Video Card Recom. for an Older System

[HansGuzzle]

Greetings,

I'm currently running an 1.1 Ghz Athlon T-bird on a Via KT-133 board. I'm going to go out and purchase a new mobo/cpu/memory in the near future, but for the moment I'm looking for a card I can put into this system and use with it. I'm looking to spend about 120 dollars and going through Realtime pricing and other sites, I've come down to a few choices:

Radeon 9500 Pro 64MB

Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB

Geforce4 4200 128MB

I plan to use this card in the new system and I would like to keep the card for a good amount of time. I'm leaning towards the 9500 Pro because of DX9 support, however it only has 64 megs of memory. The 9600 Pro 256MB version I heard has had some problems concerning low quality memory. The GeforceTi4200 is a nice card but looking over benchmarks it seems I can get better peformence and DX9 support from the Radeon 9500.
Anyhow, any advice would be greatly welcome.


Thanks,

-Anthony

 

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: HansGuzzle
Greetings,

I'm currently running an 1.1 Ghz Athlon T-bird on a Via KT-133 board. I'm going to go out and purchase a new mobo/cpu/memory in the near future, but for the moment I'm looking for a card I can put into this system and use with it. I'm looking to spend about 120 dollars and going through Realtime pricing and other sites, I've come down to a few choices:

Radeon 9500 Pro 64MB

Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB

Geforce4 4200 128MB

I plan to use this card in the new system and I would like to keep the card for a good amount of time. I'm leaning towards the 9500 Pro because of DX9 support, however it only has 64 megs of memory. The 9600 Pro 256MB version I heard has had some problems concerning low quality memory. The GeforceTi4200 is a nice card but looking over benchmarks it seems I can get better peformence and DX9 support from the Radeon 9500.
Anyhow, any advice would be greatly welcome.


Thanks,

-Anthony

None of those, get the Radeon 9600Pro 128MB card.

 

[Rage187]

4200 best bang for the buck.

 

[HansGuzzle]

Just saw that 9600 Pro over on Pricewatch, its definetly on my list now. Looks like a front runner for purchase too. Although any other advice would be most welcome.

-Anthony

 

[HansGuzzle]

Actually I found the non-pro version,

The pro version is for 135 dollars. Seems like an okay deal but I'm not sure if I want to spend the extra 15 bucks ;>

 

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: Rage187
4200 best bang for the buck.

I agree, but he says he would like to use the card in future systems, etc...so a 9600Pro would suit him better.

 

[atlr]

I am mulling a similar choice. I jave a 1.4GHz Thunderbird which I do not plan to upgrade anytime soon. I do want to upgrade the GeForce2 MX400 though.

It's difficult to find published benchmarks of older systems. Here are some links I have collected.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1863&p=8
Although the test platform is much faster than my system, I like how it illustrates the better performance of 9700/9800 over the 9500/9600 in a game I plan to play.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030120/vgacharts-02.html
A fairly extensive test with a AMD 1GHz. I really appreciate this one. I wish they had also done the anti-aliasing tests at 1GHz.

http://oc3dmark.octeams.com/cardguide.html
nice, nice summary of many chipsets

http://www.3dxtreme.org/ATI_9700AIW_p4.shtml
David tested a 9700Pro with a AMD XP1600+ which is similar to my system.


I would like to get the Radeon 9800 128MB non-pro for about US$265. It's only 10% slower than the 9800 pro but about US$100
cheaper. But it's difficult to justify for me. The price/performance for a slower system favors the 9600 pro. But, if you are getting a faster cpu/mobo, really consider the 9800.

So, my next choice is the Sapphire Radeon 9600 Atlantis Pro Ultimate for about US$190. I like it because it does not
have a fan. http://www.sapphiretech.com/broschure/ult-dimension.pdf

Of course, none of this is close to $120. Let us now what you choose to get!

 

[Corporate Thug]

9600 pro 128

 

[modedepe]

If you weren't going to upgrade a ti4200 would be the best match. But since you'll be upgrading, a 9600 pro 128mb would be better.

 

[HansGuzzle]

Thanks for the great info guys!

Anyhow I've been shopping around the the best 9600 Pro 128 MB prices, its about 15 bucks out of my price range but I think its worth it. I've found the Radeon 9600 Pro EZ version for 135 dollars. Any diffrerence at all between the EZ version and the 'regular' version?

Thanks,

-Anthony