What card should I buy for Christmas??

[Ben_Tech]

...In your opinion, what card will be *the best* vid card by the end of the year? (under $800) And why? Thanks..

 

[Hawk]

Er...under 800 dollars? You can get a brand new computer for that...and if you are saying 800 dollars, are you hinting at the Geforce 2 Ultra? I still say the Radeon 64 MB is the best card, it's a lot cheaper, it's fast at high res 32 bit, and it's got good 2d and VIVO. And it's only like 250 dollars around, and I don't think any new cards are coming out from now till Christmas, right?

 

[Marauder-]

Personally for an $800 budget, I'd get a Geforce 2GTS and the remainder of a decent high end computer NOT a Geforce 2 Ultra.

Woohoo 5 extra fps at 1280x1024 + bragging rights for MUCH too much money. A GTS for price/performance isn't really all that worth it either. I'd personally get a Geforce 2 MX w/ DDR or a Geforce 256 DDR off the FS board for $120. Paying $170+ for a 32mb GTS will not net you that much of a performance hike.

 

[pdo]

Just get the Radeon 32DDR video card and use the rest for greeting cards.

 

[qiu]

Geforce 2 GTS DDR 64 and that's all folks... it ain't worth to pay $200 extra for a Ultra (to get a few fps around...)

Have fun! it'll cost u under $ 300

 

[SleepyTim]

Get a RADEON 64MB VIVO, and then buy me one too with the extra money.

 

[Deeko]

As of right now, a GF2u, the V5 6K could be good when it comes out, though.

 

[Ben_Tech]

As far as the $800 part goes, I just wanted to say 'price no object' without saying it too litterally and someone tells me to go buy the 3DFX plant so I can have a rampage today. *grin* /joke mode off

By the way thanks for the input! .... I guess I should wait and see if the V5 6000 actually ships before then, because Glide is sort of important to me...I *still* play games that only run well in glide.

 

[fodd3r]

the radeon II will be out sometime in december/january. not sure about the price, but it'll be better than and ultra or a v5 6k, considering they both don't have the feature set, nor will they really be able to compare to it's more intelligent rendering.

the supposed specs are:

-4 pipes three tmus per pipe assume a 200mhz clock = 800 mpixels
-plus don't forget the improved deffered rendering, might even have tile rendering. they did buy artx the guys doing the gamecube chip.
-improved tcl unit, 60 million polies per second or more.

 

[Weyoun]

Can't you hold off for just a month or two, then you could spend all your $$$$ on a flashy new NV20 or Rampage (damn that thing'll kick @rse if they release it at rumour spec). Some screwed up thought (ok, ill take that back for wingznut and robotech ) has me thinking that the Rampage will be released a month or two outside the NV20 release, i honestly think 3DFX learnt their lesson with the VSA-100, c'mon 3DFX, you can do it!!

 

[AMDfreak]

If this has to be before Christmas, and the $800 is in U.S. dollars, the I would say get the V5 6000 unless the Radeon II is out. I don't think it will be for Christmas. If you do any video editing or want awesome DVD capability too, the go ahead and get the Radeon 64. If you get the Radeon, make sure you get a retail unit. Otherwise, it will only be clocked at 166MHz instead of 183. Hope this helps.

 

[Diffusion]

A Quadro 2, oops, outside the 800$ range , in reality, go for a 32mb card, and save the 800$, say, a Geforce 2 GTS or Radeon 32mb DDR, and then save the remaining 600$ and buy a new midrange card everytime a new card design comes out, that way, instead of having THE BEST for 6 months, you have a pretty good card for 2 years.

 

[MustangSVT]

damn.. rich ? $800 just for a video card? did u pay $1000 for that ps2 on egay?

i say, wait they'll bring something new like Nv20 or Radeon2 or Voodoo6 soon. Wait and see how they'll perform, im sure it'll be under $800.

 

[fodd3r]

the nv20 will be out in march or later next year. as for the v6k why buy an obsolete card. hrm, let see it might have killer fill rate, but it can't do half the affects that you'll need for future games. i wonder if it can do dot, it still can't do trilinear last i checked --stub function. as for fsaa, me think the radeon 2 will solve that.

as for rampage i don't expect it for a while now.

don't forget there is still the g800, great image quality, t&l unit, and a nice fill rate. not to mention it'll have a nice set of features.

for this winter, i'd say radeon 2 or g800, the rest will be "old".

 

[hans007]

i'll sell you my v5 for $800, its not a normal v5, i'll sign and autograph it too.

 

[Ben_Tech]

Great thanks guys. I now have a good idea what to keep my eye on. I will be looking at either a V5 6000, a Radeon II, a G800 or the best geforce. I like the 4x FSAA quality on the 3dfx products plus I like several long-term games that only support gilde for best results. But, I think the feature sets of some of the competition might sway me away from 3DFX loyalty. We shall see. Thanks again.