Looking for a Graphics Card

[Captain Tagon]

so make sure your new card is AGP, not PCIe

http://www.pricewatch.com/default.aspx?p=http://www.pricewatch.com/prc.aspx?i=37&a=5884

So that works?

 

[KenM]

Any of those should work. I'd go with a 256 MB card. more video ram is good. And BF2 is a very graphic intense game. I have it. Let us know how it works out.

 

[Captain Tagon]

Good deal, thanks guys.

 

[The_lurkeR]

Few things:

Be careful on pricewatch, there are some shady places out there. If you want a definately reliable site with good prices and reputation use:

www.newegg.com

I would not recommend a GF 5700, that's a mid to lower end card last generation card, and can actually be SLOWER than your GF 4200 in some cases!!!

The amount of RAM is not as important as the actual graphics chip / model.

Here's a good article to look at benchmarks of the wide spectrum of cards out there right now.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-04.html#3dmark_2003



For your price range I think an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO would be a good deal at $126
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102362

For a little more you could go with an nVidia GF 6600 GT at $148
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814145107


I hope I wasn't too late to save you from that purchase ...

 

[KenM]

I highly reccomend NewEgg. I only delt with them once. I ordered some RAM on a Monday night. It was at my house by the time i got home from work on Friday. I have not heard one problem about them.

 

[Captain Tagon]

I hope I wasn't too late to save you from that purchase ...

Nah, I won't be making it until I get paid next Friday.

 

[drothgery]

Okay, with a $100-$150 budget and an AGP slot, your choices are pretty much

ATi Radeon 9600 series. The 9600 was ATi's midrange series until recently; cards based on this chipset will run $100-$125. Today it's a lower-midrange card.

ATi Radeon 9800 series. The 9800 was ATi's high-end series until the X800 launched last year; ATi has dropped the price on the 9800 series and let it become their midrange AGP card, rather than making an AGP version of the X700 (their new PCI Express midrange card). Cards based on this chipset will run $125-$150 depending on features.

nVidia GeForce 6600 series The 6600 is nVidia's new midrange line; avoid the older nVidia-based cards. Regular 6600s will seriously outperform the 9600, and run ~$125. 6600GT cards pretty much match the 9800, and run ~$150. Note that in almost all cases a 128 MB 6600GT will outperform a 256MB 6600.

You'll also see versions of low-end cards (Radeon anything-less-than 9600; GeForce 6200) with 256MB of video memory in this price range; avoid them, as slower cards really can't take advantage of large amounts of video memory.

 

[Cergorach]

Iwould recommend the Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB.

I own the Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB, a card i bought 2.5 years ago (yeah it was expensive at the time). I bought Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War at the end of last year and i could still run the game with maximum quality settings (1600*1200, 32bit color) and the game runs very smooth. I recently bought Half Life 2 but that doesn't run well with maximum quality settings (at 1600*1200, 32bits), that shouldn't suprise you. The 9800 Pro is around 10% faster then the 9700 Pro, it should serve you well, just don't expect the newest games to run at the maximum quality settings at very high resolution settings.

 

[trancejeremy]

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-04.html#3dmark_2003

Heh, my video card is all the way down at the bottom of that chart.

(The FX 5200)

(It came with my computer - I knew it sucked (I check out Tom's Hardware before buying anything PC related) , but all the other computers in my price range had even suckier graphics - integrated on the motherboard)

 

[Rackhir]

The 6600 or 6600 GT would be a better choice than the R9800. They are newer cards and the 6600 GT in particular has significantly better performance than the R9800. The 6600's also support more modern graphics features like Shader Model 3.0.