Help a graphix noob out

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 8:29 am

At the moment I have an Asus P4R800V-Delux mobo, with ATI Radeon 9100 onboard graphics. It has available PCI and AGP8X/4X slot(s)

At 64mb of shared ram, I get a 3DMark score of ~3800, with 128mb shared it drops to ~2400. (1 gig of ram total on this machine)

I want to upgrade to a video card for a few reasons:
- increase my available ram to the full gig
- DVI connector for future upgrade to an LCD monitor
- of course, increase the graphics performance

currently the machine is being used primarily for PVR duty, with occasional gaming (UT2004 and other demo/freeware)

Looking for a passive cooler, that won't break the bank. Other than that, I have no clue how to determine what out there is good, and might suit me. When I say won't break the bank, I mean I don't want to be dropping $400-$600 on a video card. Let's aim for $200-$300 (Canadian, so figure a 25% premium on the USD)

Help please?

fabre · Post by **fabre** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:55 am

With that kind of budget I would go for a Sapphire ATI 9800 pro 128 MB 256bits they are powerfull enough to run the latest games Doom 3, HL 2 and can be found for as low as $260 cnd.

But of course on top of that you will have to a add a third party cooler like an ARCTIC COOLING VGA SILENCER REV3 $27 cnd

Callous · Post by **Callous** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:32 am

Tiger Direct in canada was selling their 6600GT for about $275 on sale several times in last 1.5 months.

It's faster than 9800pro

freak_in_cage · Post by **freak_in_cage** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 8:01 am

check out tomshardwareguide or anandtech.com for graphics card performance reviews.

the 6600 GT offers the best price/performance ratio atm.

bear in mind that the faster the graphics card, the more heat it will produce and the louder it will be, and the more difficult it will be to cool.

unless you play games, just get a £40 card. its not worth spending £400 etc on a card for your board because it wont be worth much when you upgrade as it will have to be AGP and any newer pc will be PCI-X. do a bit of searching and u may get hold of a GeForce FX 5200 without any kind of fan on it! no need to mod!!!!

oh, and if your getting a low cost card, dont spend the extra and get a huge amount of ram on it! 64 megs is more than enough on a budget card!

see here:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ ... eries.html

the last 2 cards on the page, 1 has 128 m,egs ram, which is 64 megs more than the card needs, and is £37, but the company are still offering a 256 meg option, for an extra £13 (thats still almost 30% extra!). they do it to try and con the average buyer! what a rip off.

if you have been coping with this 9100 on built card, then a 5200 should be fine!

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 1:10 pm

You can go for a Radeon 9200 (preferably non-SE). It'll be better than your current card but not much of an upgrade in terms of gaming performance. The 9600 Pro (or even the XT along with a Zalman NB47J mod) will be better for the gaming part and still be passive.

However, you can take a peep at e-bay for a Radeon 9700 Pro or 9500 Pro. These are old cards and VERY hot so forget passive cooling and get a VGA Silencer but they still pack a heavy punch. I completely agree with freak_in_cage on the wisdom of spending money on a dying technology unless you're an avid gamer.

fabre · Post by **fabre** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 11:59 am

After looking into I will have to change my mind and recommend the 6600 GT as well, that is if you are planning to play the latest games.

Actually with rebate tigerdirect.ca has a Chaintech GeForce 6600 GT for $258.99 at the moment.

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:46 pm

Thanks for the recommendations. I'm keeping my eyes open for a deal, either ebay or elsewhere online.

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 6:14 pm

how does something like this look? and is $300 CDN a reasonable price?
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... RK:MEWA:IT

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 1:52 am

Just posting to second the GeForce 6600GT suggestion. They really are very good cards for the money.

freak_in_cage · Post by **freak_in_cage** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 2:09 pm

wooglin wrote:how does something like this look? and is $300 CDN a reasonable price?
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... RK:MEWA:IT

m8, are you sure you need that kind of power? what games do you play? if you can possibly get away with a low spec card, then do it, because noise wise it will save you hastle!!!!!

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 3:40 pm

well, retail the 9800 pro is going for $400 here at Best Buy, so $300 and it already includes the silencer... not a bad deal.

Over-powered sure, but it should be the last vid card I buy for a while.

freak_in_cage · Post by **freak_in_cage** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 4:48 am

wooglin wrote:well, retail the 9800 pro is going for $400 here at Best Buy, so $300 and it already includes the silencer... not a bad deal.

Over-powered sure, but it should be the last vid card I buy for a while.

true, ispending that kind of money will last, but thats assuming you need it in the first place. and dont get the 9800 pro, get the 6600GT. newer technology, better driver support etc, more efficient (wont produce as much heat).

but only get it if your certain you need the power m8, what sort of games do you play???

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:37 pm

Well, the 9800 pro arrived today, pretty ramsinks, arctic cooler installed, easy installation

three letters:

W.O.W.

I'll admit, it's overkill. But now I can actually watch TV on the S-Video out, and play UT2004 on the monitor. Went from a 3DMark03 score of ~430 to ~4300.

System is a little bit warmer than before, but no louder to my ears