hi ive just been eyeing up a 256mb graphics card on ebay for £64, ive got a 64 card at the moment, is it realy worth the money to up grade to 256? im presuming there will be a hell of a lot of differance. i play games quite a bit (ravenshield). have you up graded from a 64mb to 256? how much differance is there??
the amount of memory does not matter so much once you pass 128MB - it is more the speed of the memory, the speed of the graphics chip and the quality of the drivers for that card. I personally have the Leadtech Nvidia FX 5900 ultra with 256MB - it is a nice card - much faster than my GF Ti4400 128MB card - but the card makes noise when scrolling with a white background... Depends entirely on your budget - the card age of the one you have already and the type of card you are looking at (NVIDIA or Radeon based cards are good)
Video cards are unable to make use of more than 128 megs at this time but they will be able to in the future when games when become more demanding. comparisons I've seen on tomshardware.com demonstrated no significant difference between 128 and 256 meg cards. Another problem is that by the time a 256 meg card is called for the current cards with 256 will be dated. Keep an eye on reviews done at www.tomshardware.com
ok so im with you that a graphics card dosent realy need to be 256mb a 128mb card has enough memory, so when im looking at the cards i should be looking more at the speed, when i see a card that says geforce fx5200, ati radeon 9600 ect, the numbers represent the speed, and the higher the number the better? is Geforce and radeon the best ones to go for? all and any info will help me loads thanks.
actually yes and no - the number indicates the level of the card within the range - but ATI radeons numbers are higher than NVIDIAs - this does not mean a faster card just a different numbering system. best thing to do is to go to the website of the makers of the cards you are interested in and look at the specification - the speed of the card is based on main factors: Core clock frequency Memory clock frequency Actual Speed rating of the memory Drivers supplied for the card 8xAGP DirectX9 compatibility top of the range NVIDIA cards use the FX 5900 and 5950 chipsets, although they are about to release a cinema quality card as well. Radeon has like a 9800 pro card etc - but your price range may be more like the 9600 radeons or the 5600 / 5700 nvidias. all are good cards - comes down to price, what is bundled with them and features you want.
se cards in ati range no good, why is this and is there any others that should be avoided? ive been havin a look and theres so many with the same name but with slight varyations.
The ATI cards are generally better all around performers at this time, especially if you use anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering which used to really slow the Nvidia cards. that being said they both make graat cards and either would fill the needs of most people. I'm still using my ATI 9700 pro and really can't see a need to change it. My son's PC is still running a Ti4200 Nvidia and he too has no complaints. remember because a card can't make use of 256 megs now they most certainly will be able to in the near future. I wouldn't buy one now because by the time that amount of memory is needed the GPUs in the new units are going to be faster and for that I can wait.
ive been having a good look, i think im going for the ati radeon 9800 pro, a bit of a streach on the budget so i want to make sure i dont get a duffer. ive been looking on ebay but a lot of them dont come in retail seald packaging or boxed even though there advertised as new, should they be? also a lot dont come with drivers, they usualy give a link to download the drivers, is it a bad idea to get a card that you have to download the drivers?
Gruel, go to www.newegg.com they offer good prices and an excllent return policy. Just go to the main page, select computer hardware from the top menu, then go to the bottom and select graphics cards. when you find a card of interest then read the user reviews. Note they sell OEM as well as retail and they have a good selection. Oh! The 9800 pro is one damn good graphics card.
(OEM) It’s an acronym for original equipment manufacturer. It’s what is shipped to those who mass build PC and want to offer affordable hardware and software and as a result OEMs don’t come in a box and don’t offer extras such as games with graphics cards. Often there is no difference between them but on occasion there is, for instance, 9800 cards could come with the cheaper hynix memory but for best results you want one that is built using Samsung memory. Sorry you couldn’t take advantage of newegg.com they really offer peace of mind. I would be careful about buying anything on Ebay unless you’ve checked the approval ratings of the sellfer. Good Luck
Truer words were never spoken. As an aside, I just bought Far Cry and it is giving my Radeon 9800 Pro/P4 3.06/1024 MB RAM a serious run for it's money in full high detail. The most amazing graphics I've seen to date though!
Now I feel left out even though I'm not seriously gaming at this time. I'm still using the old 9700 and I've tweaked it and over- clocked it, added a modified heat sink and its time to upgrade. In a little while!
Have you read some of the benchies on the new Nvidia and ATI cards? Some of the scores for the new ATI X800 are double what the 9800XT produced. That's some serious gaming silicon
Yes, Tomshardware.com reviewed them both. The Nvida and the ATI cards seem to be more or less equal with the ATI card perhaps having a slight advantage. With ATI's history of besting the Nvidia cards with high resolution settings, anti-aliasing and anistrophic filtering turned up I would probably go for the ATI. But I am not a brand groupie so I will leave my options open.
I probably should have mentioned that I have a P22f 22 inch viewsonic monitor. As a result my screen resolution settings are at 1600 by 1200 and throw in a little anti-aliasing and anistrophic filter and my 9700 pro is being truly challenged. Praetor your system is almost identical to the one I built for my wife. The only difference is I used two sticks of cas2 corsair PC3200 and a Ti4200 card. Her hard disk was a western digital 120 gig special edition. _ _X_X_X_X_X_[small]"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930)[/small]
