Vid. card for cousin

[SneakyStuff]

My cousin is building a pc for cheap off of newegg.com, we're talking Athlon XP 2500+, asus mobo, a tacky case with an alien head grill 😛, well anyway, naturally he wants the video card to be cheap too, would a BFG geforce fx 5200 ultra for $99 dollars be a decent deal for him? He really doesn't care about "high quality" video settings on his games, he just wants them to run, and he's insisted on dx9 performance (i dunno why) so what do you think? for $99 bucks would that get the job done? He plays games like may payne 2, halo (low settings), warcraft3, unreal tourney, yunno nothin really big. Here's some linkage............ HERE

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff
My cousin is building a pc for cheap off of newegg.com, we're talking Athlon XP 2500+, asus mobo, a tacky case with an alien head grill 😛, well anyway, naturally he wants the video card to be cheap too, would a BFG geforce fx 5200 ultra for $99 dollars be a decent deal for him? He really doesn't care about "high quality" video settings on his games, he just wants them to run, and he's insisted on dx9 performance (i dunno why) so what do you think? for $99 bucks would that get the job done? He plays games like may payne 2, halo (low settings), warcraft3, unreal tourney, yunno nothin really big. Here's some linkage............ HERE

he wants cheap 5200 would be a waste of money if you ask me. The 5200 is slooooow, not sure what the "ultra" add's but I'll bet it's not much... For not much more money he could get a 5600, which is a good deal faster. Or you could shop around for a 9600 (non pro) which would kill the 5200 in every benchmark.

 

[Matthias99]

I'd try to spring for a 9600 or 9600Pro; they're only another $30-50 over that, and the performance is worlds better. He won't be happy when his DX9 games run at 5-10fps on a 5200 (they may only run at 20-30fps on the 9600Pro, but it's better than nothing).

 

[VIAN]

5200 is too crappy to play even at those settings. I would try a 9600 XT or 5700 Ultra.

 

[SneakyStuff]

VIAN, you dissapoint me, please refer to the key word in my post "ON THE CHEAP" I don't think he's going to dish out $180 or $150 bucks for a video card when he wants to keep this under $350 dollars. Thanks anyways tho.

 

[Matthias99]

You didn't mention a $350 budget in your OP. You also didn't even say "ON THE CHEAP" anywhere -- you actually said you were:

building a pc for cheap off of newegg.com

And let's not even get into the grammar lesson implicit here.

Yes, you want a cheap graphics card. The consensus reply seems to be "that card is so cheap it's useless". Listen to what people are telling you instead of just trashing their replies.

 

[SneakyStuff]

You're kidding me, would YOU reccomend any of those cards? Prolly not. End of story. Don't be a smart@ss. (Yes i'm aware I have a 5700u, and it's because I got if BEFORE you could get a 5900 for $165, yeesh) Oh yes, I failed to mention, nick1985, tabb, and I, are not too fond of VIAN to begin with, parhaps that helps.

 

[VIAN]

Well, I try not to recommend any card under those that I have specified above.

But if you want an EL CHEAPO card then, a 9600 would be fine. Available at NewEgg for 102 bucks. And guess what, you could get the 256MB of VRAM for no extra cost or lowered MHz. Isn't that great. 🙂

 

[SneakyStuff]

you're quite sold on this whole 256 mb craze.

 

[Pete]

5200 is worthless in any guise, IMO. If your cousin insists on staying below $100 and sticking with NewEgg, I think a 128MB 9600, 64MB 4200, or 128MB 9100 are all better buys than a 128MB 5200U. As a bonus, the 9600 is passively cooled, meaning no fan to be noisy or break. It's also always faster than a 5200U according to the THG charts, and it'll offer a real shot at DX9 performance. The 4200 should be faster than the 5200U in all of the games you mention. 8500 should keep up with a 5200U, and it's 25% cheaper.

The $120 BFG 5600Uv2 OEM is a pretty good deal for the money, and definitely worth the extra $20 over the 5200U, IMO.

Note that the old FX architecture (5200, 5600, 5800, and now 5500) is unusually slow in WC3, for some reason.

 

[Blastman]

When the 9600 was well over $100 it was too expensive. Now that the 9600 is under $100 it?s a pretty decent card for the price. That Sapphire 9600 for $96 is the ticket for a DX9 card under 100.😎

 

[modedepe]

he's insisted on dx9 performance

There's going to be no performance if you get a 5200. Either get a fast dx8 based gpu (ti4200) or get at least a 9600 pro. They were selling 9600 pro's for just a little over $100 at newegg. You're a fool to buy anything less.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: VIAN
5200 is too crappy to play even at those settings. I would try a 9600 XT or 5700 Ultra.

ahahahaha! for the price of those cards, just get a 5900NU.

(see sig)

 

[VIAN]

Some 9600 XT and 5700 Ultras are priced significantly lower by 20-30 bucks. Which to some people is a big deal.