alright, these are on sale at frys right now for $99... no rebate required... theyre a 256mb ddr card... this just seems to good to be true... is this card just a piece of shit... or worth the 99 to upgrade from my geforce 3 ti200 128mb ddr??
nah... im in no dire need to upgrade, my geforce 3 seems to handle pretty much everything... atleast decently... and its a 128mb card so whats the point in upgrading to another 128... i just saw 256 for $99 and was like holy shit, but i figured it was too good to be true... i guess ill just wait for the next gen cards to come out so the 9800 pro will drop in price =D
Yea, I am looking at the same ad. The 5200 really isn't a good card, and definately not for 99 bucks. 256megs is useless on that particular card because it does not have the power to back it up.
I cannot wait till 5pm though because it looks like Fry's is running some badass deals for the grand opening of the Concord store today.
you seem to think a video card is all about how much ram it has. quite a different story than that. sure a 9800 Pro 128 has the same amount of ram as your card but it will absolutely destroy it in performance.
I think you are getting caught up in a useless spec.
The amount of ram is largely meaningless in this generation. Look at the benches of the 9800XT vs the 9800 Pro. The latest and greatest, ultra-powered, high-end graphics card scoring only 5-7% higher than its predecessor. And that's almost certainly related to the 10% higher clocks on core and ram instead of MORE ram.
The MOST IMPORTANT part of buying a new graphics card is the capability of the core.
The SECOND MOST IMPORTANT part of buying a new graphics card is the speed of the core and ram.
The AMOUNT of ram isn't even a factor anymore. 128mb of ram in a video card is like 1gb of ram in a PC. You just don't get any more performance by adding any more - the same PC with 2gb of ram isn't going to be any faster at all than the one with 1gb.
So, in short, there are a LOT of upgrades that will offer substantial performance improvements on your GF3 that don't actually have any more onboard ram. Like I said, 128mb is like 1gb for PCs - it's the right amount. Any more is virtually useless and little more than a marketting gimmick.