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No Idea about Video Card

B

Bighamm

Member
I'm currently building a system with these specs:

2 gigs (512x4) of Corsair 3200c2 Ram

An AMD Athlon x2 4200+ Manchester

and a DFI LANPARTY UT mobo

Now I have no idea what kind of Video Card I should get.
 
Sorry, Yeah I'm new here. Yeah, The computer will be for gaming. I'm not really into overclocking but I might look into it in a few months (I'm going to head off to a Tech school, hopefully someone there will know how to OC). I hope to be able to run games like BF2 and HF2 with High settings and not take a hit to the framerate.

I'm running on Windows XP, my chip is an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ and it's running at 2205 Mhz. My Mobo is an ASUS A7N8X2.0 and my video card is an ATI Radeon I think 9800 128MB. I have 1 gig (512x2) of corsair memory.

So pretty much I'm gonna have to completely overhaul my system. Is there anything I could do to this current system to have it last longer? Would it be better to wait and upgrade a little later? I only have 3 DIMM slots in the mobo I currently have and I recently bought some random brand 512 stick to put in there. My computer would restart probably every 20 minutes when I put that new stick in there, but I really want to bump up my specs.
 
budget for vidoe card?
btw, for someone inexprienced, the DFi is not a good choice. It ocs well, but has multiple incompatibility issues and comes with almost no documentation so unless you know exactly what you are doing, you better get another board liek the MSI Neo 4 Platnium or Asus Nfroce 4 Deluxe.
 
Okay, what about the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe?

I'd like to keep the card under $500, but I'd really like something in the $350-400 range.
 
that's a good all around MB. dosent oc as well but has good support standing behind it.(I've had 4 asus mbs, 1 asus video card) and the support is pretty good.

now how much are yuo willing to spend for a video card?
 
Originally posted by: Bighamm
Okay, what about the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe?

I'd like to keep the card under $500, but I'd really like something in the $350-400 range.
Click to expand...

A 6800gt would be a solid performer in that pricerange.
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: Bighamm
Okay, what about the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe?

I'd like to keep the card under $500, but I'd really like something in the $350-400 range.
Click to expand...

A 6800gt would be a solid performer in that pricerange.
Click to expand...

A Radeon X800XL would be even better 😉...

And don't bother with an A8N-SLI. If you want an SLI board, get the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum. Otherwise get the MSI K8N Neo4 Ultra. DFI's are quite intimidating, even to the more experienced among us 🙂
 
What are good video card brands?

I have a Radeon 9800 right now, will there be a nice graphical boost if I get a 6800gt?

Should I worry about Sounds Cards or just stick with onboard sound?

I'm also heard that duel core is the way to go, especially if you multitask. The most multitasking that I would do would be to listen to iTunes while I'm playing a game. Would the Duel Core be worth it? Should I get a Duel Core anyways because programs in the future might use both cores?
 
Originally posted by: Bighamm
What are good video card brands?

I have a Radeon 9800 right now, will there be a nice graphical boost if I get a 6800gt?

Should I worry about Sounds Cards or just stick with onboard sound?

I'm also heard that duel core is the way to go, especially if you multitask. The most multitasking that I would do would be to listen to iTunes while I'm playing a game. Would the Duel Core be worth it? Should I get a Duel Core anyways because programs in the future might use both cores?
Click to expand...

You don't need dual core to play music + game. Playing music is taking up like 0% to 2% of my CPU usage right now.

I agree with Bona Fide that an X800XL would be a great option too. When I read $350 as a minimum I immediately thought "a 6800gt is about that much" but at $250 to $275, an X800XL is almost as fast (and faster in some things). It's a great midrange card.

I was also thinking you were getting an SLI board and wanted the ability to upgrade that in the future too I thought nvidia. If you're not sure you want SLI (since SLI is not really a great idea for most people I think), a regular NF4, singlecore CPU, and X800XL would save you a lot of money and you'd still get great performance.

You can also get cas2.5 ram and save some money and get almost the same performance as more expensive stuff. You should be spending $80 to $100 for a gig or ram. I'm not sure how much the stuff was that you had picked out.

An X800XL or 6800gt would give you a nice boost vs the 9800 series.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/index.html

In this range or $300-ish cards, a 256mb card makes more sense.
If you end up getting a faster card, then 512mb starts to make sense.

What kind of sound system are you getting? If you're spending $150 or more on speakers, then I think a soundcard is a good investment, otherwise onboard sound is a good start and you could upgrade to a soundcard later if you want something more.

 
512 mb cards are worthless due to the x800xl 512mb and 6800ultra 512mb arcitechtures not being to be able to use all that memory efficently.

get a 256mb 6800gt. Most will oc to ultra speeds. dont worry abotu sli, it's not worthwhile when better performance can be had for cheap. Get a normal pci-e card.
for example here is a situation where Sli is supposed to help you.(it's in the $280 range at newegg for a good Leadtek one)

$400 6800gt(when it came out)
$300 6800gt(now)
total=$700
=$550 7800GTx performance(slightly less in most games, slightly more in some games, since msot games arent optomised for sli)

or $350 6800gt(months ago)
sell for $250
buy a $550 7800gtx
total=$650
7800GTx with architecture designed for 1600x1200 and above resolutions(6xxx suffer greatly at above 1600x1200)so it is just as fast(faster at higher resolutions and non sli optomized games), uses much less power, generates much less heat, uses muich less electricity, creatse much less noise)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122195

Choose the 6800gt over the X800xl since ti supports SM3(which is nice but not required) and ocs to ultra speeds(the x800xl ocs like crap)
 
Since you look like someone willing to spend big money on this I suggest a 7800GTX...for now..and later on another one..if the mobo is SLI.
 
Thanks for all your help. I came into this thinking about spending a ton of money, but these midrange options you've shown have been very helpful. This is what I'm thinking about right now.

2 gigs of Corsair Ram (512x4)
Not sure between the 6800gt and the X800xl (probably leaning towards 6800gt)
An Asus Nfroce 4 Deluxe or an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
And Stick with the AMD Athlon x2 4200+ Manchester Processor

Will there be any major bottlenecks? Thank you so much for all your help, it's been very much appreciated.
 
I am running a 6800GT right now. It OC's quite well, about 2/3 of the way to Ultra speeds with no artifacts. With that said, the X800XL is a mighty fine board, and I don't understand why it's not more popular - faster than the 6800GT in some apps, slower is others, but at $50-75 less.

Don't bother with the SLI. SLI is for people who are buying two cards now, not one card now and another later.
 
BFG 6800GT OC

i have one of these in agp. it's a frickin' awesome card. i highly recommend it.

i can't comment on an x800 because i've never used one. i'm sure it's a great card though. i don't see how you could go wrong either way.
 
X800XL is a great card.

If you wanna benchmarking card don't bother with the X800XL.

Where the X800XL shines is when you turn the details to max and turn on AA and AF.

For example in 3DMark05 I score 5624 with no AA. With 4xAA, 4xAF I score 5100.

With AA and AF turned on the X800XL and the 6800GT stand on equal ground. With it off, the 6800GT will smoke the X800XL.

But who plays games without AA and AF these days anyways?

The $50-$100 you save on getting the X800XL you can throw into something else, like better RAM, power supply, case, etc...

You can't go wrong with either, but if you want bang for your buck, the X800XL is where it's at.
 
What's a good X800XL Brand? And why don't I want an SLI mobo? Is the only thing it lets me do is have two video cards hooked together? Sorry for all the questions.
 
Originally posted by: Bighamm
What's a good X800XL Brand? And why don't I want an SLI mobo? Is the only thing it lets me do is have two video cards hooked together? Sorry for all the questions.
Click to expand...

They're all good brands and since they dont OC very well, there's really no one brand you need to go after.

I personally like the reference designs myself.

BBA (Built BY ATI)
Connect3D <--- I have this one.

Both are very good reference boards. The Connect3D can be found for $250 on monarchcomputer.com

That is the best deal you will find on an upper echelon video card.

Get an SLI board if you think you will ever have the urge to plop in a second NVidia video card.

For example, if you were to get a 6800GT, you could run that card until it started to lag in games which is still a while down the road because the 6800GT is a great card. Once that 6800GT isn't enough you have the option to:

A. Buy a new generation video card

B. Buy another 6800GT for cheap and run both 6800GTs in SLI-mode to lengthen the life of your system.

A. is probably gonna be your best bet, that's what I would do.
 
There are two problems with SLI. The first one is cost:

You can get two 6800GT's now, for $630, and have generally worse performance than a $600 7800GTX. Or, you can get one 6800GT now for $315, get another in a few months for $250 (sounds right?), for a total of $565; and by then people will be buying R520's, all sorts of 7800's, and the R580 will be right around the corner; all of which will outperform your $565 video card set at around the same price.

The second problem relates to compatability:

Will the 6800GT you buy in four months have the same BIOS? If not, you will probably have to flash it to an older BIOS - or flash the old card to a newer BIOS, which of course does not always work. And all that BIOS flashing sucks.
 
Originally posted by: Bighamm
What's a good X800XL Brand? And why don't I want an SLI mobo? Is the only thing it lets me do is have two video cards hooked together? Sorry for all the questions.
Click to expand...

Yeah, with most manufacturers, the ultra and SLI boards will be the same specs (THe DFI boards are identical, just a different chipset which can be modded). An ultra board will run you a bit less money and give you the same specs.;

I would recommend the epox nf4 ultra board. The anandtech articles are kind to it and it is fairly cheap. It should be alot better for a first timer than the DFI, but still have some good specs and OCability...
 
Get the DFI board.

Like SrGuapo said, the Ultra is an identical chipset as the SLI DFI board. The only difference is there is broken connection on the Ultra chipset. This is the only difference between the DFI NF4 Ultra and the DFI NF4 SLI. If you ever want to run SLI, all it takes is a #2 pencil and bridging the broken connection.

The DFI board is an overclockers dream and it is not the first timer nightmare as some suggest. If you just put everything together and load the optimized defaults everything will run smoothly and gracefully. Then, when you're feeling adventurous, there are hundreds of settings to play with.

I personally feel its a great first timer board because if you can play around with the DFI board, you'll be able to handle any motherboard after that. newbs have all the settings to tinker with and will never be suprised when they get a new motherboard and will have experience.
 
I'd get a 7800GTX.

I have modded my Ultra-D to the SLI board, same exact chipset, even boots up as the SLI board.

Circuit writer from radio shack or a #2 pencil will work.

Importent things to know:

Dont use Corsair Value Select with the DFI motherboard.

The DFI is a 24 pin motherboard, USE a 24 pin PSU.

EDIT: Maybe you should get 2x 1 GB sticks?
 
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