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improvements to my PC

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by conny119, May 22, 2004.

  1. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    i have :-
    AMD Athlon XP 2200+
    512MB of RAM
    Nvidia GForce MX440 grpahics card
    vinyl AC'97 sound card ( i think )
    VIA 4in1 chipset motherboard

    can anyone think of anything that will improve my PC.
    i play online games such as call of duty and backup PS2 games thats it really
     
  2. Nephilim

    Nephilim Moderator Staff Member

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    For playing games and backing up games, I'd put money into another 512MB RAM and a faster video card such as a Radeon 9600XT or GeForce 5700 Ultra.
     
  3. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    how much would it cost for a GeForce 5700 Ultra

    _X_X_X_X_X_[small]V4 PS2 with duo chip
    V9 PS2 with swap magic and slide tool(sisters)
    just made member!![/small]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 23, 2004
  4. Nephilim

    Nephilim Moderator Staff Member

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  5. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    is the GeForce 5700 Ultra 128MB or is it 256 i've seen two different ones both with the name GeForce 5700 Ultra but the 256 was cheaper than the 128. do you honestly think i would need such a good video card for what i use my PC for

     
  6. Nephilim

    Nephilim Moderator Staff Member

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    For playing Call of Duty I would, but that's just me. Higher FPS can be a very good thing when playing online :)

    I'd be suspect of any 256MB card that sells for less than a 128MB one. I recently learned my lesson about buying the cheapest 9800 Pro I could find, the design sucked pants and the thing was constantly overheating from an inadequate heatsink. I had to RMA the piece of crap and got a new one with the reference design heatsink which runs perfectly.
     
  7. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    i've decided to go with your advice and go for a new graphics card and more RAM,but which do you think is better the Radeon or the GeForce
     
  8. Nephilim

    Nephilim Moderator Staff Member

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    I'd say it's a tossup between the two. They perform almost identically as far as the XT vs. Ultra models go. I'm an ATI guy, but I wouldn't think twice about using the 5700 Ultra either.
     
  9. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    that helped me loads, i'll think i'll go for the GForce i've been really happy with my MX440 so the 5700 Ultra should be even better
    thx
     
  10. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    Whoa just had time to look over that listing of GFX5700s .... there are a lot more variants to this bird that I originally suspected:

    Leadtek GFX5700 Ultra, 128MB GDDR3 (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-122-192&depa=0
    Excellent card and this would be the baby I would reccomend ... not sure about where you live, but for myself, I can shop around and get that card cheaper than listed so it might be worth the effort.

    Albatron GFX5700 128MB DDR (64bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-170-049&depa=0
    If budget is your concern this is the card to choose however you may be better off grabbing a GFX5600 using 128bit-DDR which will prolly be cheaper and yield better performance.

    eVGA GFX5700 Ultra, 128MB DDR2 (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-178&depa=0
    eVGA seems to have gotten its act together since it's Pine days and this is a solid card. If I'm not mistaken, this was the original version of the "GFX5700 Ultra" that was released, featuring 128Bit DDR. Note the price difference between this one and the Leadtek above (the Leadtek is worth the minor jump since it uses the hot new GDDR3)

    XFX GFX5700LE 128MB DDR
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-056&depa=0
    This seems to be the low-end model of the GFX5700 and features the slowest clock speed of the entire GFX5700-series. Since it does not list explicitly that it is 128Bit-DDR, make sure you check that it is so and not the 64-bit DDR. I did a brief look but it did not clearly state anywhere the datawidth of the RAM.

    eVGA GFX5700 128MB DDR (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-180&depa=0
    Matching the Albratron model listed above in specs (but not price), I would reccommend you buy the Albatron instead since it is a more reputable company and may offer more OC headroom (as well as a lower price) and potentially superior cooler

    eVGA GFX5700 256MB DDR (128but)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-189&depa=0
    This seems to be the big brother of the previous card and offers twice the memory capacity although it is extremely peculiar that at maximum refresh, it lags behind its smaller brother by 15Hz.

    XFX GFX5700LE 256MB DDR (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-058&depa=0
    Again the GFX5700LE chip which seems to be the slowest of the family however this card features 256MB memory and explicitly denotes that it is 128bit DDR. An excellent price makes this card a hard one not to reccomend.

    Prolink GFX5700LE 256MB DDR (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-108-133&depa=0
    The specifications for this card say a core speed of 250Mhz so either this chip is seriously underclocked (from 400Mhz) or it is 500Mhz DDR which is quite the OC (and depending on the cooling capacity of the fan, may not be a good thing).

    Albatron GFX5700 256MB DDR(128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-170-044&depa=0
    This card features a fancy cooler that, from personal experience, allows for some decent OC activities.

    ASUS GFX5700 256MB DDR (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-121-166&depa=0
    A solid card by a solid company, this card is on the high end of the price scale mostly due to the ASUS tag it carries.... is that tage worth the extra ~$40 compared to other cards of its class? I dunno, prolly not, but it's your call.

    XFX GFX5700 Ultra 128MB DDR2 (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-050&depa=0
    The use of DDR2 memory on this sweetheart is what rockets this card to its price range. For 128MB i would go with the Leadtek (first card above) since it uses the nice and fancy GDDR3 memory.

    XFX GFX5700 256MB DDR (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-049&depa=0
    A respectable card at a respectable price (albeity higher than I would have expected).

    MSI GFX5700 128MB DDR (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-127-112&depa=0
    Like the ASUS card, you pay for the MSI moniker on this card. Whereas MSI is a good name, this card does not really offer that much extra in terms of specs (however the price jump is not especially noteable so it may be worth it if you are considering OCing the card). The fan on this card is very effective.

    Albratron GFX5700 128MB DDR (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-170-045&depa=0
    Nothing special about this card to make it worth the price tag. Nothing bad about it either -- just not something I would fork that kinda money for.

    BFG GFX5700 Ultra 128MB GDDR2 (128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-143-006&depa=0
    This is an extremely competitive card thanks to the GDDR2 memory it uses (not as fast as the GDDR3 featured in the first card but the price difference may or may not be worth it to you.

    Gainward GFX5700 256MB DDR(128bit)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-128-190&depa=0
    A decent price and name for a 256MB GFX5700 card.

    At this point I realized that there was more than one page..... so screw it with the individual reviews .... *Praetor skims* ... and now to the summary:

    Best Performance Card Period http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-122-192&depa=0
    Best Performance Card that Didnt Redefine Expensive http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-143-006&depa=0
    Best All Around Card http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-108-133&depa=0
    Cheapest Card that Didnt Offer Crap Performance http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-058&depa=0
    Cheapest Card Period http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-056&depa=0

    A card that did catch my eye was http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-133-106&depa=0 which seems to use 256bit memory -- it might be a typo (meaning for 256MB of 128bit DDR) but worth a check fir that price.
     
  11. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    OK thats now confused the hell out of me, so what i'm gonna do is tell you how much money i have then you can tell me which card to buy. i have £90 which is $164
    thx
     
  12. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    Hehe sorry for the confusion... i thought there would be like eight or so different cards to quickly review but then it turned out to be a crapload more so i gave up :p

    I would reccomend the Leadtek GFX5700 Ultra 128MB GDDR3 (ok so its $4.29 over your prescribed budget but its more than worth it). :)
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-122-192&depa=0
    _X_X_X_X_X_[small]ASUS A7N8X-X, XP2500+ OC'd to XP3200+
    Samsung 1024MB, PC2700
    480GB [3x160GB, 7200, 8MB]
    EVGA, GeForce4 Ti4600 128MB

    Rules and Policies: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2487[/small]
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2004
  13. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    thanks i'm sure i'll find the money from some where. do you think my 512MB of RAM is enough or do you think i sould get another 512
     
  14. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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  15. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    thanks for the link. is the card i'm using right now that bad
     
  16. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    1. In one word ... yes.
    2. The current generation of cards qualifies as DirectX9 compatible (9.0c to be absolutely technical)
    3. You can get away with DirectX8 cards for the time being.
    4. The GeForce4Ti and GeForce3 are DirectX8 capable cards however since the GeForce4MX doesnt feature programmable shaders and such it is only a DirectX7 card. Heres a rant on the GF4MX: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/58106 and http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/56669
    _X_X_X_X_X_[small]ASUS A7N8X-X, XP2500+ OC'd to XP3200+
    Samsung 1024MB, PC2700
    480GB [3x160GB, 7200, 8MB]
    EVGA, GeForce4 Ti4600 128MB

    Rules and Policies: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2487[/small]
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2004
  17. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    whoa i didn't know hoe crappy my card was. the person that built my PC says it would play any game that is out and i've only had the PC a year
     
  18. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    is it safe to overclock my MX 440 or should i just kick it in the bin
     
  19. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    The GF4TI might play every game but its little brother (rather, deformed distant cousin) wont play a lot. Upgrade the VC and you can then ramp the settings ti stratospheric levels :p

    You can OC the GF4MX but that wont accomplish much.
    _X_X_X_X_X_[small]ASUS A7N8X-X, XP2500+ OC'd to XP3200+
    Samsung 1024MB, PC2700
    480GB [3x160GB, 7200, 8MB]
    EVGA, GeForce4 Ti4600 128MB

    Rules and Policies: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2487[/small]
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2004
  20. conny119

    conny119 Guest

    thanks for advice i'm gonna get the 5700 Ultra it seems to be the buisness
     

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