Need a graphics card, is nvidia any good?

[Matt22]

I have had this computer for atleast 3 years without upgrading my graphics card, I still have an old nvidia geforce 440 mx in there!
I want some advice on what a good card would be to get, my budget is about £60-£70 ($120-$140).
I have been looking at some of these cards....

nVidia
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B...0058789-3675058 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000E2Y8M/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/202-0058789-3675058)

ATI
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B...0058789-3675058 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000X5QOW/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/202-0058789-3675058)

I have got varius aggressive comments which argue that ATI suck but I myself can see both sides of the game.

Im wondering, because i have been looking into this one particulary, the XFX Geforce FX5200 256MB AGP8X Graphic Card with DVI & TV-Out
if you read the reviews it looks like it can run any game thats out these days.

Can i get some feedback on all this? I would much apprechiate it, thanks.

[Stiofain]

My advice would be to throw £30 onto that and get yourself a Geforce 6200 or a 6600 if you're lucky to find one that cheap. 6200's cost 100 on e-bay. The 5200 is a bit weak these days. Sure it runs older games fine, but it's sluggish playing newer games using Dx9. Depends on what you want the card for really. I've been happy enough with my 5200, but I'm thinking of getting a 6600.

[Jdub22]

i would advise you to get an ati. ati's are tested to run more stable these days than the nvidias. not to mention less graphical glitches. anyways i am all for ati and against nvidia so you may find my answer to be biased. i've used both nvidia and ati cards in the past, though i've only been able to play games on higher-end ati cards, not nvidias but i can say i've rarely had trouble with ati cards and i think they work great.

[-Deadly-]

A middle of the road ATI will probably be your best bet :thumbup:

The 9600 is around £70, but if you add an extra £20 you can get a 9600XT, which is a pretty good card :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

I'd stay well clear of the 5series of the Nvidia cards in that price range :thumbdown: :thumbdown:

[BIOS]

get a 9600xt, don't get a 5200, there crap i used to have one, with your price range i think the only card out there is the ati 9600XT :thumbup:

[Hasse]

Originally posted by DogZBolloX@Nov 26 2004, 02:42 PM
A middle of the road ATI will probably be your best bet :thumbup:

The 9600 is around £70, but if you add an extra £20 you can get a 9600XT, which is a pretty good card :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

I'd stay well clear of the 5series of the Nvidia cards in that price range :thumbdown: :thumbdown:
Yeah that was what I wasa thinking about to!!

[-Deadly-]

Originally posted by <--Hasse--&#62;+Nov 26 2004, 06:46 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (<--Hasse--&#62; @ Nov 26 2004, 06:46 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--DogZBolloX@Nov 26 2004, 02:42 PM
A middle of the road ATI will probably be your best bet :thumbup:

The 9600 is around £70, but if you add an extra £20 you can get a 9600XT, which is a pretty good card :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

I&#39;d stay well clear of the 5series of the Nvidia cards in that price range :thumbdown: :thumbdown:
Yeah that was what I wasa thinking about to&#33;&#33; [/b][/quote]
Yeah, great minds think alike see :lol:

[Alucard X]

yeah the 9600xt should be your choice.if your lucky you might find an 9800 for ur price range or maybe a little more.

[Jdub22]

i&#39;d check out ebay if i were you.

[Matt22]

Thanks for all this feedback.
Strange this is, me and my friend were looking at graphics cards and we were focusing on the ati radeon 9600&#33;, he bought one yesterday but
i just wanted to have another look around, on ebay (the link i posted) i found a nvidia 5200 and some of the reviews were great and some were bad
which left me annoyoned (lol)
But it looks like i will get a 9600, this support has definitly reasured me&#33; :D :D :D
Why do people say such bad things about ATI, saying stuff like "they dont work with some of the latest games".

On a last note, can someone give me a little more feedback given that if i have a ati radeon 9600, will it be able to run:

call of duty
far cry
battlefiled 1942/vietnam
vietcong fist alpha
doom 3
half life 2
medal of honor pacific assault (its just SITTING on my desk&#33;, dam you geforce&#33;)
americas army
men of valor
halo 1
brothers in arms


thanks :dennis:

[Strawberry knight]

Originally posted by Matt22@Posted on Nov 26 2004
I want some advice on what a good card would be to get, my budget is about £60-£70 (&#036;120-&#036;140).
I have been looking at some of these cards....

My first advise (and that goes out to everyone who wants to buy a new graphic card and knows nothing about it) Is not to think about the quantity, but to think about the quality :smartass:

you see, the problem is that every guy (and girl) who wants to buy a new card or what ever (HD/CD-rom) thinks that "the more the better" ... " the bigger the box, more stuff can get it" ... "the bigger the engine the better" ... What is actually happening is THEY ARE THINKING AT THE WRONG WAY&#33; :bucky&#33;:

You @Matt22 have picked 2 cards with 256 MB of ram ...thinking " wow that&#39;s big, that will make my games runs faster and look better&#33;" you might as well think that if you stuck a 12 cylinders V-shaped into a scooter that has 600cc engine, then it will ride like a jet fighter, NO &#33; It will not&#33; It will still have the same old crappy 600cc engine ... just with more cylinders that will only make it heavy and slow.

That&#39;s the same thing that happens when you buy a new card, The NVIDIA 5200 (in fact all of the 5200 cards) are low at performance if you do not over clock them, the SE/XT uses a 64-bit memory interface so lets not talk about it at all.
The 5200 ultra despite having a clock rates of 325/325 using a 128-bit memory interface they are still lower in performance when comparing them to the GeForce4 Ti4600/4400/4200/4800, their fill rate is much higher (and the number of transistors) regardless of using the same clock rates and memory interface. Therefore increasing their memory capacity will only make them work slower then they are already used to be, they use DDR type memory rather than using a DDR 3/2 or GDDR 3 like in 6800 series that was made for holding large quantity of memory and handling it at the best speeds. Moreover, the maker of the memory is probably bad thus the price is so low.

The same thing goes for the 9600 256 MB, the card is not as good as you think he is if you want to buy a 9600 get the XT version or above. Because the same thing happens with the FX 5200 series, the clock rate don&#39;t affect the fill rate or the memory Bandwidth of the card as it would affect other cards like the 4600 that has only 128 mb. You do not need that much, however if you buy a newer cards like the 6800 GT or the 6600 GT (or any 6600-6800) it has 256 mb of memory because this card is meant to have that much. the memory chips are good using GDDR 3/ DDR 3/2, the architecture is good, all of these and other are well set up for holding the 256 mb and handling it at the best possible way, while the 5200/9600 256 mb are not.

For conclusion, get more money and buy a 9600XT/9700/9800(pro/regular) (whatever memory u like because on these versions it is fine) or a 6600GT/6800LE (soft mode to a 6800GT with no problem).

[Hasse]

Originally posted by DogZBolloX+Nov 26 2004, 02:48 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (DogZBolloX @ Nov 26 2004, 02:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Originally posted by -<--Hasse--&#62;@Nov 26 2004, 06:46 AM
<!--QuoteBegin--DogZBolloX@Nov 26 2004, 02:42 PM
A middle of the road ATI will probably be your best bet :thumbup:

The 9600 is around £70, but if you add an extra £20 you can get a 9600XT, which is a pretty good card :thumbup:Â* :thumbup:Â* :thumbup:

I&#39;d stay well clear of the 5series of the Nvidia cards in that price rangeÂ* :thumbdown:Â* :thumbdown:
Yeah that was what I wasa thinking about to&#33;&#33;
Yeah, great minds think alike see :lol: [/b][/quote]
yeah...... right...... :P

[Matt22]

Thanks, but can someone give me some feedback on the list of games I made and which card would be the best to get, in the price range of about £70

[GM™]

With that card, I assume you will have smooth frame-rates with 1024*768 on medium quality settings with most of these. But DirectX9.0 compatible games with PS2.0 support will be playable aslong as you have approx 2GHz CPU and don&#39;t abuse the AF and AA settings too much.

call of duty (OpenGL, easily full quality settings)
far cry (DirectX renderer, as suggested above)
battlefield 1942/vietnam (Assume so&#33;)
vietcong fist alpha (Assume so&#33;)
doom 3 (OpenGL renderer, as suggested above)
half life 2 (DirectX9, 1024*768 Full&#39;ish details)
medal of honor pacific assault (its just SITTING on my desk&#33;, dam you geforce&#33;) (Assume so&#33;)
americas army (DirectX renderer, full details)
men of valor (Assume so&#33;)
halo 1 (800x600 maybe... but playable definetly&#33;)
brothers in arms (Assume so&#33;)

[BIOS]

Originally posted by Matt22@Nov 26 2004, 11:50 AM
Thanks for all this feedback.
Strange this is, me and my friend were looking at graphics cards and we were focusing on the ati radeon 9600&#33;, he bought one yesterday but
i just wanted to have another look around, on ebay (the link i posted) i found a nvidia 5200 and some of the reviews were great and some were bad
which left me annoyoned (lol)
But it looks like i will get a 9600, this support has definitly reasured me&#33; :D :D :D
Why do people say such bad things about ATI, saying stuff like "they dont work with some of the latest games".

On a last note, can someone give me a little more feedback given that if i have a ati radeon 9600, will it be able to run:

call of duty
far cry
battlefiled 1942/vietnam
vietcong fist alpha
doom 3
half life 2
medal of honor pacific assault (its just SITTING on my desk&#33;, dam you geforce&#33;)
americas army
men of valor
halo 1
brothers in arms


thanks :dennis:
make sure you get at least a 9600 "pro" if not have fun running doom3 with a 9600se or whatever, my buddy had the "se" version and it sucks large, teahat frames per second even on older games like halo.......just get the 9600XT like we all said, its the best choice for your current &#036;&#036; range.....

[Psycho Pigeon]

Yeh it will play all the games. I&#39;d recommend the nvidia 5700 or higher if you decide to go nvidia, stay away from those lower. Especially those disgusting TI cards eugh make me sick. Don&#39;t bother looking at the 6 series either, they will do the same as any other card that people have suggested because theres nothing to test their full ability so if you buy like a 6800 big mothertruka then i you will be waiting 5 years until theres somthing out there that needs it. :thumbdown: And yeh the megabyte size on the card doesn&#39;t mean its the best.

[Strawberry knight]

Originally posted by Psycho Pigeon@Nov 26 2004, 11:44 PM
Yeh it will play all the games. I&#39;d recommend the nvidia 5700 or higher if you decide to go nvidia, stay away from those lower. Especially those disgusting TI cards eugh make me sick. Don&#39;t bother looking at the 6 series either, they will do the same as any other card that people have suggested because theres nothing to test their full ability so if you buy like a 6800 big mothertruka then i you will be waiting 5 years until theres somthing out there that needs it. :thumbdown: And yeh the megabyte size on the card doesn&#39;t mean its the best.
The TI (4) series out performance the 5700, dude. The TI (4/3) series was the best series NVIDIA ever made.
I use a TI series graphic card, it runs every thing on that list, some run even better than you had imagine.

A 6800 not worth it? It is a far better card than any of the cards we suggested, you don&#39;t know what&#39;ya talking about do you?&#33;

Sorry to be a bit off topic, but there are some people that just don&#39;t know what are they talking about.

Hu, and yea get the 9600XT :D

[Psycho Pigeon]

Yeh, i know the 6800 is better but what i was saying is theres nothing another card can&#39;t do that the 6800 can because theres nothing out there that requires as much power as the 6800 makes. So, wait a few months or so buy the 6800 when it shakes off half its weight in money and there will be some games that need it for maximum performance.

[CpTn_lAw]

I bought a 6800GT and it&#39;s a great choice&#33;&#33; all the games you said are running 1280x1024 with fsaa 4x ans af4x too with vsync enabled @max details and runs at 55-60 fps....yes i break my money-box, but now that theyb say it&#39;s the high end category and that nvidia won&#39;t do anything more powerfull in the next month i&#39;m happy to have it in my PC&#33;&#33;