm using 8x AGP. It's either that or good old PCI, and AGP is much better than the original PCI. A full system upgrade (or just building a new computer) is somewhere down the road, but as of now I really dont want to buy a new mobo to support a video card, especially since I JUST bought some RAM for this mobo. After upgrading I would have no use for this PC3200 RAM. So yeah...video cards must be AGP

I just had the same problem on my home system ... an old Intel motherboard with a Pentium 4 at 2.6GHz (uses a 478 socket). I decided to get the 7600GT with 512MB memory from Newegg that uses an AGP connector (manufacturer is EVGA, part number is 512-A8-N559-TR). I have not installed it yet, but will do so soon ... when I get some time in a weekend or two.

This card will not be as fast as a GeForce 8 or 9 card, but much better than my ancient GeForce 3 card (with 64MB of memory) that I currently have!

Like you, I do not want to abandon my old 478 Pentium 4 just yet ... it is fast enough for what I typically use it for. It has 2GB of RAMBUS memory that cannot be moved to any new motherboard!

Z

[pflicht]

It has 2GB of RAMBUS memory that cannot be moved to any new motherboard!

RAMBUS = FAIL!!!

You should really just ditch your 478 P4... Srsly...

xekushnr:Gigabyte AM2 board ~$60AMD X2 +4600 ~ $66G.Skill 2GB DDR2 ~ $44

For $170 + $10ish for shipping and BAM, you got yourself a badass PC... Just use the HD/Optical Drive/Case you are using now and slap the Vid Card your buddy is/gave you in and you are good to go for a long time

[brizanden]

agreed

[szh]

Yes ... but you guys overlooked this part of my post inre my home system that has the old 478 Pentium and the RAMBUS memory:

... it is fast enough for what I typically use it for.

My other computers (I have four systems on my large desk right now as I type this) are :

1. A Dell Latitude 820 laptop. Has an nVidia Quadro 120M graphics card (1920x1200 on a 15.4" wide-screen display), a 2.16GHz Pentium Dual-Core mobile processor, 80GB 7200 rpm drive, 2GB of DDR2 667MHz ram.

2. An Alienware MJ-12 laptop. Has a nVidia 6800Plus (1920x1200 on a 17" screen wide-screen display), a 3.8GHz Pentium 4, 120GB using two 60GB 7200 disks in a RAID 0 configuration (on a laptop!), 2GB of DD2 667MHz ram.

(Both of the above are connected to a Dell 24" LCD ...)

3. A Sun Microsystems Ultra-45 with 4GB of DDR2 ram, 250GB of 7200 rpm disk drive, etc., etc., etc. This system is connected to my department server which is a 4 processor, 32 core Sun Microsystems server with 16GB of memory, a few Terabytes of 10,000 drives, etc., etc.

4. A Dell Dimension of some sort. Has a 3.06GHz Dual-core Intel Pentium, 2GB of ram, 250GB of 7200 rpm disk, etc. I forget the graphics card.

Point is that I have plenty of fast systems at work to do whatever I need to do. I also usually take one of the two laptops home each evening and dock it into my home network (Gigabit network, anotehr 24" Dell monitor, etc.).

So ... upgrading my personal, old 478 based Pentium 4 to something much faster is simply not needed. I only use it for word processing, Excel, e-mail, Quicken, taxes and the like. For this, the 2GB of RAMBUS memory is perfectly fine.

The only reason I am changing the graphics card is because the current nVidia GeForce 3 card in there is too ancient for decent performance with some applications ...

Z

[pflicht]

Well then look for a used Geforce 4 card... Had one in my old dell and it ran Counter Strike Source, Doom, and some old but still new (3 years and older) games fairly well... I had the Ti4200 w/ 64MB ram.

I believe they made a 128MB version as well but I know they made a Ti4600 with 128MB ram. You should be able to pick one of those cards up for next to nothing and run descently...

[Loki]

Just wanted to sneak in here and get an opinion on a card. Really need a new one as the stock card in my Dell 4700 is pretty damn puny and largely unsupported.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...30318

It looks good to me, but I'm no graphics expert.

[szh]

Yes, it is a decent card, but remember a few things:

1. The Dell does not have a power connector for that 6pin connector on the graphics card, so you have to use that special cord for sure. Don't leave it off, else the graphics card will not have enough oomph to work.

2. The power supply on the 4700 is probably too small for what this graphics card needs. My son has the same Dell Dimension computer, and we ended up getting a nVidia 7300GT card last year to make sure that we did not exceed the total power requirements (since we had two disk drives and two DVD drives in the case too.

3. Today, I would recommend an nVidia 8500-based card (the Evga one is good) as the best you can add to that computer. It is lower power (and, of course, lower performance) than the 8600 and 8800 based cards.

3. You cannot change the case power supply on the 4700 to a larger capacity supply. Dell, in their infinite wisdom, uses motherboards that have somewhat non-standard power supply connectors. Particularly on their older model computers, and I think the 4700 falls into that camp.

Sorry to be so unhelpful, but the smaller Dell boxes tend to be limited in their capabilities ...

Z

[PoorManQ45]

This card will not be as fast as a GeForce 8 or 9 card, but much better than my ancient GeForce 3 card (with 64MB of memory) that I currently have!

Z

I'm sure you know the AGP bus rides on the PCI bus.

So, just note that the nicer geforce 3 series cards pretty much maxed out the bus. So there wont be that much of a performance gain

[Loki]

Unhelpful? Man, this was the exact kind of answer I was hoping for, kind of. I had a feeling my power supply wouldn't be adequate, along with other components. I'm not looking to play Crysis on full settings or anything. All I really want is to get good FPS in an MMO I play occasionally, and the card I have in there is pretty damn low end. Thanks for the suggestion!

Edito: Would something like this work?http://www.newegg.com/Product/...21094
Modified by Loki at 10:21 PM 5/24/2008

[PoorManQ45]

Unhelpful? Man, this was the exact kind of answer I was hoping for, kind of. I had a feeling my power supply wouldn't be adequate, along with other components. I'm not looking to play Crysis on full settings or anything. All I really want is to get good FPS in an MMO I play occasionally, and the card I have in there is pretty damn low end. Thanks for the suggestion!

Edito: Would something like this work?http://www.newegg.com/Product/...21094

Modified by Loki at 10:21 PM 5/24/2008

If that's your price range I'd recommend the XFX 8600GT xxx. It's ~$68 after rebate. XFX = lifetime warranty that is transferable!

[Loki]

Well no, my budget is much higher, there's just not many cards that will play nice with my aging Dell it seems.

[PoorManQ45]

Well no, my budget is much higher, there's just not many cards that will play nice with my aging Dell it seems.

I work for Dell Support. What model exactly do you have. Preferably your service tag or express Service code. I'll pull up the exact specs and find you the best setup that'll work in your system

[PoorManQ45]

I just noticed you said the 4700. I assume you mean the Dimension 4700.

If that's the case you have a 305 watt power supply. A 16x PCI Express slot.

The only restriction I see in your card selection is the power supply.

There's an easy solution for that. Assuming you only have one optical drive. Your system supports two optical drives. Remove the plastic blocking plate and slide a Thermaltake W0099 in there.

This will give you 21amps of 12v power to dedicate to your graphics card alone. This should be more then enough to run most cards on the market

[Loki]

Nah, unfortunately I already have two op drives in there. I might be able to just have it sit on the bottom of the case though. I'd really like to just get a better power supply if that was possible. Mine likes to make angry buzzing noises at me from the fan on occasion, so I think it's going bad. What kind of express service code you looking for? Something like FPS4961 maybe?

[PoorManQ45]

I'm showing the system came with an X1600, correct?

I would recommend the ATI 2600xt for you. That is guaranteed to work for you

[Loki]

It came with a ATi Radeon x300/x550/x1050. I know that's not what the actual card is, that's just what DevMan lists it as and I'm too lazy to narrow it down...

So then! I'm narrowed down to this then? http://www.newegg.com/Product/...61203