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Looking for a decent card for about 50-60 US dollars.

F

fentgphx

Junior Member
Preferably AGP, I've been looking at a bunch on newegg and can't seem to make a choice. So, hopefully somebody here can recommend something worth purchasing.

Thanks!
 
What do you plan to use it for? And what are the specs for your PC?

It's really hard to make a choice like that without knowing what you need...
 
I'm running a P4 2.6GHZ, 512 ddr ram, and hope to use it mostly for light gaming. At the moment, I use a GeForce TI200 with 128MB of ram, and it's been working fine for newer games on medium to med-high settings. I just want to do a cheap upgrade for now (until I'm able to afford something more pricey in a year or so), to be able to play games that don't support older cards.
 
Originally posted by: fentgphx
I'm running a P4 2.6GHZ, 512 ddr ram, and hope to use it mostly for light gaming. At the moment, I use a GeForce TI200 with 128MB of ram, and it's been working fine for newer games on medium to med-high settings. I just want to do a cheap upgrade for now (until I'm able to afford something more pricey in a year or so), to be able to play games that don't support older cards.
Click to expand...

Mom, is that you? 😀
 
The Geforce Ti4200 and the Radeon 9600pro are both about the same speed. The 9600pro has a very slight edge with its dx9 features, but it is more expensive. If money is a major concern go with the Ti4200, otherwise, the 9600pro.
 
From a Ti4200 your really going to want to step to at least a 9700 pro to see a noticeable peformance increase. Have seen these under $100 but not sure how far under $100. Otherwise you wont notice much difference, unless its game specific your looking for like HL2 and such, then some other cards will make more of a difference when compared to the 4200.
 
Originally posted by: dfloyd
From a Ti4200 your really going to want to step to at least a 9700 pro to see a noticeable peformance increase. Have seen these under $100 but not sure how far under $100. Otherwise you wont notice much difference, unless its game specific your looking for like HL2 and such, then some other cards will make more of a difference when compared to the 4200.
Click to expand...
He has a Ti200, which is a GeForce3. Just about anything will be a boost.
 
Originally posted by: fentgphx
I'm running a P4 2.6GHZ, 512 ddr ram, and hope to use it mostly for light gaming. At the moment, I use a GeForce TI200 with 128MB of ram, and it's been working fine for newer games on medium to med-high settings. I just want to do a cheap upgrade for now (until I'm able to afford something more pricey in a year or so), to be able to play games that don't support older cards.
Click to expand...
Originally posted by: MDE
He has a Ti200, which is a GeForce3. Just about anything will be a boost.
Click to expand...
Not entirely true... When I upgraded my Daughters rig from a 64MB GF3 Ti200 to a 128MB GF4 4200 I went from a 8,5XX 3DM01 to a 10,XXX 3DM01, an 'UNDERWHELMING' gain to say the least.

Besides, he says he wants "to be able to play games that don't support older cards". Since, the GF3 and GF4 are both DX8, that 'upgrade' won't help at all. The 9600 would be good for the 'newer' DX9 games and also be a performance upgrade.

Personally, I would recommend you check out THIS and then search the For Sale/For Trade forums and see what the best used card you can get for your price range would be. I recently got a 9700Pro w/Zalman for $85 shipped. That would be a nice upgrade for you.

BTW: Yes, the 9700Pro w/Zalman went into my Daughters rig. If you want to buy the GF4 4200 that came out of her rig, you can PM me. It most likely will be going into my F/S thread soon.




 
Originally posted by: Cruise51
The Geforce Ti4200 and the Radeon 9600pro are both about the same speed. The 9600pro has a very slight edge with its dx9 features, but it is more expensive. If money is a major concern go with the Ti4200, otherwise, the 9600pro.
Click to expand...

I did not expect that - my Radeon 8500 flashed to 9100 was broadly similar to my GF4 Ti 4200 @ 4600 speeds?

Also one aspect that many do not consider is that many cards are not fast "across the board". A more expensive (supposedly faster card) may in fact be slower in certain games but faster in others.
 
Originally posted by: deadken
Originally posted by: fentgphx
I'm running a P4 2.6GHZ, 512 ddr ram, and hope to use it mostly for light gaming. At the moment, I use a GeForce TI200 with 128MB of ram, and it's been working fine for newer games on medium to med-high settings. I just want to do a cheap upgrade for now (until I'm able to afford something more pricey in a year or so), to be able to play games that don't support older cards.
Click to expand...
Originally posted by: MDE
He has a Ti200, which is a GeForce3. Just about anything will be a boost.
Click to expand...
Not entirely true... When I upgraded my Daughters rig from a 64MB GF3 Ti200 to a 128MB GF4 4200 I went from a 8,5XX 3DM01 to a 10,XXX 3DM01, an 'UNDERWHELMING' gain to say the least.

Besides, he says he wants "to be able to play games that don't support older cards". Since, the GF3 and GF4 are both DX8, that 'upgrade' won't help at all. The 9600 would be good for the 'newer' DX9 games and also be a performance upgrade.

Personally, I would recommend you check out THIS and then search the For Sale/For Trade forums and see what the best used card you can get for your price range would be. I recently got a 9700Pro w/Zalman for $85 shipped. That would be a nice upgrade for you.

BTW: Yes, the 9700Pro w/Zalman went into my Daughters rig. If you want to buy the GF4 4200 that came out of her rig, you can PM me. It most likely will be going into my F/S thread soon.
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What was the point of bashing what I said when you just regurgitated the advice I gave in my later post? I never told him to get a GeForce 4, just that almost anything new would be a boost except the POS FX5200 the OP linked to.
 
Go into the FS/FT forums and find someone selling a 9500pro.
for most games
9500pro > 9600XT > 9600pro

though there are fairly rare games where 9600XT = or > 9500pro, but they are pretty rare these days.

If you can find a 9700 or 9700 pro in that price range it is considerably better, but it might be tough in that price range. 9500pro should be do-able in that range.
 
Originally posted by: Concillian
Go into the FS/FT forums and find someone selling a 9500pro.
for most games
9500pro > 9600XT > 9600pro

though there are fairly rare games where 9600XT = or > 9500pro, but they are pretty rare these days.

If you can find a 9700 or 9700 pro in that price range it is considerably better, but it might be tough in that price range. 9500pro should be do-able in that range.
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Agreed. Seems like 9700 pricing area now.
 
DOn't get the 5200! NewEgg has a 128 MB 5700 for the same price, and its much faster. For new cards, the 5700 is pretty decent for the price. The 9600 Pro is also a decent deal, about the same performace

This card is about as good as a 5700 in older games, and a 5900 in newer games:

6200 (non TurboCache)

If you can spring for a 9800 Pro at $100-120, then that is a better deal.
 
Wait, so for the radeon cards, the quality of the card has little to do with the number attached? Or does the quality have anything to do with an ascending or decending number? Hm, I guess I know quite a bit less than I thought.
 
I'd say that for the most part the numbers are accurate. While I agree that the 9500 Pro is better then a 9600 Pro, keep in mind that a 9550 is a crippled 9600 which we already know isn't quite as good as a 9500 Pro.

I think that the 9000 Pro's are better then the 9100 or 9200's also. Again, please keep in mind that the 9000, 9100, + 9200's are 'only' DX8 cards. The rest of the 9X00's are DX9.

Yeah, I'd say it gets a little confusing. I think you should check out the LINK that I gave before. It does a decent job of showing how quite a few cards perform.

BTW: MDE, I don't think that I 'bashed' what you said, I just dis-agreed with your first statement (I was taking it in context where the others were suggesting a GF4 4200). And again, the OP has stated that he wants "to be able to play games that don't support older cards", I'd still say that rules out any DX8 and lower cards. So I still dis-agree with your statement that "Just about anything will be a boost."

Somehow I missed your second post, I know that I read it, I just didn't realize that it was from you. I agree with you entirely on the your second post.

Please PM me if you'd like to discuss this further.
 
Originally posted by: dfloyd
From a Ti4200 your really going to want to step to at least a 9700 pro to see a noticeable peformance increase. Have seen these under $100 but not sure how far under $100. Otherwise you wont notice much difference, unless its game specific your looking for like HL2 and such, then some other cards will make more of a difference when compared to the 4200.
Click to expand...

This guy is right. This post stuck out so make sure you dont just pass by it OP.

I'd either get a 4200 that will meet your budget nicely.. or a 9700 pro. dont dink around with those 9500s ppl used to mod, or 9600s.. either stay within budget for the 4200 or jump to a 9700 Pro.

Should be cheaper than a 9800 Pro, has the same feature set (basic DX9) and is fairly close in speed, yet a nice boost from 9600/4200 land.
 
Originally posted by: MDE
Originally posted by: dfloyd
From a Ti4200 your really going to want to step to at least a 9700 pro to see a noticeable peformance increase. Have seen these under $100 but not sure how far under $100. Otherwise you wont notice much difference, unless its game specific your looking for like HL2 and such, then some other cards will make more of a difference when compared to the 4200.
Click to expand...
He has a Ti200, which is a GeForce3. Just about anything will be a boost.
Click to expand...


Sorry friend was partly tired and also was looking at what Cruise said, so the numbers caught me off guard for a moment. But anyways its all Nividas fault, oh and Atis fault,a nd Creatives fault, and Renditions fault, and Nvidias fault, did I say that already, well ti is anyways but its a conspiracy you see, its a planned out conspiracy to go out of their way to confuse me by using similar yet different, sounds almost like but not really kinda if you know what i mean, didly do didly do, didlay day, oh what was I saying? Oh yeah, umm I will have back chesseburger with Vinegar, Soy Sauce, Tarter Sauce, some Pineapples, and Onions as well, on second though, time to take my medicine 😛

But as my silly point is going I was tired and overlooked what he was saying, but as far as real difference goes, it is a little higher than his price range but he would be alot happier overall with the 9700 Pro vs the 4200 as a replacement for his Uber Geforce III Ti200, did you know that thing has a hardware T&L unit on it, its uber. heh

/me rereads above and finds proof that lack of sleep and forums are not good bedfellows. But my attempt at confusing people is now at a end as I really do have to get some rest.
 
Originally posted by: fentgphx
Wait, so for the radeon cards, the quality of the card has little to do with the number attached? Or does the quality have anything to do with an ascending or decending number? Hm, I guess I know quite a bit less than I thought.
Click to expand...

the 9500 Pro was an anomoly. It was their only cheap 8 pipe card of that era. The 9600 pro and 9600XT are slower in most games, especially the 9600 Pro.

The 9600XT is about 10% slower in terms of fillrate/shader performance but about 10% faster in RAM bandwidth. Most current games are more dependent on fillrate/shaders than RAM, so in that case 9500 > 9600

Similarly some of the 128 bit 9800s are on a par with the 9700 pro, but the gap is much narrower.... not to the extent that the 9500 Pro > 9600 Pro.

To not know this about the 9500/9600 series you really had to NOT be paying attention to ANY of the reviews/forums/internte in general at the time. It was pretty much all over everywhere that the 9600 Pro was slower than the 9500 Pro.
 
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