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Which card do you recommend?

B

bahree

Member
Hi Guys,
Am planning on making a dual PIII 933 for home. I am not a very serious gamer - but do enjoy Quake III Arena and a few others.

I am a developer and mainly will be busy coding.

So, which card do you recommend? I am planning to run Windows 2000 Advanced Server.

Thanks,
Amit.
 
Erm, what kind of card are you looking for? Sound Card? Video Card? Network Interface Card? SCSI Controller Card?

Since this is the "Video" forums, I'm gonna assume you mean a Video Card. There are several choices now, the GeForce2 GTS, GeForce2 MX, ATI Radeon and V5 5500, depending on your budget, the rest of your system, and your intended usage. You said you are a "developer". What do you develop? Software? Games? Websites?
 
Oops... I was looking for a Video Card. Budget wise less than $300 maybe $350 TOPS!

I develop Software and Websites on the Windows Platform and started to on WAP and Embedded Systems.

I am looking at a Dual PIII 933 (Coppermine) system - but could also scale down to a single cpu.

Any suggestions?
 
OK, that's a lot easier to answer then. The ATI Radeon, nvidia GeForce 2 GTS's and Voodoo5 5500s are what you should be looking at. The G400 would have been nice too if you didn't enjoy games. I'm not sure of their respective prices, but they should all be under $350, at least their 32MB versions.

Basically, the Radeon has respectable performance, especially at 32bit color. It also has the best DVD playback, the most features, and the best texture compression quality. The GF2 GTS has the best performance, plenty of features(dependin on which make/model you get), the worst texture compression quality(although this isn't neccessarily nvidia's fault) and arguably the worst 2D image quality. The V5 has the best implementation of FSAA and the slowest performance(but still very acceptable).
 
Radeon. The 32MB DDR is only $169 after rebate at Best Buy. It has very good 2D, great 3D at higher resolutions and color depths, and tons of features for upcoming games, all for a great price.
 
Radeon is also DX8 (yes, EIGHT) optimized, so while we see very competitive 3d performance in current software, top DVD performance and 2d performance, we really haven't seen everything yet.
 
I suggest the Radeon as well. I own a Radeon 64 VIVO and not only have I had an excellent experience with the 3D quality speed, but also the video in/out features of it. If you're looking for good gaming for todays games, then the Geforce 2 is the way to go. But the Radeon has the best 32 bit quality and 2d quality I've ever seen. If you're going to get a 19" or larger monitor, the Geforce 2 wouldn't serve you very well. If you plan on keeping this card for a long time, again, the Geforce 2 won't serve you well. But if you're looking for smooth gameplay, advanced features, and video in/out capabilities, I can tell you from personal experience that the Radeon won't let you down.
 
The Radeon is not a good card in W2K yet for either games or applications. The drivers have not progressed as well as the Win98 set has. I had to pull mine due to the ever present BSOD with both the released drivers and the beta xx35 set. If you put your system together now your best bet is for a Voodoo 3/5 or Nvidia Geforce (MX,DDR,GTS,Ultra). The MSI 694D is a very nice board and the Abit VP6 looks to be a winner also.
 
get the gf2. Get a good one though you might have to go through a few brands before you get one with good 2d from what i've heard. I program too, and well i'd assume its just as important to you.
 
GeForce2 Ultra is about $500, if you have the money then by all means😉

I would say go with a GF2 based board(maybe a Pro, the Ultra is a bit more then you said you wanted to spend), I wouldn't trust ATi's drivers for any NT OS. They still don't have NT4 drivers that are decent for the RagePro, and its' been several years. Perhaps they will put in a better effort with the Radeon and Win2K, but I wouldn't trust it. If you were running a Win9X gaming rig then I would say Radeon, but not for a Win2K work machine.
 
Since you will actually be using your system for work, I would give the Matrox G450 (32MB) a try. It sells for about $150USD. Probably has the best 2D image available and reasonable 3D performance. I would not blow a wad on a high performance 3D card like the GTS or Radeon for what you will be doing. I would look for somthing that has a sharp picture for all those hours of code debugging.
 
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