TheArtworkGuy Posted November 28, 2004 CID Share Posted November 28, 2004 hey i just bought a new computer and i'm lookin for a video card for it..cuz the one it has sux. i can't tell if my comp is AGP or not. i have windows XP AMD Athlon 3000+ 2.10 GHz 448 MB of RAM thats all it says in the info on my comp its and HP pavilion. on the box it said it has 512 MB of RAM..i dunno why it says 448 on the computer on the box it also said something about 400 mhz front side bus help!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xs1 Posted November 28, 2004 CID Share Posted November 28, 2004 SINCE IV HAD VERY GOOD EXPERENCE WITH THEM , ID HAVE TO RECOMMEND GETTING AN NVIDIA CARD. Yea.. look on www.newegg.com they have a great selection and you can find alot of things cheap. But go for an nvidia btw it says 448 because the integrated video card is taking 64 mb from it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcin541 Posted November 28, 2004 CID Share Posted November 28, 2004 You can change it you know. Go into BIOS and there is an option there for video, i think the options are 64, 32 and 1. I put it on 1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheArtworkGuy Posted November 28, 2004 Author CID Share Posted November 28, 2004 hey guys thanks a lot ! : ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Reverend Posted December 1, 2004 CID Share Posted December 1, 2004 For fantastic Video Cards I would not buy anything less than a mid-high end NVIDEA card with Dual Outputs (for running twin monitors). Our Graphics Computers are all loaded with a variety of NVIDEA's and they are all top performers. We trialed one ALL IN WONDER card then sent it back ...it couldn't keep up with the NVIDEAs and only offered 1/3 of the features (such as the transparency effect and about 24 other "must have" features). Anyway, after having purchased and installed 24 NVIDEA AGP cards (dual output) I am sold. Even if you get a 128MB you'd be getting a half-decent one, but the 256 and up are obviously an artist's dream come true. We also have three VERY high end PNY's, yet that is the top end of NVIDEA (I think...?), and they are very, very costly. You can only justify the cost of a PNY high-end if you have the cash-flow to make it pay for itself. Hope this helps! The Reverend Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junkieXL Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Definitly avoid any ATI/All-in-Wonder cards & also anything from Pinnacle, as my experience has showed them both to be rubbish. They both have installation issues (especially on XP) and the unique added ability to disable/corrupt various programs on your machine after install. NVidia/GForce is the way to go. For Video Capture cards, Data Translation's Broadway Pro i recommend highly. http://www.b-way.com/home.html -JxL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basik Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 If you have some money to throw around get the new Ati Radeon X800 its fooking awesome! Its also a pci card instead of AGP so it goin to be way faster.. Heres the Specs' and other info on it.. RADEON X800 PRO 256MB AGP $399.00 RADEON X800 PRO 256MB AGP Price: $399.00 QTY Stock : Temporarily out of stock. Will ship when available. Part Number: 100-435200 Email this product to a friend Add to your price watch Overview The RADEON Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hahn Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Actually, you'e wrong about the PCI-e being way faster. Even the best GPU out right now doesn't come close to taking up all the bandwidth 8xAGP offers. They actually test exactly the same. My point being, don't upgrade your mobo just so you can get a PCI-e video card. There's absolutely no difference. Ati cards don't supprt certain configurations of antistropic filtering and anti-aliasing, so I would go with a Nvidia card.. Asus makes a great 6800 Ultra card that is overclocked out of the box, and only takes up one slot. If I were you and had no spending limit, I'd go with that card. If you're looking for a more mainstream card, get the 6600. Links to both at NewEgg.com (NewEgg ROCKS!): -Asus V9999 Ultra Deluxe (6800 Ultra) -Asus EN6600 (6600 obviously) There's also the 6800 and 6800 GT if you're looking for something in between that price range: -Asus V9999 GT 128 (6800 GT) -Asus V9999 Gamer Edition 256 (6800) -Asus V9999 GT 256 (6800 GT) All of the above are for 8xAGP. If you want a PCI-e card, you'll have to go with a 6600 because the 6800s aren't on PCI-e yet. Just do a quick search in NewEgg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hahn Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 You may notice that I only posted links to NewEgg.com. Well, they're the most reliable reseller for the lowest price the majority of teh time. You can try going to Pricewatch.com and see if you can find it for lower. However, all be warned that many resellers listed have horrible credentials. Before you ever buy anything online, always check their rating and reviews at ResellerRatings.com. I've had my share of bad experiences with buying things online before I stumbled across this website. HERE's NewEgg's page at ResellerRatings.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA3LE Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 ATI is the shit --- PERIOD ~ My 9800 Pro still isn't outdated ~~ play Half-Life 2 PERFECT on EXTRA HIGH everything -- 6X Anti-Aliasing and 1280X1024 resolution ~ I got my card like 2 years ago or some shit, the rest of my computer has been upgraded many times, but the video card still performs circles around anything. You should be able to pic a 9800 Pro up now for like 160 or some crap, for a 128MB. About 260 for a 256MB ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTB Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 You should be able to pic a 9800 Pro up now for like 160 or some crap' date=' for a 128MB. About 260 for a 256MB ...[/quote'] Which is what I should've put in this comp. Not this cheaper Radeon 9600 Pro, slighly overclocked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheArtworkGuy Posted December 7, 2004 Author CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 hey guys thanks for all the tips! i ended up buying an Nvidia Gforce 5200 FX 256mb 8x/AGP for 80 bucks. i can't afford to spend 200 bucks on a good video card. wish i could : ) . but this card works MUCH better than my 64mb of integrated memory. i can run WoW on high and it runs nice and smooth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hahn Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Well, I did a little searching on Tom's Hardware for some benches. I couldn't find a comparison between the 6600GT and the 9800Pro, so here's what we'll do. Below, there are two video card review links. One has the 9800Pro, and one has the 6600GT. In each of those reviews, the FX 5950 Ultra is present. In the first set of benches, notice that the 9800Pro is slightly faster than the FX 5950U. While keeping that in mind, go to the second set. Notice the difference in a card that is a few FPS faster than FX 5950U and the 6600GT. A pretty substantial performance increase of ~50-100% (that percentage range is figured over all benchmarks, not just Call of Duty). -Bench set #1 -Bench set #2 Well, I found an 8xAGP 6600GT card at NewEgg.com for $240, which is well within the price range of the two cards you mentioned (more than one, less than the other). If you were considering getting the 9800Pro, perhaps you should go with the following card instead: -XFX 6600GT at NewEgg.com If you're wondering about the 128MB of ram, there isn't a substantial enough performance difference between cards with 128 and 256 to be an issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hahn Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Oh, didn't see your post about the card you ended up buying. I don't want it to sound like I'm putting down your new card or anything, but the 5200 is horrible. I have a 5600 Ultra right now, and it's driving me crazy trying to run the latest games. However, if it's all you can afford, I completely understand. Let us know how it works out for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xs1 Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Nvidia > ATI [ insert 3 page long specs and links like everyone else.......here ] oh and i have a nvidia 5200 right now and iv yet to see a problem with it. so "horrible" ?nah.. Iv played counterstrike, as well as source, doom3, battlefield vietnam, HL2, farcry, etc on my 5200. On normal settings. No need for SUPER ULTRA OMGZ0RZ HIGH DETAIL PLAZMA SETTINGZ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hahn Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Well, I made that judgement forgetting my main bottleneck: my 1.6ghz P4. I'm building a new PC in the near future anyway, so I'm not too worried about it. However, playing a game with SUPER ULTRA OMGZ0RZ HIGH DETAIL PLAZMA SETTINGZ is the only true way to experience a game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanBuren Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Well, I made that judgement forgetting my main bottleneck: my 1.6ghz P4. I'm building a new PC in the near future anyway, so I'm not too worried about it. However, playing a game with SUPER ULTRA OMGZ0RZ HIGH DETAIL PLAZMA SETTINGZ is the only true way to experience a game. Alot of those fancy settings just bring down my cpu, i think my FX 5900 Ultra can handle most games but my old AMD 1700+ not and i agree, its the only true way to experience a game grrrr this reminds me i have to upgrade, almost forgot it lol VanBuren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hahn Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Yeah, I built this computer in '02, and it was very mid-range even then. The video card was bought last year and I added some memory, but the processor is just too slow for any of it to come to its full potential. The PC I'm on now will mainly be used to check email, browse, P2P share, etc. The new one will be used for graphical design and gaming. I can't wait. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hahn Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Here's an example of what I was talking about how ATI cards can't handle AA and AF or a certain combination of the two in certain games. -ATI JointOps Failure Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xs1 Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 Well' date=' I made that judgement forgetting my main bottleneck: my 1.6ghz P4. I'm building a new PC in the near future anyway, so I'm not too worried about it.[/quote'] lmao.. i deffinatly hear you there =( dude! no! the only way to REALY experencing a game is thru massive lag. You see so much more goign that slow. Like me on counterstrike... Its like running thru jellow while everyone else has jetpacks on. Their missing all the things others like me see.... you know.. things like.. um.. ... lack of kills..and...um..yea.. and... ah fuck it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hahn Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 lol. I started laughing to myself from the beginning of that. Actually, why don't you max out the settings so you'll lag even more and notice all those great things at an even higher level... like fewer kills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xs1 Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 [ on the old celery ] If i maxed out any of the settings id connect to servers, but as soon as players joined id get 0 fps and the comp would restart.. so.. no i like my 800 x 600 reolution with the massive 16 bit colors. So,.. 34.3 fps is plenty for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTB Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 I kinda like this new comp, although I should have bought a Radeon 9800 Pro or XT. There's PC2700 memory installed, but because of the lower bus speed of the processor it refuses to run at that speed. I'm stuck with PC2100, and it sucks. Still, running 3DMark05 is a bad idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanBuren Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 I kinda like this new comp, although I should have bought a Radeon 9800 Pro or XT. There's PC2700 memory installed, but because of the lower bus speed of the processor it refuses to run at that speed. I'm stuck with PC2100, and it sucks. Still, running 3DMark05 is a bad idea. I think there is a setting for that in BIOS, you should be able to run faster RAM then your FSB. VanBuren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTB Posted December 7, 2004 CID Share Posted December 7, 2004 [ on the old celery ] If i maxed out any of the settings id connect to servers, but as soon as players joined id get 0 fps and the comp would restart.. so.. no i like my 800 x 600 reolution with the massive 16 bit colors. So,.. 34.3 fps is plenty for me! I played with that for a long time. Hell, I still run 800*600 when playing RA3. It works just fine VanBuren: I will look for that option. It's just that I doubt that it's there. Edit: The option is not there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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