Hands down what is the best?

[gearfish]

Hand down what is the best video card on the market for the money. Im looking to upgrade from a Nvidia 2 Ultra 64mb.

thanks

 

[DAPUNISHER]

9800pro for $200 or so.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
9800pro for $200 or so.

Punisher, can you be serious for once in your life? Eveyrone knows the 3dfx Voodoo 5 is best.

Well, in this flamewar waiting to happen, I say the question is too broad as stated:
1. You don't say whether you use Linux.
2. You don't say whether you game
3. You don't say whether you have special work or multimedia needs
4. You don't say what you want to spend

Besides that stuff, it's a bad time to buy a card. New model out within 2 months will change the picture drastically, and force down prices on current stuff.
If you've lived with the Ultra this long, live with it a little more. The new $200 card from nVidia or ATI might make a 9800Pro look slow, so it's best to wait.

 

[Matthias99]

The 'best' card would be a RADEON 9800XT or NVIDIA 5950Ultra. If you're willing to toss around that kind of cash, though, wait a few weeks for NVIDIA and (hopefully also ATI) to announce their new cards and see what kind of numbers they put out.

If you're on more of a budget, I recommend a 9800Pro (~$200) as well. If you want to stick with NVIDIA, a GeForceFX 5900/5900SE/5900XT would be a decent choice as well.

Edit:

Rollo said:

The new $200 card from nVidia or ATI might make a 9800Pro look slow, so it's best to wait.

$200? For a card that's 'twice as fast' as the 5950Ultra (if NVIDIA's press can be believed)? Yah right. Maybe in six months there will be a midrange version of the NV40 for $200, but I fully expect them to debut it at a MSRP no lower than $399.

 

[gearfish]

GAMER and watching Divx movies

WinXP OS

 

[Corporate Thug]

9800 XT

 

[nRollo]

$200? For a card that's 'twice as fast' as the 5950Ultra (if NVIDIA's press can be believed)? Yah right. Maybe in six months there will be a midrange version of the NV40 for $200, but I fully expect them to debut it at a MSRP no lower than $399.

It probably is wishful thinking, but what if you could get the nV40 SE version for $300 and it's still even 25% faster than a 9800Pro? (e.g. the 9800 Pro does 60fps at Far Cry at some resolution, and the nV40 SE does 75, with similar IQ? Wouldn't that be worth another $100?

I can tell you there's a whole lot of guys who paid higher premiums for far less performance difference on 9800XTs and 5950s.

 

[biostud]

9800pro, the nv40 will be expensive, very expensive I think.

 

[Pete]

$210 9800P is your best bet if you insist on buying now. If you can wait a month or two, you should be able to buy a next-gen card from ATi or nVidia that will be about twice as fast ... for about twice as much money.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: gearfish
Hand down what is the best video card on the market for the money. Im looking to upgrade from a Nvidia 2 Ultra 64mb.

thanks

how bout using the search feature to read the hundreds of posts dicussing this question? here's just the first page returned by using the search feature:

Hands down what is the best? 8 Video gearfish 04/05/2004 6:28 PM
by Pete
Best Bang for Buck Viedo Card 13 Video newParadime 04/05/2004 6:27 PM
by Pete
Nvidia, please make drivers that don't suck. 74 Video CorporateRecreation 03/30/2004 1:04 AM
by virtualgames0
Best Card for Maya 11 Video ntsf 03/27/2004 10:12 PM
by Czar
Good Graphics Card for $60 - $70 price range 64 Video irenealan 03/27/2004 5:35 AM
by vshah
Nvidia Geforce FX 5950 VS ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Whats better?? 146 Video videoclone 03/27/2004 2:49 AM
by Acanthus
Good Graphics Card Deal?! 9 Video irenealan 03/23/2004 2:59 AM
by caz67
Best card and monitor for 2d? 9 Video LanceM 03/17/2004 3:19 PM
by batmanuel
Which is faster? 8500, 9000, 9100, or 9200? 24 Video Scrooge2 03/07/2004 8:11 PM
by modedepe
Just bought FX 5900XT - confused! 83 Video MidnightMick 03/07/2004 1:40 PM
by SilverBack
Best Card for Unreal Tournament 2004? 32 Video MBony 03/07/2004 1:11 PM
by Pete
Chaintech FX 5900? 9 Video staereo 03/06/2004 6:01 PM
by howdyduty
more future proof nvidia 5900 ultra or ati 9800 pro? 198 Video cindy22 03/06/2004 5:56 PM
by CaiNaM
Huang Primes NV40 Hype Machine 74 Video klah 03/06/2004 12:54 PM
by Rollo
Recent reviews of some of newer Video cards ??? (where ??) 3 Video CorCentral 03/05/2004 12:28 PM
by Todd33
just bought 5900xt , but it's still slow in most newer games with aa and af and fan noise is drivig me crazy! 61 Video mikevine69 03/02/2004 3:32 PM
by Pete
Oh yes, the "Which video card should I get?" thread #12829. 10 Video blurredvision 03/01/2004 11:17 PM
by Pete
nVidia's Problems 202 Video BenSkywalker 02/29/2004 10:12 PM
by chsh1ca
NV40 0wnage of ATi R420 coming soon to a store near you? 58 Video videoclone 02/28/2004 11:14 PM
by PCTweaker5
Decent half height AGP cards? 2 Video Alptraum 02/27/2004 9:30 AM
by Peter
What's the baddest ass PCI vidcard in existance (for under $200) 47 Video markjs 02/25/2004 10:31 PM
by SherEPunjab
FX 5800 Ultra video. 63 Video dguy6789 02/25/2004 9:13 PM
by TheSnowman
In retrospect, is the 9700 PRO the best card ever? 57 Video Ferocious 02/25/2004 5:34 AM
by sandorski
Best gaming video card under $55? 31 Video Naruto 02/24/2004 9:56 PM
by Pete
Video Card/Company Loyalty Poll and such... 27 Video cm123 02/23/2004 8:48 PM
by MonkeyDriveExpress
R420 Shows up at IDF 64 Video klah 02/23/2004 4:28 PM
by BFG10K
Best Ti4200 card? 31 Video KnightPalatine 02/21/2004 3:16 PM
by Mk1980
best card for $150?

 

[nick1985]

any SANE person would get the 9800pro.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: nick1985
any SANE person would get the 9800pro.

'sane' is a relative term

 

[RussianSensation]

2 Things:

1) What is your rig? because if you have something like 1gig P3 with 256 mb of PC133 ram even if you get Radeon 25000 it will not make your computer faster making a purchase of the most expensive card pointless

2) If you do have a fast computer then the best bang for the buck is Radeon 9800 non-pro for $173 which is 1% slower in performance than the 9700Pro which in turn is maybe 10-15% slower than the 9800Pro but which costs $205 or in excess of that figure. Of course if you waited this long, you should wait for 2 more months when these cards drop in price like a rock from a cliff.

Cheers

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
2 Things:

1) What is your rig? because if you have something like 1gig P3 with 256 mb of PC133 ram even if you get Radeon 25000 it will not make your computer faster making a purchase of the most expensive card pointless

2) If you do have a fast computer then the best bang for the buck is Radeon 9800 non-pro for $173 which is 1% slower in performance than the 9700Pro which in turn is maybe 10-15% slower than the 9800Pro but which costs $205 or in excess of that figure. Of course if you waited this long, you should wait for 2 more months when these cards drop in price like a rock from a cliff.

Cheers

I don't think you'll see the price of the 9800Pro drop like "a rock from a cliff", I think the drop has already happened and the 9800Pro has taken it's place as a $200 last gen card. 5900Us and 5950s should drop significantly though.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Rollo

$200? For a card that's 'twice as fast' as the 5950Ultra (if NVIDIA's press can be believed)? Yah right. Maybe in six months there will be a midrange version of the NV40 for $200, but I fully expect them to debut it at a MSRP no lower than $399.

It probably is wishful thinking, but what if you could get the nV40 SE version for $300 and it's still even 25% faster than a 9800Pro? (e.g. the 9800 Pro does 60fps at Far Cry at some resolution, and the nV40 SE does 75, with similar IQ? Wouldn't that be worth another $100?

I can tell you there's a whole lot of guys who paid higher premiums for far less performance difference on 9800XTs and 5950s.

In six months? Sure, there'll probably be a $300 card that is 10-30% faster than a 9800Pro. But I don't expect one for a while. It'll probably be worth it when it gets here, but who knows when it will?

I don't feel like it's good advice to say "Well, there's a really good card available for $200 now, but if you wait for an undefined amount of time, there MAY be a marginally better card available for $300, or a much, much better card available for $400-$500!" This may be a good idea if you currently have a 9700Pro and $500 to burn, but not if you have a GF2 and $200 in your pocket.