Help needed: new video card

[Threash]

Birthday is coming up and someone has offered to buy me a new video card, although we are both mostly clueless about hardware stuff.  I'm currently using a Radeon 7500 series according to device manager (someone built this comp for me a couple years ago in exchange for my EQ account) so i assume it wont be that hard to come up with a serious upgrade that won't cost all that much.  Any suggestions?

[Trippy]

Birthday is coming up and someone has offered to buy me a new video card, although we are both mostly clueless about hardware stuff.  I'm currently using a Radeon 7500 series according to device manager (someone built this comp for me a couple years ago in exchange for my EQ account) so i assume it wont be that hard to come up with a serious upgrade that won't cost all that much.  Any suggestions?

Do you know about how much, roughly, this person is willing to spend?

[Threash]

Birthday is coming up and someone has offered to buy me a new video card, although we are both mostly clueless about hardware stuff.  I'm currently using a Radeon 7500 series according to device manager (someone built this comp for me a couple years ago in exchange for my EQ account) so i assume it wont be that hard to come up with a serious upgrade that won't cost all that much.  Any suggestions?

Do you know about how much, roughly, this person is willing to spend?

Actually i don't, but i would prefer if she didn't have to spend all that much.  Preferably under 200 bucks or so.

[Trippy]

Actually i don't, but i would prefer if she didn't have to spend all that much.  Preferably under 200 bucks or so.

Do you know if you have an AGP slot?

Edit: Also, if you could list your CPU, that would help as well.

[Threash]

Actually i don't, but i would prefer if she didn't have to spend all that much.  Preferably under 200 bucks or so.

Do you know if you have an AGP slot?

Edit: Also, if you could list your CPU, that would help as well.

AMD Athlon xp 2500, 1800 mghz, no idea about the AGP slot sorry.  I would assume yes.

[Miguel]

Almost certainly an AGP slot given that CPU.  For $200 bucks you can get a Randeon 9800 Pro and it'll be very competitive.  The Nvidia 6600GT in AGP is also very good, albeit for about $50 more.

[kidder]

Look hard enough and you can find the 6600GT in AGP flavor for *just* less than $200.00.  Check www.newegg.com depending on the day of the week, the prices seem to fluctuate.

[Trippy]

The mid-range AGP video card marketplace is kind of in flux right now. Most of the current generation video card chipsets are either available only at the high end of the AGP price range or are for PCI Express only. The main exception is the previously mentioned NVIDIA 6600GT which is available in AGP format but is ~$50 more expensive than its PCI Express counterparts for some reason (yea manufacturer price gouging?). The ATI X700, which is the rough equivalent to the 6600GT (the 6600GT is faster overall) is only available for PCI Express at the moment and the 6600GT is substantially faster than the 9800 Pro, which is from ATI's previous generation technology.

If you want to stick with ATI, any of the following (in order of increasing price and performance) would be a substantial upgrade over what you have now:

9600 Pro ~$110
9600 XT ~$140
9800 Pro ~$200

These are all from ATI's previous generation of chipsets.

On the NVIDIA side, unless you go with the 6600GT, you are going to have to put up with a previous generation card that'll have crappy DX9 support, which will negatively affect your performance in games like HL2. The rough equivalents to the above ATI cards are:

FX5700 ~$110
FX5900XT ~$180

Even though NVIDIA's drivers are still better than ATI's (though ATI continues to close the gap) I would personally recommend the 3 ATI chipsets listed above over the two NVIDIA's ones.

Your best bet, if you can find it in your price range, is to go for the AGP NVIDIA 6600GT.

Below are some benchmarks and video card reviews. Remember that any of the chipsets mentioned above will be a tremendous improvement over what you are using now.

Half-Life 2 DX9 (mid to high end):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278

Half-Life 2 DX9/8 (low to mid):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2281

6600GT benchmarks:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277

660GT AGP card review:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2295

Edit: Fixed typo

[MrHat]

Any manufacturer recommendation for that 6600 GT?

Edit: Also, my mobo currently only supports up to 4x AGP, if I get an 8x card, will I not be able to use it?

[plummerx]

Any manufacturer recommendation for that 6600 GT?

Edit: Also, my mobo currently only supports up to 4x AGP, if I get an 8x card, will I not be able to use it?

IMO, BFG is one of the best Nvida based card produces out there, with some of the best pricing. Solid quality, support, and warranty.

Yes, it will do fine in A 4x mobo. The performance difference with 8x is microscopic.

You will want to find out the rating on your power supply, less that 300W may give you trouble. Newer vid cards need more juice.

[Murgos]

I'm still quite happy with a 9800 pro.  I haven't used an NVIDA card in years though so maybe I'm missing out, but from all the tech sites i've seen the 9800 pro still puts up good numbers and it has good DX 9 support.

[Krakrok]

I bought a XFX 6600 GT AGP around the beginning of the year for $225 and I'm happy with it. It seems like the sellers like to give a discount one week and then jack up the price the next. According to Pricewatch the current low price one for AGP is from GameVE ($197 right now). The brand is XFX and it has dual DVI output. The XFX does require that you plug a hard drive power cable into it though and I'm running a 400W power supply after my 300W died.

CompUSA had it for $199 (PNY brand) after rebate a week or so ago too but now it's back to $250.

I get about 80fps in Planetside with it in clear areas an 10fps when two zergs meet at the same base.

[Threash]

Thanks tons Trippy and everyone else, that helped a lot.

[Trippy]

Any manufacturer recommendation for that 6600 GT?

Take a look at the last link in my above post. The main considerations are noise, heat, overclocking ability (if you are into that sort of thing), and whether or not the board has two DVI outputs (if you have multiple LCDs).

[MrHat]

Any manufacturer recommendation for that 6600 GT?

Take a look at the last link in my above post. The main considerations are noise, heat, overclocking ability (if you are into that sort of thing), and whether or not the board has two DVI outputs (if you have multiple LCDs).

Thanks Trippy.  That really helped out.  Looks like I'll be going with the LeadTek card since I only have my purty 19" Sony monitor to power.

[schild]

You don't need a new graphics card. Not when you can buy this:


Actually, I'm buying a 6600GT in a few months. It looks like it has the best price/performance on the market.

[HaemishM]

Just as an aside about DX9 performance in HL2 with the previous generation's cards. Before I got my new computer together, I tried the HL2 demo on an AMD 1.2 Ghz Athlon, with 512MB DDR333 RAM, a slower HD and an ATI Radeon 9600 w/ 256 MB RAM on the card (got the card for about $90 at Newegg). It ran surprisingly well. Load times were a bit long, which can be blamed on the hard drive, but it ran in 1024x768 at a decent speed, with about medium settings. The engine is suprisingly robust.

Vampire: Bloodlines, OTOH, ran decently until it had to load anything, at which point I had more stutters than Stuttering John on crack.

[Gimmick Acct Sky]

Just as an aside about DX9 performance in HL2 with the previous generation's cards.

I played HL2 @ 1280x720 with 16x FSAA/AF at a solid framerate on a 9800 pro (256ddr2). I didn't run FRAPS or anything, but the CS demo loop was reporting 60fps.

Too bad the only good thing about half-life 2 is messing around with the physics, I thought the game blew.

[eldaec]

Stats here...

http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-04.html#3dmark_2003

Assuming you don't have particular requirements like dual monitors (WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE) or hating ati drivers, or being a rabid ati or nvidia fanboy, just work up the list till they get too expensive.

[kidder]

Stats here...

http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-04.html#3dmark_2003

Assuming you don't have particular requirements like dual monitors (WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE) or hating ati drivers, or being a rabid ati or nvidia fanboy, just work up the list till they get too expensive.

Too bad those stats do not include the 6600GT.  I took a look at Tom's and their test of the 6600GT had it scoring in the low 8000's in 3DMark2003.  Just a bit slower than the 6800.  That was the PCI-X card though.  The AGP version should score close to that number.

[Zetleft]

It also seems to be missing the X700 which in some tests I've seen performs better than the geforce 6600 and the radeon 9800 on some of the newer titles.  It's really a confusing time to be buying a new card, as I found out since last week when my video card died on me... still haven't replaced it.

[Trippy]

It also seems to be missing the X700 which in some tests I've seen performs better than the geforce 6600 and the radeon 9800 on some of the newer titles.  It's really a confusing time to be buying a new card, as I found out since last week when my video card died on me... still haven't replaced it.

Here's a comparison of the X700 Pro and the 6600GT:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2297&p=2

[Strazos]

Just my 2 cents....

Since I rebuilt my system a few months ago and installed my 9800Pro (w/ 256mb ram), pretty much everything runs like a dream. HL2 runs silky smooth with everything pretty high, even in multiplayer mode.

Even VtM:Bloodlines runs pretty well. Any drop in fps or choppiness etc I am chalking up to the devs, not my systerm.

Asus A7n8x mobo
AMD AthlonXP 2700+
1024mb Corsair XMS ram (Good stuff)
A decent 80gb WD HDD (I need to add another drive soon, my pr0n is monopolizing my drive space, heh)
ATI Radeon 9800Pro 256
And I wanna say my PSU is like 400w, but I'm not sure offhand....I've never had power problems.