Video Cards

[Alynn]

Ok guys... As a gift to myself for being in Iraq for a year, I am upgrading my computer, I've already bought the 512 stick (bringing me to my max of 1gig memory for this motherboard), The new HDD, the wireless keyboard and mouse, last thing to purchase is the Video card...

To start, I decided if I'm going to upgrade, I'm going to upgrade big, so I'm going with a 256MB card. Since I'm not much on keeping up with hardware I've been doing some research, looking at comparisions on the web and what not...and the ATI 9800 Series cards look to be the overall best (on all those fun comparisoins I've been looking through)

The TX is the best out of the 9800 a bit better than the Pro, which is better than the 128...

I plan on going for the Pro, being that its about a hundred dollards (or a bit more) cheaper than the TX (TX runs about 500+ dollars) the Pro is about 375-425 (that I've found)....

Anyway if you want look up these cards and let me know if you know of any other 256 cards out there of comparable (or cheaper) with the same abilities....

Thanks y'all

[Ghormak]

Strangely enough, the 9800 generation is still about as expensive as the newer X800 generation, so you might want to consider buying either an X800 pro or, even better, an X800 XT.

I have been waiting for the price of the 9800XT to drop, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Last time I checked at a store I usually order computer parts from the 9800's were out of stock. The time I checked before that it was still as expensive as an X800 Pro. Bah.

[BOYD1981]

being as i own a 256mb 9800XT i would advise against buying this card unless you have a really good power supply, and i don't just mean a high wattage i mean a good make with good constant amps, otherwise the card will just keep crashing (i have a Antec 480w PSU and it only outputs 11.9v on the 12v rail) also, if you can, keep the card on a seperate power connector, avoid powering a hard drive and the graphics card off the same cable.
these cards also get very hot, so it's a good idea to invest in some extra cooling (either PCI slot fans to sit under the card or one of the specially made heatsinks or fan upgrades for the card you buy) otherwise the board will overheat and lower the lifespan of your card.
if you can afford it, it's probably worth upgrading your motherboard to one which supports PCI-Express and getting a PCI-E card such as the X800...

[Darth Mandarb]

I just bought an NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT with 256 mb.  It was $388.00.  It's a great card BUT I found out, after buying it, that there's a hardware glitch and the DVD decoder doesn't work.  One of the main reasons I bought this card was to power my media center and it won't even play DVDs ...

I'm in 'negotiations' with them to send me a new card with a hardware fix.  If I spend that kind of money I expect to get something that works!

[yakdroppingin]

Agreed with some of the above.  If you're dropping that much money, you may as well get the current generation.  Yeah, the 9800 XT would be speedy enough for current games, but it'll also be squished within the year.  I was very attached to my 9800 Pro 128 until I upgraded, it was a damned good card.

I got an Nv 6800 Gt 256MB a few months ago and am loving it.  I've seen 60-100% speed increases over my 9800.  The DVD decoding seems to work fine (not that a video card's much needed for that anymore) and I haven't encountered any real bugs or graphical glitches.   It's running just fine on its own power connector off of my Antec 430W PSU.  The thing gets hot but the card temp has only gone up to 65° and its threshold is 120°. 

[LGM]

Whatever you do.. Don't get a GeForce FX 5500. the ti series has better performance than it.

I got stuck with this FX.. It's more modern, but it has horrible compatability issues.

[Alynn]

Well it pretty much every comparison I've done since I started looking at the X800, it blows the new GeForce card out of the water... so I've already found the 8x AGP X800 XT but the best prices (478) are sold out, so once I get back from Iraq I'll start parusing all the comp stores in my area....

But thanks guys for the suggestions

Oh And Boyd, I never have more than one item per power cable, besides, it will take the power cable from my current card so its all good, right now the cooling I have is overkill for what I have, it should handle it well enough, and if it shortens the life of the card, well I will put it this way, I change computers about once every 4 years, with an upgrade after 2... so if it lasts 2 years, it will suffice Thanks though

As far as the GeForce cards go, in every comparison, I've found the X800 was better... so I'm sticking with ATI....


Moo out

EDIT: Ok... well I know what chipset I want... now... do I go with  ASUS, MSI, Sapphire, ATI,PowerColor, and all the other companies making cards for this chip...

Anything any of you know about these different manufacturers? Other than price, everything looks to be basically the same...

[Yakneedstologin]

Odd that you would've found the Radeon card leading in every comparison.  What I've seen has demonstrated the two being nearly neck-and-neck (depending upon which particular games you play).  The largest difference is in the mid-level cards (x800 non-platinum vs. 6800GT) in which case the NV card stomps the ATI one.  I won't try to convince anyone not to buy ATI though, I've still got lots of leftover fandom from my 9800. 

Anyway, manufacturer-wise: Check out the bundle, for one.  Other than that, make sure you look at clock speeds and specs.  Many manufacturers drop a marginal amount from the price in exchange for underclocked parts.  Here are some of my specific experiences:

Hercules: Good cards, nice quality in manufacturer & accessories, moderately overclockable but overpriced (IMO) for the slight quality difference.

Saphire: Tends towards the generic side of things.  Often a bit cheaper and compromises on some materials.  It'll usually have the stock-reference design.  I haven't heard anything specificically bad, just nothing outstanding.

Powercolor: Often a tad more expensive than others, they concentrate on speed, often installing premium parts for small speed boosts.  However, they do tend to be reference design and skimp on the manufacture a little bit.

BFG: Good manufacturer, usually solidly mid-range.

MSI: Mobo maker, a used-to-be generic that's slowly risen through the ranks to become one of the better brands.  They tend to have very stable equipment but I've found a couple instances where the mem/core speeds were slightly less than reference.

ASUS: Charges premiums for cards that don't do much better than the midrange. 

Overall, I can't think of too many too avoid.  Personally, I wouldn't go Hercules due to price/performance ratio.  I'm impressed with Powercolor, and MSI's been doing a bang-up job on things recently. I've currently got an eVGA card which is one of the cheaper-type companies but I've had no problems and speed is very comparable to most.

[edmundito]

I just bought a NVIDIA 6600 GT AGP edition for $225 and i'm desperately waiting for it. It's a decent card, faster than the 9800 PRO, and it costs less. ATI is definitely discontinuing the 9000 series and they're overpricing those cards here in the states.

Actually, the funny story is that on the infamous day after thanksgiving (where they have mega-sales in the US) a store (Circuit City) had the card for only $150 after mail-in rebates. Well, I got to my local store and one of the guys told me that they sold out the cards by around 6:30 in the morning! I was really pissed off, so I went off looking to see if I could get the card at the same price online, but it didn't work. So I asked and asked, and found the 6600 GT, which as people already mentioned I got it because it was of the newer generation. I would have liked to have ATI, but I was not going to give in to their BS.

Memory does not matter as much, though, it's more about overall performace. For example, the Radeon 9800 PRO 128 mb and 256 mb have the exact same performance, so there's little reason why to spend more for the same just because you're a total glutton for memory.