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Looking for new 3D card

M

metroplex

Golden Member
I'm not a heavy gamer but I do play a lot of 3D FPS's like Ghost Recon, America's Army, Battlefield Vietnam, etc...

I'm looking hard at the GeForce FX 5900 XT becuase it offers decent performance at a nominal price. Everything else is $300 - $400+.

My budget is under $250.

Any suggestions?

My mobo is an Abit KX7-333 (from a few years ago) so its maxed out with AGP 4x.

I'm not looking for a total system upgrade - I just want to replace a faulty GeForce 3 that I currently have.
 
I don't have PCI Express and will not be buying a new motherboard just for the video card. I may do something in 5 years though. My oldest PC is a 486DX4/100 that is in the garage used for vehicle diagnostics, so I re-use as much as I can.

Right now my GeForce 3 is busted and I cannot play any 3D games, so the computer just sits there.
 
Well the 6600gt is supposed to becoming out in the AGP edition soon but if you must have a vid. card now. I would say the 9800pro is the best price for around 200.

 
Originally posted by: Schneider879
Well the 6600gt is supposed to becoming out in the AGP edition soon but if you must have a vid. card now. I would say the 9800pro is the best price for around 200.
Click to expand...

 
Slapping any of the latest generation video cards into your ancient set-up would be ridiculous,if it even runs.You would have a major huge gigantic gargantuan bottleneck with CPU,MB chipset & memory and prolly HD too.A plain and simple waste of money investing in a newer generation video card.
In fact a GeForce3 was already overkill in your system.Save yourself the money and just replace the GeForce3 with something the same or equivelent.
What you're planning on doing is like sticking a Ferarri engine into a wheelbarrow to try and race it on your front lawn.Makes no sense whatsoever :roll:
 
Originally posted by: Subhuman25
Slapping any of the latest generation video cards into your ancient set-up would be ridiculous,if it even runs.You would have a major huge gigantic gargantuan bottleneck with CPU,MB chipset & memory and prolly HD too.A plain and simple waste of money investing in a newer generation video card.
In fact a GeForce3 was already overkill in your system.Save yourself the money and just replace the GeForce3 with something the same or equivelent.
What you're planning on doing is like sticking a Ferarri engine into a wheelbarrow to try and race it on your front lawn.Makes no sense whatsoever :roll:
Click to expand...

read this: Topic Title: The Real Deal - If you want a gaming rig, spend 90% of your funds towards a videocard and not the cpu.

anyways, i agree with the 9800pro, best for the buck
 
Originally posted by: Subhuman25
Slapping any of the latest generation video cards into your ancient set-up would be ridiculous,if it even runs.You would have a major huge gigantic gargantuan bottleneck with CPU,MB chipset & memory and prolly HD too.A plain and simple waste of money investing in a newer generation video card.
In fact a GeForce3 was already overkill in your system.Save yourself the money and just replace the GeForce3 with something the same or equivelent.
What you're planning on doing is like sticking a Ferarri engine into a wheelbarrow to try and race it on your front lawn.Makes no sense whatsoever :roll:
Click to expand...

I agree. Unless you are planning on upgrading the entire system some time soonish, hop on ebay and pick yourself up a GeForce4 Ti4200-4600 on the cheap. If you are planning on upgrading within the next 6 months, I would wait until you can get an Athlon64 based rig that supports PCIe and go with a 6600GT. Since you don't seem to upgrade too often, going for PCIe will allow you to upgrade the video card sometime before you have to upgrade the entire system again.
 
POWERCOLOR ATI RADEON 9800SE Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "R98SE-C3" -RETAIL
For only $145, and i have this one you can see the speed i achieved my VGA Silencer and Unlocking all 8 pipes with Omega Drivers.
 
Originally posted by: tungtung
kamranziadar: A note of caution, not all 9800 SE can be soft modded into 9800.
Click to expand...

Beyond that, a Silencer is around $30 anyway, so doesn't that bring your cost to within $25 of a real 9800Pro anyway?

I don't see the point of this- warranty voided, risk it doesn't work, possible shortened life of card, labor to install Silencer- to save $25?

In any case, a guy willing to spend $250 has better options than a modded 9800SE.
 
I just bought a 5900XT and I am very satisfied. With my XP 2500+ it gets me 40 fps in medium quality Doom3 w/AA. It's just awesome.

I decided against getting a cheaper 6x00 series because if I want a GF 6 I want a model with the full number of pipelines and with 256 MB RAM, which means a 6800 GT which is $390.

In my experience,

1) yes, it pays off to have a great video card even if you have an older CPU, as long as you have decent RAM bandwith (333 MHz and up).

2) I much prefer to get a high-end, full-pipelines and high memory bandwidth model of the older GeForce Series than a scaled down model of the newer series (just lower GPU clockspeed is OK with me).

I did the same thing with the GeForce 4. A Ti 4400 off ebay made for a much nicer card that a cheapo GeForce 5/FX at the same money at the same time. I didn't get DirectX 9.x hardware acceeleration, but then those low 5x00 cards don't run these games well anyway.

Now, there is Half-Life 2 coming up with apparently has a real problem with GeForce 5/FX cards so maybe I'll come back complaining later 🙂
 
I've been kicking around the same problem for a couple of weeks now. Do you go with the 9800SE and hope it softmods then add on an aftermarket cooler or just pay the $$ up front and get what you wanted to begin with.

Im leaning towards the latter with this one.



SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9800 PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP -BULK -OEM

I see a great deal of discussion regarding aftermarket coolers, but from what i've seen on this card the stock cooling should be good enuf if i keep it at stock values. True?
 
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