i need a new vid card

[pcgeek]

ok i want a new grafix card for not a bad price, but i want it to make halo and ut2004 look GREAT, what should i get, i have looked at the ati radion 9600 pro, which was a good price. i also looked at the 9800 pro but hats way outa my budget.

thanx
--geek

[neb1211]

How much are you looking to spend?

POWERCOLOR ATI RADEON 9800 - 256mb - $177.00
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc....-131-412&DEPA=1

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600XT - 256mb - $153.50
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-102-450&depa=1

GAINWARD nVIDIA GeForce FX5700 - 256mb - $166.50
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-128-186&depa=1

I would definatly go for a video card with 256mb of memory as more and more games are starting to be able to take advantage of the 256mb of memory.

[pcgeek]

i dunno, i have already looked at the powercolor one and people said tha it ran 200mhz slower than the 128 meg version, i dunno.  i want to spend from 100-170 bux.

[neb1211]

hmm that is weird.  I didn't know that the 256mb version ran slower.  It is still a good idea to have 256mb of video memory however.  Like I said before more and more games are now able to take advantage of the extra memory...

[pcgeek]

yea i think only the power color one ran slower, i am looking into the nvidia one, that one looks the best to me. but i am kind of sceptical b/c i have only used ati, but change should be ok.  also does it matter that it isnt made by nvidia, cuz it just has a nvidia chipset and wanted to kno if it ran the same as the nvidia version ( i have only used the cards made by the company itself)

[neb1211]

NVIDIA does not make their own video cards.  They only produce the chipsets and sell them to video card manufacturers.  Also you don't need to worry about switching to NVIDIA.  We use NVIDIA video cards in most of the systems that we sell at the store and have very little problems with them.  They are good cards over all.

[pcgeek]

i was just refering to ati b/c some of their cards are made by them.  i wanna use nvidia b/c my ati radion 7500 aiw was a b**** when i tried to install new drivers and ai doesnt support spannign across 2 grafix cards.

[pcgeek]

would it be better to get a pci express card?
 

[neb1211]

It depends on whether or not you want to upgrade your motherboard in order to gain PCI-E.  Right now there isn't much of a benefit to PCI-E over AGP video cards.

[tomalakborg]

I too would go with the more RAM over the 200mghz, but that's just me. As for pci-e there's a little difference but only in the real high end cards. The real advantage is SLI, but I haven't any experience with SLI. If you ever consider going with linux any time in the future ever, then do not get an ATI card, the nvidia drivers are awesome, whereas the ATI drivers require the pulling of teeth. I have had great sucsess with most of the card manufacturers for nvidia chips, BFG and PNY namely. You should not have problems, but I do like that ATI makes all its own stuff. I would reccomend nvidia because of my beef with the ATI linux drivers. IF you go ATI get a non-ati card to save some money. The saphire is just fine.  

[neb1211]

For nVidia I would recommend BFG, PNY, XFX, or Leadtek

For ATI I would recommend either Powercolor or Saphire.