Okay, so I am gonna buy a new video card...

[JTFazz]

The last four or five cards I have had are all ATI cards... a couple of Radeons and a couple of Radeon AIWs...

Budget is not really a problem so much, but I want the most bang for the buck. Right now I have a Radeon 9700 TX Dell OEM model with 128 MB of DDR VRAM. I think my chipset will only support 4x AGP (Intel 850E).

Oh, and my Power Supply is only 250w... so the ATI 9800 Pro series and the 9700 AAIW Pro are a no-go due to the 300w power requirement.

So, what is my best bet? Thinking 9600 XT

[Angry Kid]

Sounds like someone's getting a nice refund check. :D

Yup, 850 mobo is only 4x. I guess change is good, but the 9700 is 8x anyway and is a damn fine card, especially if you have a fast CPU. So it begs the question - why?

I'm going through upgrade dilemma, too. One of my PCs has the same mobo, so I'm thinking, "If I get an 8x card, I'll need an 8x capable mobo, so what'll I do with 1GB of PC1066 RAMBUS that I paid out the wazoo for??" I'm not aware of any RAMBUS motherboards out there that have an 8x AGP slot. If I'm mistaken, someone please let me know. :|

EDIT: Abit SI7-G fits the bill, but has abysmal reviews.

IMO - you need to do the video card and the motherboard (and new memory) to really make it worthwhile.

[JTFazz]

I think you may be right, Steve. I may rather waste my money on a KickA** DVRW instead...

[Crazy Hobbit]

Hmmm...any particular reason why your going away from the 9700?

The 9800 Pro or XT would OR Nvidia 5900/5950 (right?) seem like the next logical step up. But if you don't think the power supply can muster enough, replace it first unless its something proprietary like Dell, which if I recall you have.

I would have three suggestions:

1. Wait until the new graphic chipsets come out later this spring and then see whats on the market then and see if it will be compatible with your Dell setup.

2. Stick it out with your 9700, which is a fine card by its own right. If your having issues with ATI maybe move laterally to a 5600/5700 series Nvidia.

3. Just run your Dell till your sick of it and build your own computer by year's end when supposedly all the new hardware changes are have to taken place.

.02 cents

[Chairman_Kaga]

Think stepping up for that $$ isn't really worth the investement. The biggest card you can handle is a minor incremental step over what you have now.


Might want to upgrade the PS instead.

Personally, I'd save for a new setup altogether. If you buy anything, make sure it's something you could use in your next system to keep the costs down.

[JTFazz]

My 9700 is over a year old... and its not the 9700 Pro or 9700 XT, just the 9700 which came out with the 9500 Pro Series. So either of those would be an upgrade.

[Chairman_Kaga]

Do not believe the 9700 pro is a performance upgrade. Just a feature set. From what I hear, the XT versions are marginal performance over the originals.

[YellowDog]

Yep and I would be concerned with a 250 watt PS. I can't believe a 1yr old system would have one that small this may be the place to start.

YD

[Chalybos]

Yep and I would be concerned with a 250 watt PS. I can't believe a 1yr old system would have one that small this may be the place to start.

YD
Yup. Go for a bigger power supply. Or, hang in there like the fuzzy-footed one suggests and build one of your own. It actually is rather easy to do it, and the new hardware doesn't need anything like the jumper settings of yore. If it's your first machine, you can put it together in about an hour to an hour and a half (allowing time for mistakes). I can slap one together in about 20 minutes. The hard part is getting over that ingrained fear of getting inside it and handling components. And if you go for something in the upper end (quality wise) you're good for a couple of years and able to do incremental upgrades. Hardware can run from $600 to $900, depending on what you want. Just trying to make your decision a little more difficult. :D

[JTFazz]

I always buy a new machine every two years... so, this one has to last until this time next year... obviously a major video card upgrade isn't possible without a new power supply... so I may just got the DVD-RW route... not convinced any of the nVidia boards will be much of a step forward either.

[BoogerBomb]

Dont bother with any Nvidia boards not a single one is worth it. Your video card should be fine for msot games out there. Im still using a gf3ti200 and can play most games just fine. I dont need 9999 fps in any q3 based games. If there is nothing wrong with it then I wouldn't bother upgrading. In a few moths it would be a legacy product anyways with the new PCI Express x16 boards coming out soon.

[NVmySTYLE]

right now it's not your videocard giving you trouble it's your mobo. agp 4x isn't allowing your card pipelines to fill to thier capacity. i'm afraid to say it but any upgrades (except for hard drive, dvd rw....basically anything that can be used to build a new computer) to that machine would be a waste of money. pci express will be out this spring early summer so at this point there is no excuse for buying old hardware.
invest in a decent dvd rw (plextor) that you can migrate over to a new system in the near future. at this point you shouldn't even consider a mobo/memory upgrade because in 6 months you will wish you hadn't.

[megaman]

Dont bother with any Nvidia boards not a single one is worth it.

you sir, have never, ever, ever, had to make choices thinking with your wallet, right?

i bought the MSI K7N2G-L, and i swear to god, best motherboard ever (not as good as the intel ones, but it is great what so ever. hardly crashes on anything, and i have my 2100+ overclocked to a 2300+.

and yes, i have cheap ram too. and a memorex 2.99$ optical mouse. and a 5$ keyboard.

[RuperT]

right now it's not your videocard giving you trouble it's your mobo. agp 4x isn't allowing your card pipelines to fill to thier capacity. i'm afraid to say it but any upgrades (except for hard drive, dvd rw....basically anything that can be used to build a new computer) to that machine would be a waste of money. pci express will be out this spring early summer so at this point there is no excuse for buying old hardware.
invest in a decent dvd rw (plextor) that you can migrate over to a new system in the near future. at this point you shouldn't even consider a mobo/memory upgrade because in 6 months you will wish you hadn't.
6 months?! That's a lifetime, man! Actually, more like 6000 lifetimes, if we count respawns! :P
I will defer to people who are more up-to-date on the hardware scene, but anything I've seen says 'later this year'. Now, I'm not a cutting edge guy (I prefer to surf WAY back on the bang-for-buck wave), so I'm going to hazard a guess that it'll be at least a year before I'm buying PCI-express hardware (figure end-of-year for a bug free implementation from different manufacturers, plus some months for reasonable pricing). I may be way off base here, though, and I invite any of you fellows to clue me in. I'm running a 266 FSB board AMD XP1600+, with AGP 4x; I'm considering buying a XP2600+ 333mhz Barton for ~$100, and 512 more PC2700 (again, any recommendations will be welcome; I don't even know what components will be affected by the new architecture).
Now, JT, I wouldn't particularly recommend spending money on a new card, especially a 9600XT. I just bought one for $150 (w/ HL2 coupon), and that's a good deal, but if I remember my research correctly, the 9600XT isn't any faster than a 9700 (in fact, I looked for a 9700 first, hoping it would be cheaper by now; it wasn't). I've always liked Tom's Hardware (www.tomshardware.com), they compare things with a nice bar graph; you can see all the various chips compared based on Directx8, Directx9, specific games (ie, Call of Duty (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-05.html)), albeit on a setup that may differ from yours in some other way (still seems like decent yardstick in general). There are probably other good resources too, but I've gone there since `97 or so.
Also, just tonight I realized I was still using AGP 2x in BIOS (from my old Geforce3 TI200), so there is always the human factor too. :roll: You can lead a horse to better hardware, but you can't make him configure it correctly. Even if he had fingers... um, and an interest in computers... and, umm... ok I'll just abandon this metaphor now, if you don't mind.
Good luck!

[BoogerBomb]

Dont bother with any Nvidia boards not a single one is worth it.

you sir, have never, ever, ever, had to make choices thinking with your wallet, right?

i bought the MSI K7N2G-L, and i swear to god, best motherboard ever (not as good as the intel ones, but it is great what so ever. hardly crashes on anything, and i have my 2100+ overclocked to a 2300+.

and yes, i have cheap ram too. and a memorex 2.99$ optical mouse. and a 5$ keyboard.

I meant Nvidia graphics cards. Ati Radeons outperform Nvidia right now.

[JTFazz]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I think my best bet is to get a solid DVDRW and punt on the video card. Like I said, I will be buying a new machine this time next year anyway (bonus time is early March each year). Timing is everything and I have had a small windfall with some stock options, but I am not going to sink it into a new machine right now. I will wait for my normal odd year (1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005...) buying cycle.

So, now to post a new thread on CDRWs... :lol:

[megaman]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I think my best bet is to get a solid DVDRW and punt on the video card. Like I said, I will be buying a new machine this time next year anyway (bonus time is early March each year). Timing is everything and I have had a small windfall with some stock options, but I am not going to sink it into a new machine right now. I will wait for my normal odd year (1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005...) buying cycle.

So, now to post a new thread on CDRWs... :lol:

NOW LOOK AT WHAT YOU ALL DID!!

:lol: :lol:

sorry, had to do that.

[Bokchoi]

Let me tell you what I read from Tomshardware.com a while back (can't find the article). From what I remember, they did a comparison tests with AGP 4x and AGP 8x. The end result is 1-2% increase with an 8x. AGP is indeed a pipeline of the video card to your Memory on the mobo but nowadays the video cards all come with alot more onboard memory so the use of AGP is no longer as important. Basically what I'm trying to say is that, AGP is used when the video card runs out of onboard memory and have to use the mobo's memory, back in the old days.

I've always thought that AGP 8x cards will work in 4x mode anyways (i'm using my FX5900 in a 4x agp slot right now).

I certainly recommend you change the power supply and get an 8x card to use on your 4x slot (until you upgrade your mobo), the 1-2% performance hit will not be noticeable.

Also Nvidia cards uses the CPU more than the ATI cards for the same output. So I'd rather get ATI over Nvidia.


*Off topic PCI Express videocards will pwned all these in the future.

**Edit: I found a link to a similar article (it could be this one I read but I'm pretty sure I read about 4x vs 8x) Article (http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20000214/index.html)

[Dawg]

Regarding the nVidia versus ATI issue:
In general, the only reason to select an nVidia card over a comparably priced ATI card is if you are playing primarily OpenGL based games. That is the only place where nVidia outperforms ATI. Otherwise, ATI wins the performance battle. That being said, QIII and thus RtCW/ET/CoD all make heavy use of OpenGL and nVidia cards are probably the better choice if these are your cup of tea. I'm not certain, but I believe that BF is not heavily reliant on OpenGL so the ATI cards are probably better for that.

When my GF asked me what card I wanted for x-mas, I opted for the nVidia card since I was playing primarily ET (got an FX5950). I can now run around on mp_radar and its not a slideshow. Works great with CoD too. Your mileage may vary.

Dawg

[BoogerBomb]

I have been extremely upset and very unimpressed with the Forceware crappy drivers that Nvidia wants to force onto us. I had a nightmare of a time trying to get the forceware drivers to work because they were the only ones with support for my 5600XT.

Its a shame too because their drivers used to be good. I think ATI and Nvidia just swapped driver teams as the ATI drivers seem to be much better than Nvidias and they are now getting much more regular updates than us Nvidia folks that Nvidia seems to have forgotten about.

[ignus]

im holding off on building a new pc until the PCI Express and 64-bit processors (also a 64-bit Windows) become standard. hope my radeon 8500 can hold out as long as me :sigh: that and im broke :D