cheapest video card that will run quake & unreal?

[natehop]

I'm trying to upgrade our video at work and have a shoe string budget; however, we all want to play unreal tournament and quake 3 on our network. Looking for a decent but inexpensive video card to put in our machines. Any suggestions?

 

[P.O.W.]

voodoo3 3000 now have a $30 rebate making them around $70. But just for quake or unreal and regular tnt2, or even the cheaper stealth 540 something or other would be adequate. I think the stealths are under $50.

 

[FaultCode]

I play Q3A at work on a V550. With everything turned off my FPS never seems to drop below 30.

 

[koeizen]

GeForce2 MX= decent performance + great visuals + 32mb SDR for $119

trust me you'll love 32bit color and S3TC for Quake3 and UT.

 

[(Chanse)]

If it comes out as soon as supposed ot , and at the offered price, the MX would be the way to go. But a TNT2 (ultra or not) or a V3 . Either will do the job. I would avoid a Stealth 540, since its also for work, i would try to get a card without too many driver issues

 

[Eug]

Price range?

If ultra cheap, 3dfx Velocity - which is a stripped down Voodoo 3 2000 in disguise. Runs the same speed with a couple of tweaks. Or I think that's a buy.com deal for the cheap V3 3000 that PrisonerOfWife mentioned, but I'm not 100% sure.

Personally I'd go for the killer V3 3000 deal.

 

[GhorZonia]

Yup, that Voodoo3 3000 for $70 - deal is a must! Great performance for only $70.

 

[novice]

I have to second the Voodoo 3 3000, just picked up the retail PCI version from Bestbuy for 99.95 USD and sending for the $30 rebate tomorrow. Was sorely tempted by the GF2MX, but got impatient and a little skeptical about the price once it does become available. The only two retail versions I have seen actual prices on were the Hercules/guillemot at $149.95 for single view and $199.95 for Twin View; and the Asus version for $169.95 I assume single view. A little higher than the $119 that Anand was guessing. It may come down to that after a few months, but some of us need to frag NOW! (And we are cheap...)
Chuck
PS the other nice thing about the V3 is its' rock solid compatibility and decent drivers.

 

[megatexel]

Sorry this is OT but Natehop are you from GR?

 

[ssjgokou1]

Hey novice, your the guy who was on my thread intitled "v3 3k for $69.99 at BB" you said that it was a mistake, and that it was, is that mistake still there? Did they change it this week? Sunday was today, and I was thinking that they changed the price around back to $129.99.

You said that someone picked up the last two boxes when you went, did they get more? Mine are all open items here.

Novice, what kind of card did you have before?

I think that buy.com is better, it has a v3 2k, which can be easily oc'd to 166, for $82.99-30=52.99, almost $20 less than v3 3k, maybe I should buy a few.

 

[ssjgokou1]

damn, chuck, I knew I knew you from somewhere (3dfxgamers) You were just braggin about how you got your v3 from VA and from BB. I hope they fixed the mistake, I wouldn't want to many people getting away with v3 3k for $69. So you Va dollars didn't come yet? Why would you want two v3's??? Leave one for gamin', one for netin', I wouldn't really buy two or more for personal use.

 

[ssjgokou1]

chuck, your the guy who bought an open item IBM aptiva? I remember you from a few mon. back.

 

[natehop]

megatexel,

I'm a newbie here so forgive my ignorance, but what is GR?

 

[natehop]

Thanks everybody. Going with the Voodoo3 3000. By the way how well does it overclock?

 

[ssjgokou1]

natehop, where will you buy it from?

 

[Pete]

Why not go for a V3 2K PCI, and save a few bucks. That's what I'm planning on doing. I think most of them easily OC to 3K levels and beyond.

Check http://techdeals.net/system for instructions on a $42 V3 2K PCI after rebate.

 

[novice]

reply to ssjgokou1
To reply to your queries, Yes I did score one of the VA Voodoo 3 3000's for $129.95 incl shipping, and am still waiting patiently(sort of) for my $50 rebate. I called them and they said I should be receiving it within a week to 10 days. We'll see..,
I also grabbed one of the $99.95 Voodoo 3 3000 PCI cards from Bestbuy to install in one of my other systems. I wound up replacing the Banshee I had in my P-233MMX. I still may move it to the celeron 366@411 with the Soyo 810 motherboard, but I am not sure how to disable the onboard video. It runs pretty good with the Voodoo 2 supplementing the Intel 2D, so I may just leave it alone. If the Geforce 2 MX cards really do wind up going for $119, I may still have to put one in my PIII 600E, and migrate its' V3 3000 PCI to the Celeron or maybe the old IBM Aptiva (yes that was an open box from OfficeMax, K6-2 333, for $399 about 18 months ago, a pretty good deal at the time) It is almost a requirement for me to maintain 4 decent systems, since my wife and I have 3 boys aged 8, 11 and 14. At least they are all "gameable", although only 3 of them are networked with the DSL connection. Chuck

 

[megatexel]

hehe, natehop, I guess you aren't who I thought you were. I have a friend that just moved to grand rapids, MI (GR) and i thought you were him. His name is Nate and last name is kinda lik hop...

thx anyway

 

[ssjgokou1]

novice, I wish my dad was into pc gaming, is that your account on 3dfxgamers? You post more there than here.

Chuck, one more thing, what kind of ram is on your v3 3k? Is it Samsung? If you happen to take a look at it, tell me, ok?

Make sure that all of them say the same thing, because many of mine (3@149.99 each ) that I got, all have a generic module for the third chip, perhaps thats because I got them all at the same store, at almost the same time, so if the machines were loaded with one million generic rams, then a million cards would have the same layout that I have, but I doubt that yours are like mine, so tell me what you got.

Did you do the OD pricematching thing that everyone does now? Or did you just buy it straight up.

You do have an agp slot on one of your pc's right? Why didn't you get the agp? Oh yeah, they still cost $129.99 OD dropped the price on their v3's because everyone was bothering them about the BB pricematch.

 

[novice]

in reply to ssjgokou1,
I checked both my Voodoo 3 3000 PCI cards and the new one from Bestbuy does indeed have Samsung ram, while the older one from Valueamerica has SEC Korea ram, not sure what kind that is. Anyone else know?
Chuck