Would a 5700 Ultra be overkill?

[ZSteveP]

I was looking at these cards

Gainward Ti4200 $115
Asylum 5700 Ultra $160

and wondering if the 5700 would be overkill for my system or would the 5700 still perform better than the 4200 on a system with these specs:

Dell 4500 1.8 Ghz
384 ram

Thx,
Steve

 

[Cerb]

That depends: what are you using for a video card right now?

 

[Schadenfroh]

get the 4200, cause the 5700 is so high, you might as well spend the extra 20 bucks and get the 5900SE from newegg with Call of Duty

 

[The Green Bean]

5700ultra...unless u can buy buy onlin or live in the US. Then get a 5900SE for 20 more

 

[SneakyStuff]

I own the same computer you do, Dimension 4500, with a 1.8 ghz cpu. I got the PNY 5700 ultra for christmas. Let me just say this, you WILL see a difference, and you will be pleasantly suprised, but BE WARNED, both the BFG and the PNY cards are very large, I had to use a snipper to cut the insertion lever on my ram slot 1 by half, to allow room for the heatsink on the back of the card. You will also need to remove a black clip from the top of the hard drive EIDE cable so the card can fit into the AGP slot without being elevated by this cable. It was extremely frustrating when the card didn't fit, but i improvised, and BAM! it all works flawlessly now. And I would reccomend the PNY card over the BFG, the PNY card has a MUCH! better cooling system.

 

[videoclone]

Get the Ti4200

 

[TheAudit]

I'd get the 5700 if I were you and, no, that's not overkill for that setup.
If you had a K6-2 450 CPU then that would be another story.

Enjoy your new card.

 

[VIAN]

I would get the 5900 SE w/ Call of Duty for free. And bump up that RAM to 512.

 

[Ionizer86]

Ti4200, though I wonder why yours costs so much. I got one on FS/FT from an AT member for $70 shipped. Gainward 4200 128 with VIVO.

 

[modedepe]

Originally posted by: VIAN
I would get the 5900 SE w/ Call of Duty for free. And bump up that RAM to 512.

 

[hamster30]

spend the extra and get a 9700 pro. be careful with gainward. i have heard bad things about there cards,.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: ZSteveP
I was looking at these cards

Gainward Ti4200 $115
Asylum 5700 Ultra $160

and wondering if the 5700 would be overkill for my system or would the 5700 still perform better than the 4200 on a system with these specs:

Dell 4500 1.8 Ghz
384 ram

Thx,
Steve

You can get that 5700 card for $40 if your finding it for 160. Well sorta... I just bought for mini zebo today lets hope all rebates come...
Text

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff
I own the same computer you do, Dimension 4500, with a 1.8 ghz cpu. I got the PNY 5700 ultra for christmas. Let me just say this, you WILL see a difference, and you will be pleasantly suprised, but BE WARNED, both the BFG and the PNY cards are very large, I had to use a snipper to cut the insertion lever on my ram slot 1 by half, to allow room for the heatsink on the back of the card. You will also need to remove a black clip from the top of the hard drive EIDE cable so the card can fit into the AGP slot without being elevated by this cable. It was extremely frustrating when the card didn't fit, but i improvised, and BAM! it all works flawlessly now. And I would reccomend the PNY card over the BFG, the PNY card has a MUCH! better cooling system.

The BFG doesn't use the reference heatsink. The heatsinks on the BFG are small enough to where they won't interfere with anything, but the card is pretty long. I know I beat this to death, but BFG's tech support and warranty are second to none (full lifetime warranty, 24/7/365 toll free tech support). I'd recommend the BFG without even flinching. Their cooling setup on the 5700 Ultra allows some very nice overclocking and is more than adequate.

 

[McArra]

Originally posted by: videoclone
Get the Ti4200

And use the rest of the money to buy some RAM.

 

[titananandtech]

Originally posted by: ZSteveP
I was looking at these cards
Gainward Ti4200 $115
Asylum 5700 Ultra $160
and wondering if the 5700 would be overkill for my system or would the 5700 still perform better than the 4200 on a system with these specs:
Dell 4500 1.8 Ghz
384 ram
Thx,
Steve

Yes, the 5700 will perform much better. In some games it won't make any difference, in other games it'll make a big difference. I'd clearly get the 5700. Check the Doom3 benchmarks on this site.

One of the big advantages it has is it is DX9 instead of DX8. In Doom3 this means everything will take just 1 pass to render, while the 4200 will take two or three passes! That means your CPU has to send two or three times as many calls to the driver. So the 5700 will basically make it so your CPU has less work to do! That is always a good thing for an older CPU like yours

Plus if you upgrade your CPU ever your 4200 will be the bottleneck, while the 5700 will perform great still.

Not only will the 5700 perform better, but it will look better in newer DX9 level games like Halo2 because it can use more advanced Pixel Shaders.

 

[Bucksnort]

5900se outperforms 5700 ultra. Compuplus has the BFG 5900 for 169 bucks, The 5900 not the 5900SE. Thats your ticket for best buy at this time>
5900 Compuplus

 

[Pete]

How the $^@# is a 5900 going for $170 straight up?! Is nV really dumping the NV35 on the market to make up for bad sales, or are they just getting incredible margins on that chip? I mean, ATi hasn't fielded a 9800 for $200 in stores for quite some time, and I'm clueless as to how they can continue to allow nV to sell high-end cards in B&M stores for $200 unchallenged. My bad guess is that either ATi has their hands full with OEM/AIB orders, or they're clearing out inventory well ahead of their next-gen cards.

Baffling.

 

[modedepe]

I agree it's shocking nvidia is selling their high end cards for so cheap. I don't know what the strategy is, and it seems it would only detract from sales of their midrange cards.

 

[Corporate Thug]

i would get a 5900/9700 so when in the future you upgrade the cpu and ram, u dont need to worry about upgrading the video