forums virgin:yet more graphics card advice please

[Wigwam]

I am new to the forums, having been reading with intertest for a while. I have finally decided to take the plunge and get some advice.
I am looking to build a system in the new year [holding out as late as possible into january to allow prices to drop after xmas the latest round of new releases]
The base will be asus nforce2, athlon 2400xp [unless the 2600 has a miracle drop in price], 512MB pc3200RAM, 80+gig hdd.
I am not an avid gamer but would like to have a card in keeping with the rest of the spec that can play the latest games when the mood takes me. I am also aiming to work to a budget and reckon i should allocate £100-150(max) for the graphics card. I would like the best "bang for buck" card.

Looking around, i reckon i can dismiss the radeon 7000s. The radeon 8500 still appears to be a strong contender despite its age (am i right in assuming there isnt that much performance difference between the "LE" and "full" card as long as i got a 128mb card?). However, i have no idea how it would stack up against:
radeon 9000pro
radeon 9500 [ideally pro, not it seems that in the uk dell have bought all the pro cards and i can only find non-pros on the market; your opinion on the merits of each type is appreciated]
nvidia geoforce 4 series eg 4200ti

no matter how much i'd like one, i cant afford the ati9700. Nor do i have any idea what nvidia's offerrings onto the budget/mid-range market will be with the FX-series.

Your sage cousel is greatly appreciated

 

[chizow]

Hehe welcome to the forums.

Don't get the 9500 standard. Its a badly neutered version of the pro. Sounds like its hard to find a pro in the UK, but thats what I'd shoot for on your budget and needs. If not, I'd look to a GF4 Ti4200, as it outperforms the 8500, 9000pro, and 9500 standard considerably.

Chiz

 

[lifeguard1999]

Personally, either the 4200 or the 9500 Pro is a great card to get. Bang-for-the-buck (or for the pound in your case), the 4200 is probably the better card. The 9500 Pro is faster and is DirectX 9 capable, but is it really worth the extra $50 now when DirectX 9 games are a year away? That is a question only you can answer.

The 9000 Pro is essentially the same speed as the 8500, which is now called the 9100. Sometimes the 8500/9100 wins over the 9000 Pro, sometimes the 9000 Pro wins.

Radeon 9500 Pro 128 MB - $US 200
Geforce Ti 4200 128 MB - $US 150
Radeon 9000 128 MB - $US 100
Radeon 8500/9100 128 MB - $US 90

I agree with chizow, skip the 9500 standard.

If you are waiting until as late as January, well, the GeForce FX will be out then. That will put downward pressure on the high-end (9700/Ti4600) series of cards. I would not expect downward pressure on the Ti4200/9500 Pro until the mainstream GeForce FX Lite (or whatever they call it) comes out at a $200 price point. That may not happen until a month or two later, say March or April.

Side thought: Make sure you get a 7200 RPM, 8MB cache, 80 GB drive.

 

[Budmantom]

Souns like you will have a nice rig, I have to agree with everyone else the Ti4200 sounds like it will fit the bill for you they start out at about $100 for the 64mb version. If you can wait till the end of january you might be able to pick up a 4400 for about $150.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Things should be very diff come Feb, prob best to see what's about then. GF4TI4200 (£100-120) or Rad9500PRO (£200?) are what you should consider for that spec, certainly nothing lower.

 

[Dacalo]

if you want superior image quality and play games at higher resolutions, go with radeon 9500 pro.

<-- former owner of gf3 ti200, currently owns r9700

 

[blade2]

As AnAndAustin said, the prices for graphics cards should of changed a fair bit if not a little. so wait till then - but you defo want to get 128Mb without a doubt - good for the long term

 

[Wigwam]

many thanks all for both the advice and the welcome!
I see your point and think i am destined for the ti4000s, even though i would prefer the 9500pro [have always been a bit of a sucker for the "underdog come good" hence would like to get a radeon rather than nvidia for this machine]

i note the advice about the 7200rpm, 8mbcache 80gig hdd; i concur. infact i am scouring about for news on the seagate baracuda SATA drive in the hope it will be competitive against the Western Digital ito speed and much quieter! (quite apart from wanting the tweaks of a new technology )

i look forward to being a more active member of the forums in future; for the time being i'll enjoy taking knowledge!

 

[Lonyo]

You could get a Radeon 9500 PRO for £180 if you managed to up your budget a bit. It's a retail card as well. For £200 you could get a 9700 (NON-pro). I know these exceed your budget, but the 9700 especially would be better as a future proof purchase, because it's significantly better than the Geforce4 range (including the Ti 4600)
Other than that, if you can't stretch your budget, there are Ti 4200 128MB cards to be had for about £130 at the cheapest. You can get the 8500LE 128MB card for £90, which is probably better in terms of price/performance

On another note, are you planning on getting a single 512MB stick of RAM, or 2x256? I would get the 2x256, because the nforce2 had dual channel DDR, so if you put your two sticks in then you will get a slight performance increase over a single 512 stick. And are you sure that you will need PC3200? If you went for something like PC2700 then the money you saved could go towards the 9500PRO which would probably give you more of a performance increase than the ram speed. Your processor will run at either 266 or 333 fsb (I can't remember which), which is PC2100 or PC2700 speed, and unless you're planning to overclock, that means the PC3200 shouldn't really be necessary.

Oh, and the Radeon 8500 is being re-released as the Radeon 9100, because it is actually faster than the Radeon 9000/9000PRO cards.

Most of the best prices for components can be found at komplett but if you can't see what you're looking for there, or want to compare prices, I find ebuyer is also quite a good site. I bought all the stuff for my computer from thse sites, and can recommend them highly.

Hope that helps you.

 

[AnAndAustin]

I'd never ever touch Ebuyer again, they have the longest list of dis-satisfied customers I've ever known of AND their support is awful. Komplett are good however as are www.dabs.com (excellent service). Other good UK sources are www.crucial.com/uk (memory), www.savastore.com (watford Elec), www.aria.co.uk, www.cclcomputers.co.uk, www.scan.co.uk, www.insight.com/uk and www1.novatech.co.uk. I regularly use Dabs and Komplett but have had good experiences with Watford Savastore but absolutely awful experiences with Ebuyer on more than one occasion (curse the tempting prices). As for the price of cards:

DABS:

GF3TI200-64MB £66
4200-64MB £102
4200-8X-128MB £133
4600-128MB £197

Rad9000PRO-64MB £75
Rad9000PRO-128MB £88
Rad8500-128MB £132
Rad9700-128MB £207
Rad9700PRO-128MB £273

At these prices the GF3 is quite a card for only £66 and the 2 Rad9000PRO cards are pretty good too if you want the non-gaming benefits of better image quality, TVout, DVD playback etc. The 4200-64MB is £102 and that's great value and it's an extra £31 for the 4200-8X-128MB which should have the same high clocks and fast rated RAM. Above this things get expensive and the Rad8500 as always outside the US & Canada is VERY inflated in price. Obviously check the other sources for pricing info too.

 

[Lonyo]

I got a case, mobo, dvd, cd-rw, hdd from ebuyer and it was all delivered fine, only problem I had was with a dimm slot on the mobo, but since I could only use 3 out of the 4 without registered ram, I wasn't bothered. Doesn't seem like many places offer 9500 PRO then, but if I could I would snap up one from komplett at only £180, shame I don't have the money

What is the difference between 8500 full and 8500 LE? I'm guessing it's something bug, since there is about £40 difference in price. Would the GF3 Ti 200 be similar to 128MB Radeon 8500LE?

 

[Wigwam]

many thanks AnAnd Austin and Lonyo. As it happens i am a mancunian and live literally round the corner from Aria, not too far from Microdirect. I have had some expereince with Dabs and know of Crucial and Scan but the other sites are useful to know of especially from people with experience using them.

Yep, now you see my dilemma. I could stretch my budget - in truth it is more of a principle thing that if i start doing it for one thing then where do i stop. I guess if i dont then life is easy and i jump for a rad 9100 or a gf4200ti. If i do then it is a question of do i leap to the 9500pro of make the bigger leap for more future proofing [which you guessed rightly is a factor] of the 9700....

i was hoping to get the fastest peri-£100 athlon on the basis that in time barton will be out and i'll save some money to upgrade to that.
As for the ram - yep you also hit a quandry. Ideally i would like 2x512 sticks for the dual-ddr benefits but prices are currently prohibitive. I guess then i will have to get 2x256 for the speed benefit. However i dont then know what effects adding a 3rd 512 stick down the line will have - will i lose the twinbank benefits with 3 slots active? And why pc3200? Just that is it newer, i assumed with lower cas latency and hence faster, nothing more - until barton with its 200mhz fsb

you are gving me great food for thought. i have been wanting to put this machine together for a while and so want to get it right - this all helps!

 

[AnAndAustin]

I had 1 great delivery with Ebuyer and the prices were great and everything worked, other experiences weren't so pleasant and there was a LOT of problems simply signing up. The online ordering system is awful esp the stock count, the mathematics they employ are inaccurate and I've heard far too many horror stories from too many trusted sources and this all coupled with my own experience means I'd never consider Ebuyer no matter if their prices were 10 times cheaper than the rest. I don't warn people away lightly and I'm sure there are many satisfied Ebuyer customers but my advice is to use one of the other sites I listed and I can certainly vouch for Dabs, Komplett and Watford Savastore.

The Rad8500LE is simply clocked lower and the perf diff is about 10%, other than the clock speed they are identical. Clocks should be 8500=275/275 8500LE=250/250 however the Rad8500 series of cards have always had a HUGE variance in clock speeds and even some of the functionality like dual RAMDACs for dual display were quietly omitted. So you could find an 8500=230/200 or 275/275 both sold under the same name, make 100% certain of the clock speeds (230/230 is okay but 250/250 is the least you really want) and if you want dual display make 100% sure it has dual RAMDACs even if it has the ports. Another thing to note is that the 128MB versions of the 8500 series are faster meaning a Rad8500LE-128MB is a better idea than a Rad8500-64MB. The GF4TI4200 show the same speed boost from 128MB even when a game doesn't use more than 64MB BUT 4200-128MB use different clock speeds to the 4200-64MB and 4200-8X-128MB which make the 4200-64MB and 4200-128MB equally good. The GF3 cards don't show the same boost so the 128MB version is only worth it for 'future proofing', a boost in the few games liking more than 64MB and for ease of selling on at a later date.

The GF3TI200 is a fair bit slower than the Rad8500LE while the GF3TI500 tends to be a tad faster than the Rad8500LE. HOWEVER much like the GF4TI4200 the GF3TI200 is intentionally underclocked and nearly all have a LOT of extra clock speed in them, this meant the TI200 would usually beat the Rad8500LE once o/c'ed, of course the 8500LE o/c's too but not as much. But there's more, the GF3 cards were designed with 3D in mind and outside of gaming the GF3 cards fall down in several places when you compare them to the Rad8500 series ... image quality, TVout, DVD playback and dual display are all key areas where the Radeons are MUCH better than any GF3, and that's one reason for the GF4 series which addressed all of these issues and added a speed boost too!

Of course there is now the Rad9000 series which is intended to do battle with the GF4MX series, little more than suped up GF2 technology and VERY much inferior to the GF3 when it comes to gaming. As such the Rad9000 series is a LOT better than the GF4MX cards but still worse than the Rad8500 series which is deemed to be renamed Rad9100. The Rad9000PRO is significantly faster than the Rad9000, both are still good cards but a GF3TI200 is faster (though they still have their downsides). Hope that helps to clear up the confusing array of gfx cards out there a little bit.

You don't need PC3200 with any AthlonXP. For all AthlonXP running with 133/266FSB PC2100 is more than sufficient although given the price diff it makes sense to plump for PC2700 not only for better future-proofing but to allow 266+333 (FSB+RAM) operation or 266+266 operation with lightning RAM timings. Obviously for 333FSB usage you need PC2700, and that goes for o/c'ing a 266FSB AthlonXP for which the XP2400+ is VERY nice for (as soon as prices decrease). I'd say save your cash unless you get PC3200 at a bargain price! Dual DDR on nForce2 doesn't give a huge boost and it is of most benefit if you use the onboard GF4MX gfx, there is a gain but you won't miss it if you use 1 stick and wait for DDR prices to drop (and your pockets to refill). You could add 2x256MB now leaving 1 empty slot for future expansion and there should be no problem at all adding another 512MB stick as the DIMMs don't have to match at all.

See how the prices are and what's new at the time you're looking to buy, even the end of January could make things look very different! Until then XP2400+, 512MB PC2700 - 3200 and GF4TI - Rad9700 seem like fine things to have in mind.

 

[jarsoffart]

Shouldn't he just get the 333 MHz FSB Athlon XP 2600+ instead of staying with the older 266 MHz FSB 2400+? I would think that's a worthy upgrade. If he's going to stay with a 266 MHz FSB, he might as well get the cheaper ones and then upgrade later on to the 333 MHz FSB CPU's.

 

[blade2]

i can say that Novatech are good, quick delivery and their prices are pretty good: there is a non_Pro version of the 9500 for <£150 there somewhere, but apparently non 9500 Pro's are pants

EDIT: jarsoffart has made a valid point, get a cheaper XP in my view, say a 2000+ which are good for price and then upgrade later for that additional mega boost upgrade

 

[AnAndAustin]

The std 9500 are still decent cards, it's just annoying how castrated they are. You essentially get raw perf just below a stock GF4TI4200 (so Rad8500 / GF3TI500) but of course with full AA and AF you should easily topple a GF4TI4200 and also have slightly better image quality, TVout, DVD playback and of course full DX9 support. The 9500PRO are of course much better yielding raw perf of a GF4TI4400 and beating a 4600 with full AA & AF. Both nice cards but 150-200 is still a lot of cash!

The advantage of the XP2400+ is cooler running, more easily unlocked, hugely better o/c'ing and all those people with PC2100 needn't upgrade it PLUS the XP rating changes with XP2400+ making it even faster than it sounds when compared to the slower XP's. Another point is that many mobos have probs with 333FSB which also makes the XP2400+ attractive too, it's the cheapest way to T.bred-B technology and it will get a lot cheaper of the coming weeks.

 

[Wigwam]

Thanks all, and in particular AnAndTech. I take your point about the RAM; my intended aim was again future proofing against the Barton/333-400mhz fsb chips so i figure the more fsb-scalable i can get the better. but yes price is prohobitive and i think your point is a good one. Thanks also for the comments about the dual-ddr; nice to separate hype from fact.
As for the slower speed xps: from my perspective the drop in price from 2400 to 2000 doesnt compensate for the loss of performance [or to put in another way: i can afford the 2400 on my budget as i had allowed about £100 for the chip, and i dont see what useful use i could put the saved £20-30 into my machine elsewhere if i got a slower chip as considerations about different ram and gfx cards would cost more]. as i said yes i agree the 2600 would be nicer both speed but more importantly fsb-wise but price is too steep at present and it will be interesting to see how much it falls [not far enough i fear ]
raw speed aside, i am also noting the repeated comments about better features of radeon cards and i think this is likely the way to go...again allowing for price fluctuations.
Last question on this point: if the 9500pro remains out of my price range for whatever reason what would you get: rad 9100[ie full 8500] 128mb or GF 4200/4400ti? [again i assume these are both better buys than a rad 9000pro?]

sheesh...at least mobo/hdd/drives etc areent giving me so much headache or else i'd forget it and go buy an abacus

 

[AnAndAustin]

The GF4TI4200 is a better choice than the Rad8500 cards, the GF4TI are much improved over the GF3 cards both in and outside of gaming. 4200 esp so in the UK where the 8500 tend to be more expensive. The GF4TI cards also scale better, ie they gain more perf with every mhz of CPU power, the Rad8500-9000 don't gain anywhere near as much. If you can't afford a Rad9500PRO then go for the GF4TI4200 which is half the price. Rad8500 are good, but if prices are close the 4200 is certainly better esp on faster CPUs.