Video card - can someone help?

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:27 am

Ok, after years of waiting I've decided to buy a new video card. But, as everything in Brazil, it is extremely taxed by the government, so I on my comparison of prices, three models came to my mind:

First this: ATI Radeon 9550 Which seems to be my best choice in price.

Then, this one:
6600q. This one seems the harder to find here, but it is 50% more expensive than the previous GPU.

The last one:
FX 5700 Which is an average choice between the other cards.

I want a video card to play well for at least two years. My Geforce 3 64 mb has 3 years already, its completely outdated, and even though its a very good video card it hasnt support for many features in the games that I want to run. For example, I've bought doom 3 and I dont know how is it to play it without the frame -by frame animations in certain lightning exausting parts of the game, even though I'm playing it at minimum specs.

My PC is an Athlon 2600+, with 528 Mb Ram, I have an Asus motherboard 7x9xnx series (or something like it) and onboard sound.

Thoughts?

Ravager · Post by **Ravager** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 12:38 pm

I own an FX5700. A Gainward version. It's good but I'm not sure it'll last me 2 years. Graphics cards are probably one of the things I change the most.

I wouldn't buy anything that's low in one of the Nvidia card series. Probably something in the 6000 series is better like the 6600 you mentioned there.

I think the general rule is to either buy something new mid-range or something old thats top of the range. Some people have made Geforce Ti cards last a long while.

IIRC the ATI card you mentioned is supposed to be very good but I've stuck with Nvidia for a while now.

I'll see if I can find some reasonable priced UK versions which you could look for equivalents of

. The Gainward 6600's seem to be the cheapest (I didn't see the Albatross one) and Gainward products are generally good quality.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 3:11 pm

I suspect that there could be many reasons at play, but we have had huge problems trying to switch our son's computer over to an ATI card from an Nvidia one. Apparently, this can occasionally happen in a small number of cases. Looks like we got lucky

Something to bear in mind at any rate.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:02 am

Well, I'm going to be the owner of the ATI. Hope I do not have the problems you had, DW. The good thing is that I'm excited about having real power on my machine

Rookierookie · Post by **Rookierookie** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 6:17 am

Maybe a little late, but IMO it's a little unfair to compare the Radeon 9550 and Geforce 5700 with the Geforce 6600, because the last one is twice as fast as the 9550, and ~60% faster than the 5700.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 5:57 am

But, unfortunately, they're 60% more expensive than they should be. Comparing the dolar and the Reais price, I came to the conclusion that the cards are too expensive here, while the 9550 is not... also, my "former" video card is a GeForce 4, so I guess anyway I'll be giving a GIANT step...

(today it must arrive

)

Rookierookie · Post by **Rookierookie** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:08 am

That depends on which Geforce 4 it is. The Radeon 9550 is only a little faster than the Geforce 4 Ti.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:46 am

Ge force 4 mx 64 mb

Ravager · Post by **Ravager** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 4:16 am

Which MX? I used to have an MX440 before upgrading that to the 5700.

Hope the new card works well.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 5:43 am

440

Very reliable, but the lack of Ram makes it very outdated.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 8:35 am

The new card arrived, a 9550, rather good, fine to play doom 3, unreal 2 and morrowind. I'm pretty satisfied. It runs NFSU too, and damn, it is very good. The card doesnt have problems with heating (I dont want to need to buy a water cooler, for example) and it gave me some extra depht in colors.

Oh how could I live without graphic power?

Ravager · Post by **Ravager** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 11:34 am

Out of curosity, is it a fan or a heatsink on that?

Glad it works well.

Just wait for all the driver issues graphics cards always seem to have...

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 12:45 pm

Its a Fan. I prefer fans to heatsinks. And it is a very quiet fan, what makes me even more proud

I hate when you have tons of fans making that whirrrrr noise all day long.

Rookierookie · Post by **Rookierookie** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 4:38 am

I don't think any graphics card has ever required water cooling.

If you aren't worried about overheating, you can try overclocking the card. The Radeon 9550 is one of the most overclockable cards ever made, and is nearly twice as fast as normal when clocked to the max.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 5:24 am

oh I dont mean for the graphic card, I meant for the whole CPU. Athlons have a tendency to be "hotter" than pentiums when it comes to playing demanding games. So the water cooling would be for the Mobo and the case.

Heheh not so fast, I'm trying to learn how to be the owner of the card first, overclock later

SyntheticD · Post by **SyntheticD** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:55 pm

[QUOTE=Luis Antonio]Ok, after years of waiting I've decided to buy a new video card. But, as everything in Brazil, it is extremely taxed by the government, so I on my comparison of prices, three models came to my mind:

First this: ATI Radeon 9550 Which seems to be my best choice in price.

Then, this one:
6600q. This one seems the harder to find here, but it is 50% more expensive than the previous GPU.

The last one:
FX 5700 Which is an average choice between the other cards.

I want a video card to play well for at least two years. My Geforce 3 64 mb has 3 years already, its completely outdated, and even though its a very good video card it hasnt support for many features in the games that I want to run. For example, I've bought doom 3 and I dont know how is it to play it without the frame -by frame animations in certain lightning exausting parts of the game, even though I'm playing it at minimum specs.

My PC is an Athlon 2600+, with 528 Mb Ram, I have an Asus motherboard 7x9xnx series (or something like it) and onboard sound.

Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

go with the latest and greatist tech if you have the money due to the constant change of technology it will last longer

Hill-Shatar · Post by **Hill-Shatar** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 10:01 pm

The latest is not always the best. Oftentimes I have found that some of the cheaper, non-brand names items work better.

I don't know what Luis is going to do with it, but my guess is some RPGing, considering the forums that he constantly posts in. He may want to get some of the semi newer stuff, but his system wont be overly taxed in itself by RPGs. Action RPGs on the other hand, will utterly destroy some older types of video cards.

Basically, find a nice balance between cost, compatibility and design if you want to get something you really need. Luis is a student I believe, which lowers his basic income. I have more money to spend then he does, which is saying something.

Basically, you can get the newest graphics card, but if he doesnt have the newer computers, then it will be nearly incompatible. Also, the newest stuff on the shelf usually has some bugs or design flaws that will be repaired in the next version.

Ravager · Post by **Ravager** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 1:28 am

Particularly in the case of Nvidia, avoid their entry cards whether they're new or not. They probably won't last that long thanks to the reduced features.

SyntheticD · Post by **SyntheticD** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 3:16 am

last year i purchased a Geforce 5950 Ultra GT from Gigabyte im pushing 102 FPS from Farcry at ultra high and 220 FPS from Halo

This could also be assoiated with my processor,

but, if you want to do some serious gaming get better than an entry level card, aslo you could look into upgrading into AMD 64 bit CPUs MSI makes the Best Board for them and memory is decently priced 2 gigs was 170 bucks from newegg.com

over all i would still try to get into the latest technology just because every time a new game comes out it becomes more demanding of you Comp, try playing doom 3 or something like that on My moms HP i though i was blow that stupid machine up

Rookierookie · Post by **Rookierookie** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 3:22 am

Latest is not necessarily the best; I've heard stories of people "upgrading" from a 5900XT to a 6200.

Right now, I don't think anyone should buy a card higher than the X800GTO if they don't have a 20" or larger screen. Even the latest games like Battlefield 2 can run with details at max at 1280x1024 on a Geforce 6600GT, with AA and AF thrown in for good measure.