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Which Graphics card should I buy?

D

DV8

Member
Hi im new to the forums....i see a lot of good advice given here.

I am a graphic designer, my emphasis is 3D graphics/animation (lightwave, maya, xsi) but i also use Photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver and video editing

I am having a computer custom built for me in January...these are the specs:
AMD Athlon 64-bit Processor at 3000+ socket 754
Asus K8V SE Deluxe motherboard using the new VIA K8T800 chipset
512 MB DDR Memory
128 GB SATA Maxtor

the issue that i have is with the graphics card.....the builder is giving me a choice between:

ATI Radeon 9550 128MB DDR including DVI and TV outputs
or
e-GeForce FX 5500 256mb DDR

which one should i choose?

what if the Radeon 9550 was 256mb??


Thanks in advance
 
Originally posted by: Yossarian
you should choose another 512 of memory 😉
Click to expand...

I concur. But between the cards... I'd say check to see if that 5500 is 128-bit memory or 258-bit, because if it's 128-bit then the 256mb won't help much. Probably go with the radeon.
 
Originally posted by: Yossarian
you should choose another 512 of memory 😉
Click to expand...

If usage is especially heavy, maybe even more than 1 GB total will be needed. In any case, if you aren't gaming, just get a 9200/9600 or something (unless 3D rendering benefits a lot from a graphics card as well, though I have no idea).
 
yes that is what I would do. Ati has always in my opinion (until the new Nvidia 6 series) has had the best image quality. If you could spend a little more it would be beneficial to go with an Nvidia 6600GT or a ATI x700pro/xt and YES down the road 512MB more of system mem will make EVERYTHING faster! 🙂
 
aha i see they are making a downclocked x800 i guess. Man Nvidia has taken the mid-range market by storm!
 
I can't say much on the cards because I don't know but an upgrade to 1 gig instead of 512mb of ram would be a big improvement for you.
 
I would say go with the 9550 if you have no other options because the FX series was a bomb. I am also going to clarify some things because it seems like you think more memory is better. Both of those cards do not have a wide enough bus to make use of 256mb of memory and they are also to slow. So even though the 5500 has more memory you can think of it in a sense being wasted.
 
you might check the reccomendations on the software manufacturer's sites, particularly maya (http://www.alias.com/eng/suppo...QUAL/maya_60_win.html). If it's anything like the 3d CAD programs I use you'll really need to step up to a professional level 3d graphics card, I believe the Quadro FX 500 or 1000 are the best deals going right now but they'll cost you almost as much, if not more than the rest of your system. You may reconsider an athlon 64 system as well as the athlon 64 processors apparently have not yet been tested with maya 6.0.

For high end graphics programs you really need professional level hardware, these programs can be very picky.
 
First get more system ram.

Second, the best cards based on your budget are Geforce FX5200, FX5600, or FX5800. You can softmod these three cards "perfectly" into Quadro FX cards.

GeForce FX 5200 will become a "perfect" Quadro FX 500
GeForce FX 5600 will become a "perfect" Quadro FX 1000
GeForce FX 5800 will become a "perfect" Quadro FX 2000

You can also softmod Geforce FX5900 into nearly "perfect" Quadro FX 3000 but without hardware anti-aliasing

You can read some of these old threads for more info.

guru3d geforcefx to quadrofx thread

OCforums SoftQuadro4 howto

You can also try PMing Duvie who's a member of this forum. He has done the Geforce FX 5800Ultra to Quadro FX 2000 softmod and works with lot of 3D software so he could tell you more about it.
 
If the system hasn't been bought yet, why not go for an Athlon64 motherboard from ATI? The new one gives you a "free" Radeon X300 onboard which is almost the same speed as the 9550 (a little slower) which could tide you over until you could get a better card. Put the money saved into another stick of 512MB to begin with.

You'd have to switch to socket939 though, which would be a good move anyways. Better future upgradability and dual-channel RAM.
 
Originally posted by: JBDan
aha i see they are making a downclocked x800 i guess. Man Nvidia has taken the mid-range market by storm!
Click to expand...

Actually no, the point to changing it to the x800 is because that means ATI will rock the mid-range market, the x800 will be on the cheap.
 
<< thanks for all the help. i will see what he says about upgrading the vid card.....although i think he is building this with the best parts he has at his disposal.....i will see about getting another card in the future.

which card should i choose then? i will probably take every1's advice and get me another stick of ram.....so with 1 gig of RAM whats my best option as far as gfx card?


thanks for the help....
 
Originally posted by: DV8
<< thanks for all the help. i will see what he says about upgrading the vid card.....although i think he is building this with the best parts he has at his disposal.....i will see about getting another card in the future.

which card should i choose then? i will probably take every1's advice and get me another stick of ram.....so with 1 gig of RAM whats my best option as far as gfx card?


thanks for the help....
Click to expand...

Since both cards are unimpressive, I still maintain my opinion of going with ATI's integrated video solution for A64 until you can afford a *good* card. It'll actually be cheaper that way, believe it or not!

s939 motherboard nforce3 = $100
s939 motherboard ATI = $100, no need for $75 video card.
 
Originally posted by: DV8
<< thanks for all the help. i will see what he says about upgrading the vid card.....although i think he is building this with the best parts he has at his disposal.....i will see about getting another card in the future.

which card should i choose then? i will probably take every1's advice and get me another stick of ram.....so with 1 gig of RAM whats my best option as far as gfx card?

thanks for the help....
Click to expand...

As mentioned above, for professional OGL graphics programs (like Lightwave, Maya, and 3DSMax, among others), you really want a professional-level OpenGL card like an NVIDIA "Quadro" or ATI "FireGL" series board. These cards use a customized BIOS and modified drivers to increase performance in the sorts of operations these programs use (generally, very high poly counts, with much less texturemapping and shader ops than games, and sometimes heavy use of certain OpenGL extensions and featues like wireframe modes and hardware line antialiasing). They're very expensive (up into the thousands of dollars), although if you're on a budget, some models of 'consumer' cards can be softmodded into a 'professional' card (sometimes missing a few features or with slightly lower performance) with a BIOS flash. Check out the threads linked above for info on GeForce5->Quadro softmods.

Of course, recent high-end 'consumer' cards like an X800Pro or 6800GT are so fast that they would probably work fine as a 'professional' rendering card as-is (assuming there aren't driver issues with your programs or anything like that). I'd try checking in a forum oriented more towards the particular applications you're using, as current users can tell you what works well and what doesn't.
 
<< thanks a whole lot....is there anyway i can flash the cards above: ATI Radeon 9550 or e-GeForce FX 5500 to get a better response??

also ive heard that ATI cards do not render openGL very well that is why ive always have stuck with the GeForce series << is this true??

thanks for the help
 
Originally posted by: DV8
<< thanks a whole lot....is there anyway i can flash the cards above: ATI Radeon 9550 or e-GeForce FX 5500 to get a better response??
Click to expand...

Please search for more details on this. It's been beaten to death many times. As mentioned above, the 5600 could be modded, but the 5500 is a slightly different core and I'm not so sure about that. Neither of those cards is particularly fast.

also ive heard that ATI cards do not render openGL very well that is why ive always have stuck with the GeForce series << is this true??

thanks for the help
Click to expand...

ATI does generally have somewhat worse OpenGL performance in games; performance in workstation applications is a different animal, and can vary considerably from application to application. Again, your best bet is to find people who know more about the specific programs you are going to use, or to try to find benchmarks for the specific applications on both ATI and NVIDIA hardware.
 
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