Advice for buying new vid card

[SomeOneElse]

Hi,
I"d like some advice to help me in my purchase of a vid card.. my System specs are
Duron 800Mhz
256MG PC-133Ram
MSI K7T Pro2-A(MS-6330)
Fujitsu 7200RPM 20GB Hard drive ATA100
Geforce 2 MX400 (32MB)

Mostly want to play games at 1024 X 768 with full details....
Games like
UT2003
Q3 Engine Games(Jedi Outcast)
GTA3
Homeworld
WarcraftIII

I was looking at the Radeon 9000 by powercolor .. 64MB I think.. Sells for 129.99 Canadian at the Local Costco...

Like to know what you Guys and Gals think!

Thanks!

 

[jamesbond007]

Well, you probably missed out on a helluva deal. Best Buy was offering GeForce4 Ti4200s 128MB this morning for $89.99 after MIR.

Any GF4 Ti4200+ or a Radeon 8500/9700 would suit you quite well. Though, the Ti4200 might be the *prime* selection of choice for those games. (Price/Performance ratio)

Good luck and happy gaming!

 

[sc0tty8]

Originally posted by: SomeOneElse
Hi,

Mostly want to play games at 1024 X 768 with full details....
Games like
UT2003
Q3 Engine Games(Jedi Outcast)
GTA3
Homeworld
WarcraftIII

If you want to play games at 1024x768 at FULL detaisl, it is going to require a lot more then a video card. I would double the ram for sure, and get a faster proc. If you went from 256 to 512, and 800mhz duron to axp 1600+ you would notice a major differance. After upgrading the proc/ram, then upgrade the video card to something like what you suggested, or maybe even a GF4 card. I have a ti4200 and I can playu all my games in that rez, and then some

 

[SomeOneElse]

Thanks!

BTW, Does Best Buy Ship to Canada ?.. Trying to find a Ti4200 at a good price over here might one hell of an adventure... Won't the 800Mhz processor not be enough for the Ti4200 ? I will call around to ask for prices on the Ti4200...

 

[SomeOneElse]

Just called a couple of shops and the cheapest ti4200 was 270$can. Approx... 170USD...

Need only to be pushing 35-40fps... I only want to be fluid...(Reply to sc0tty8)

 

[tapir]

If you're going to have to pay that much for a Ti 4200, you might want to look into getting a 9500 PRO because they will run $200 and beat a Ti 4400. As far as the rest of your specs, you could throw in a Duron 1300 (equal to 1.33 T-Bird) for $40, but I don't think adding more RAM would have a big effect, rather you should be running DDR. It might be more cost-effective for you to add more processing power.. say an XP2000+ or so, and leave the RAM alone entirely rather than buying a cheap motherboard/ram/CPU combo.

But definitely look into a Ti 4200 or 9500 PRO vid card, might be best to buy that first and then see where you're at in terms of frames. Let me warn you that FULL (all set to HIGHEST) details in Unreal 2003 will require a relatively large of system power, I can't run it on my 8500 retail, 1700+ and DDR rig.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

huh, another Canadian

Never mind that people don't read the posts carefully and don't realize that giving you tips on U.S. deals won't help much...

Yes, I saw the 9000 at Costco, too. I also saw a LOT of 8500 LE cards. Have you tried www.ncix.com, or even oemexpress.com ? There are a few sites - can't remember which - giving you latest prices from a large number of vendors.

Where are you at? Do you have access to one of the free computing magazines, like Monitor?

Personally, I'd go with a GF4-4200 myself, but that's just my personal preference (past evil experinces with ATI)

 

[SomeOneElse]

As far as my processor. I can only go up to 1.2Ghz Duron or 1.3Ghz Thunderbird (100Mhz FSB).. The motherboard does not support it. and also It is not imperative to have Highest detail in UT2003.... High would suit me fine.

As for ncix or eomexpress.com

Ncix has the better prices of the two...
They have the 8500 LE 64MB for 123$ canadian plus shipping and taxes. I know the radeon 9000 supports directx 9.0 and the 8500 supports version 8.0.. But is the 8500 better performing in these games than the 9000.

AnitaPeterson, I am in Moncton,New-Brunswick... Don't know about that magazine ....

P.S. Thanks for the reponses guys... Great community! Alos I am not stuck with ATI. It is the better price alternative right now.. If I could get a Geforce 3 Ti200 for 130$ canadian.. That would suit me fine!

 

[CubicZirconia]

I don't know if you ever tried playing gta3 on your system, but it just isnt' going to happen (even with a ti4200). The game is notorious for having high system requirements; a 800 mhz duron just isn't going to cut it. Even a 1.2 duron is questionable.

 

[SomeOneElse]

I tried GTA3 on my system. it works ok.. it is not as fluid as ut2003 in 800X600 or Serious Sam... I hope the next GTA3 has a better optimized graphics engine!

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: SomeOneElse
I know the radeon 9000 supports directx 9.0 and the 8500 supports version 8.0.. But is the 8500 better performing in these games than the 9000.

Both the ATi Radeon 8500 and 9000 are DirectX 8.1 compliant graphics cards, neither will support DX9 features in hardware. If you want full DX9 compliancy you'll have to look towards the Radeon 9500/9700 series as they are the only graphics cards from any manufacturer that are presently fully DX9.0 compliant.

Both the 8500/9000 will run DX9 games, but if your looking for hardware support for DX9 features then neither can offer that.

The R9000 is based on the R8500 (R200) core, the only differences are a slightly more efficient vertex shader, and FullStream support. The R9000 also has half the texel rendering pipelines of the R8500.
In most cases the R9000 Pro is slightly slower then the R8500LE, the regular R9000 is about 15-20% slower then the R9000 Pro.

You might need a little more processor power if your looking at 1024x768x32bpp UT2003 at High Details though.

 

[SomeOneElse]

Thanks for all the Help.. I think I am going to go with the Radeon 9000 and try it out.. I am going to find out if there is some way of returning the card if not 100% satisfied.