Choosing a video card

[XinMeng]

I'm looking for a good AGP video card for my system, since people said the Diamond wasn't any good, in my other topic. I wanted to spend around $50-100, maybe a little more if it's really good... I was looking at the ATI Radeon, but the SDR doesn't seem, to be sold anywhere (it didn't turn up any matches on e-Bay) and the DDR is a bit too expensive And the GeForce that everyone seems to be popular, but it keeps talking about a memory problem? It's so confusing...

 

[PlunX]

For $50 to $100, you should get a Voodoo3 3000. Radeon 32MB DDRs are -really- good.. They're usually around $149 after a $50 rebate.. Excellent cards, too. Much better than most GeForces (except the GeForce2 GTS). But, if you really can't afford that, go with a Voodoo3 3000.

 

[jpprod]

For $100 the best card you can get is undoubtably a GeForce2 MX based one. ATi Radeon SDR is a better gaming card than MX - namely it's faster in high resolutions and has more features - but it's more expensive and especially the Win2K drivers aren't as good as Nvidia's. In my opinion there's no reason to go for a Voodoo3-class, feature-wise two generations old card, when you can get a modern one for nearly the same price.

I'm not sure what memory problems are you talking about though. Perhaps the fact that GeForce2 MX chip's performance is limted by it's memory interface? If that's it, worry not - this is also the case for high-end accelerators (GF2 GTS, Radeon), although to a lesser degree because these use DDR memory. Despite memory limiting GF2 MX's performance, it's one fast card to get for $100.