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Video Card recommendations
Alright, my old Appian Graphics Dual Head has had it's day and I'm in the market for a new video card. What's the best video card available right now in the $100-$150 CAD range? ATI or NVIDIA? It must be able to be run as a dual head card as well (One VGA and one DVI-I is fine).
Any recommendations?
save up some money and get 9800 xt if you wanna play games like HL2
i heard the xt wasnt that much better than its old model. not good enough to justify the price atleast
If you can get hold a plain 9800 then they are excelent value for money.
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| Originally posted by smallSHEEP If you can get hold a plain 9800 then they are excelent value for money. |
as it'll run hl2 np...
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| Originally posted by MoonMan Agreed, the cost difference is huge between an XT, and the older 9800. I mean for performance the XT wins all the way, btw even consider a 9600 XT as it'll run hl2 np... |
I'm an ATI fanboy so I don't know Nvida's lineup enough to give you anything on them. But if you want to play HL2 or Doom 3 anything from the 9700 Pro on up will run Doom 3 just fine (HL2 will run on a TNT and like 500 MHz CPU so valve clams) if you want a good budget card try to find a 9500 pro it has the same chip as the 9700 i.e. 9700=9500 but they underclocked something. If you do get the 9800 you don't need the XT its just an upgrade in the Ram which is quite worthless for the next year or two at least. If you could I would wait till spring (rumored to be feb/march) when ATI finally does some major revamping of their chip with some noticeable speed increases, more then the change from ATI's 9700 to 9800.
But for your budget I would be looking for a 9500 or 9600 (9500 preferred)
ATI has the best videocards period. I'd stay away from Nvida, they've been caught tuning their cards before doing a bench mark just to get a higher score in 3D bench mark test such as 3D Mark, etc.
Bottom line, IMO I'd get a Radeon 9700 PRO. Its worth the extra buck (I know its more than what you stated you wanted to spend) and will still be compatiable with newer games. And most importantly directX9.
But if you dont want to spend that kind of money and stay in the $100 - 150 then look into getting a ATI Radeon 9200. Or even a 9500 PRO, but I don't think you can find them for that much, even used. Try ebay 
Hope this helps.
thanks for the tips guys! I'm thinking I'll probably have to wait until after xmas anyways so maybe I'll just push it another couple of months and see how much the prices drop...
9800 is brilliant, neer fails me on anything.
Radeon 9700 Pro remains one of the best cards out there, Radeon 9800 Pro is just a tiny bit faster, not even noticable diffrence.
One thing for sure tho, Radeon 9700 Pro kills any nVidiot series.
Radeon really stepped it up with the new cards... leaving nVidia in the dust on some benchmarks. I am kind of eager to see what's coming next!
I know they are gone, but nobody would be able to beat 3DFX if they were still around!!!!
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| Originally posted by PizdusInc Radeon really stepped it up with the new cards... leaving nVidia in the dust on some benchmarks. I am kind of eager to see what's coming next! I know they are gone, but nobody would be able to beat 3DFX if they were still around!!!! |
I think 3dfx went to both camps of ATI and Nvidia.
Other than that I have a 7500 AIW Radeon and I will gladly stay with ATI for their 9K series cards.
I didn't like it when those nvidiots cheated their benchmarks too.
Try toms hardware for great tests on all recent cards.
Radeon 9600 PRo is always good ^^
Go for the 9500 pro and overclock it
Supposedly ATi is cheating on their benchmarks, again... nVidia's new flagship card is a direct competitor with the biggest and baddest ati card (9800 xt?) but their is some image quality issues with benchmarks on the ATi line of cards (cheating on alpha-layers etc.) that makes ATi's driver programming suspect. nVidia, too, has been caught optimizing drivers (cheating) on benchmarks but they have a self-proclaimed optimizing guideline now, which supposedly (and thus far, seems to) is supposed to stop optimizations that could be construed as cheating (program specific, quality reducing, etc.).
I myself have a rad 9600... kind of sucks really, I'd say my mates ti 4200 is as fast or faster than my card. I tend to stay away from FPS anymore. It's a waste of time, there is too many cheaters for the games to be fun online (not to mention I don't excel in said art). RTS or RPG's for me...
ATi and the card manufactures have really been sneaky with the 256 and 128bit bus labeling on their products, but with enough money ATi should be the best.
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| Originally posted by rizen ATi and the card manufactures have really been sneaky with the 256 and 128bit bus labeling on their products, but with enough money ATi should be the best. |
Re: Video Card recommendations
| quote: |
| Originally posted by xls Alright, my old Appian Graphics Dual Head has had it's day and I'm in the market for a new video card. What's the best video card available right now in the $100-$150 CAD range? ATI or NVIDIA? It must be able to be run as a dual head card as well (One VGA and one DVI-I is fine). Any recommendations? |
no one remembers when ati was caught cheating on benchmarks?
Got any proof such as news article links?
nVidia got caught doctoring their drivers that worked for a specific test. Whereas ATi has drivers that are optimized for games. Both vendors are tested in other aspects of their cards. So to say that ATi is cheating is unwarranted.
When Maximum PC found out about this they had to drop down to an older test because those nVidia tweaks were only targeted to the newer test. From a article on the Geforce FX prototype being installed on an Alienware rig:
"...nVidia initially refused to let us benchmark it at all, and relented only when we agreed to limit our tests to pre-approved benchmarks running at stipulated resolutions and AA settings. We gave in to all these conditions because we were intent on reporting the first GeForce FX benchmark scores...".
Now since nVidia did this they are saying "It's not a finished product.." but they should really say this "..We might fail under normal testing guidelines against our competitor..".
According to Futuremark: "...Parts of the program code have been changed so that possible 3DMark03 specific optimizations in current drivers will not work. 3DMark03 specific optimizations in drivers are against run rules of 3DMark03, because they invalidate the performance measurement results and thus make it impossible to compare performances of different hardware...". These changes have been reflected in a patch to 3DMark03.
Based on that any mudslinging against ATi by nVidia zealots would be useless since nVidia was caught cheating plain and simple.
Don't hate da playa, hate da game.
either your're better off with radeon 9600 or radeon 9800 (regular or xt versions) depending on your money situation. install direct x 9.0b and you're set. dont bother with nvidia. most benchmarks are proving radeon is much better and even better when direct x9.0b is installed. oh and incase you wondering why, because the pipelines with the radeon archeticture are much smaller so they send informatin much faster.
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