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Graphics card on a severe budget

G

GamerAT240

Member
The system I'm building is on a really small budget, to the extent that this is it thus far :

AMD Sempron 2400+
512 PC2700 RAM
ASRock K7VT4A+

As you may notice, its a majorly small budget. Now these are the 4 cards I can get, could anyone recommend which one. To my knowledge the 9600XT would be the best. Its basically a budget system to play some games, ideally the oldish ones at maxish (original HalfLife for example, the original Shogun Total War) and the new ones at 800x600 minimum (the new Shogun Rome game, maybe HalfLife2 with settings turned way down at 800x600).

128MB ATI RADEON 9600XT DDR DVI+TV-OUT SAPPHIRE
128MB ATI RADEON 9800SE DDR DVI+TV-OUT SAPPHIRE
256MB ATI RADEON 9550 DDR DVI+TV-OUT SAPPHIRE
256MB FX5500 8X AGP TV-OUT DVI GALAXY

Maybe I'm bein' optimistic, but this is literally all the funds available, and I need to order it within 12 hours :-(

So if anyone could help out, it'd be great.
Thanks.
 
Look for a 9700pro. It's easily the best card because it has a full 8 pipes available as well as a 256-bit memory path (up from 4 pipelines and 128-bit as the rest of them have). It's essentially a little less performance-wise than a 9800pro.

I think you may be able to eBay them for about $130-$140 and it'll easily blow all of those cards out of the water.

Edit: By eBay, I mean moreso the Buy It Now option.
 
Thanks for the info, yea the 9700Pro is a wee beast, used to have one. Problem is I'm buying all the kit from the one company to save on shipping (costly to me) and the 9700Pro has 3-5 days wait from order to dispatch, and this system NEEDS built before Christmas, as its a present.

I'll ask and see, but you know what its like, if it ain't in stock then 3-5 days can turn into 3-5 weeks easily.

And this company has all the other components in stock at a good price, whereas the others don't. Outa these cards though, the 9600XT ?
 
mariok, yea probably not, the 256MB cards just happen to have more memory. Its just the nVidia FX5500 and the Radeon9550 happen to have more RAM. But from what I know they are slower anyways, just thought I'd check.
 
A few problems,

-I'm from the UK, doubt there are many here from the UK selling a Radeon9700

-The company I'm gettin' it from go by Amtrak, therefore will get it in ~3days. Normal post at Christmas is a disaster (at least over here).

-There can be no eating of the budget ;-) Its that tight, there is no leeway at all, not even £10 (~$20).
The reason for this is that I am already over budget (it was even smaller believe it or not), now at the point of "straw that broke the camel's back".
 
if you can't go used 9700 like the others have said, 9600XT wins it, IMHO. The 9800SE's are corner-cutting cards in many cases; I'd rather have the high-end of one line of GPU's than the low-end of another in this particular case. Check the core/ram clock speeds on both though, just to make sure.
 
I thought the 9800SE would be better than the 9600XT, but after reading this review, it appears the 9600XT is a slightly better card.
Granted, if you want to mod the 9800SE to a 9800 Pro, then it would be the better bet.
But at stock, the 9600XT seems to be a better deal.
 
Thanks guys, from every benchmark I've seen the 9600XT beats the 9800SE in every game.

The sickener is that the company I'm buying from SAY they will have the 9700Pro possibly in on Friday, otherwise on Monday. Problem is, how often I have heard that, only to ring on Monday to hear another few days. Even if it was in by Monday, major risk as to whether it'd be here by Christmas eve ( to give me time to build it ). Its a pain though cause the 9700Pro is a good ~35-40% faster :-(

From the benchmarks I've seen it should run the likes of Doom3 fine @ 800x600, with the settings down a bit. The benchmarks say it should do it at 1024x768 but they tested on a P4-3.2Ghz, this will have a 2400+ Sempron.

The current system has no AGP slot so thats why I'm building him a new one, I thought PCI would be a disaster. I might just tell him he could sell the 9600XT for maybe £30 on eBay in a bit, and spend £50 on a 9800Pro in a couple'a months (assuming they'll keep dropping in price ;-) )

The main game that needs to run, which is imperitive ( the whole main purpose of this system ) is to run Rome : Total War. Can you guys tell me if this system should be ok (at say 1024x768) ?
Again it will be

Win98
400W PSU
AMD Sempron 2400+
512 DDR PC2700 (333Mhz) RAM
AS Rock Mobo (onboard sound)
ATI Radeon 9600XT

Recycling:
DVD-ROM
Floppy
Case
10GB HardDrive (*cringe*) ->it'll fit Win98 and Rome:TotalWar, not much else :-D


Anyways, cheers guys
 
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