What's the best gaming card out right now that uses a PCI slot?

[Salvador]

Hi.

I have a friend that only has a PCI slot and needs the fastest video card that he can get for gaming.

TIA,

Sal

 

[MercenaryForHire]

/shudders

Give us some system specs and we'll tell you if it's worth it. If he's got something like a Dell 2350 that's fairly new but has no AGP, then get a high-end PCI card like the Radeon 9100 PCI. If he's still in the era of P2's or even P3's, have him save his money and buy a decent full upgrade.

- M4H

 

[Salvador]

Give us some system specs and we'll tell you if it's worth it. If he's got something like a Dell 2350 that's fairly new but has no AGP, then get a high-end PCI card like the Radeon 9100 PCI. If he's still in the era of P2's or even P3's, have him save his money and buy a decent full upgrade.

Sorry.. That's exactly it. It's a newer system that really isn't meant for gaming like the Dell 2350. Thanks for the recommendation on the 9100 ATI card.

Sal

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Have a look here if you'd like to see the justification and projected performance numbers. (Thanks Mloot for the review.)

- M4H

 

[Salvador]

I just found out that my friend has a Gateway P4 1.7 ghz machine, so it will benefit from the best PCI video card out there.

Thanks for linking the review on the PCI cards. It's clear that the RADEON 9100 PCI is the card to get. My problem now is where do I find it? I looked at Newegg and Mwave and they don't currently carry it. The best cards that I see that they carry in a PCI card are something like a 7000 or 7500. Does anyone know of a good place to buy the 9100 PCI?

Thanks again.

Sal

 

[Mloot]

$129 at CompUSA


$109 + shipping (maybe tax, maybe not) at www.compuplus.com


$129 + shipping at Tigerdirect


$89 at Outpost.com (probably Fry's stores as well), $129-$40 in rebates

 

[RanDum72]

If you don't mind getting the 64mb version, CompUSA now has it for $49.99 after rebates.

 

[Mloot]

Originally posted by: RanDum72
If you don't mind getting the 64mb version, CompUSA now has it for $49.99 after rebates.

Nice find!

 

[Salvador]

If you don't mind getting the 64mb version, CompUSA now has it for $49.99 after rebates.

Is there a big difference between the 64 mb and 128 mb version?

Sal

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: Mloot

Originally posted by: RanDum72
If you don't mind getting the 64mb version, CompUSA now has it for $49.99 after rebates.

Nice find!

And it's the 128bit version, not the neutered 64bit bus. RanDum = teh 0wn

As far as the difference between 64/128MB of memory - you really won't notice it at all even on a faster AGP card. On a PCI video card, it's almost pointless to have the 64MB since the bus transfer is so slow. I vote for the $50 CompUSA card.

BTW, what the hell happened to Visiontek? They're dribbling more "cool talk" and "thug lyfe" crap than a modern rap record.

- M4H

 

[Mloot]

I noticed that when I went from a 64mb to a 128mb PCI card, that I could set games to a higher detail setting. For example, when I played Max Payne with a 64mb card and set the details to high at 800x600x32, the game would crash back to the desktop. I could only play it at medium settings at 800x600x32. Whenever I switched to a 128mb card, I could suddenly play the same game at high detail settings at 1024x768x32 with no drop in framerates. You see, PCI cards cannot do texture swapping like AGP cards can. So, many times if you fill up the memory buffer on a PCI card, your performance will either drop to unplayable levels (sometimes in the 1-10fps territory) or your game may crash altogether. When looking at a PCI card, you want to get as much on-card memory as you can afford.

EDIT: $49/after rebates is hard to beat for the 64mb 9100 - that's the best price I have seen so far for one of these cards.

 

[Salvador]

I appreciate the help guys! My friend just ordered the 9100 PCI 128 mb card from Outpost for $90 after rebate. He was pleased as anything because a local computer shop was charging $85 for an ATI 7000. He ended up spending what he thought that he would anyway and got a lot better card for the money.

Thanks again!

Sal

 

[Mloot]

OMG!! $85 for a 7000 PCI? That card doesn't even have hardware T&L. That was my first PCI card (because I didn't know any better), and I didn't find out until a little later that it really wasn't much better than my Intel "Extreme" Graphics.