Anyone knw of a good FAQ/article on budet AGP cards? Toying w/ the idea of upgrading the card in the rig in my signature, but don't need a super high-power card, as about all I'm playing on it is CoH. If possible, I'd like to get something w/ DVI (which, I believe, can output to VGA with an adapater, correct?). Anyways, thanks in advance for the info!
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Budget cards
- Thread starter pjaank
- Start date
I recently got an fx5900 for a friend who also wanted a budget card for online gaming (though for CS:S, not CoD).
The best resource is the Tom's Hardware VGA charts. Here are the Summer 2005 AGP charts, which contains a lot of now-budget cards: http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/05/vga_charts_vii/index.html
Find your price range, then pick a card. I suggest buying one used, such as from someone in the For Sale forum. That's unless you get an awesome deal elsewhere.
The best resource is the Tom's Hardware VGA charts. Here are the Summer 2005 AGP charts, which contains a lot of now-budget cards: http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/05/vga_charts_vii/index.html
Find your price range, then pick a card. I suggest buying one used, such as from someone in the For Sale forum. That's unless you get an awesome deal elsewhere.
S_G said:All 8x cards can run at 4x. They are required to be backwards-compatible.
Yup, and more importantly there really isn't a performance hit.
How much were you looking to spend, and is that A-XP system in your sig going to be the recipient of the new card?
Just for the sake of it, I'll set a limit of "sub-$100" used.
I'd go for either a 6600GT, or a 6800NU. A 9800pro/xt would also be a nice option.
quadnad said:Yup, and more importantly there really isn't a performance hit.
How much were you looking to spend, and is that A-XP system in your sig going to be the recipient of the new card?
Just for the sake of it, I'll set a limit of "sub-$100" used.
I'd go for either a 6600GT, or a 6800NU. A 9800pro/xt would also be a nice option.
Yup, it's going in the XP system. And yeah, definitely sub-100, since it's not a beast of a machine, nor are the gaming demands on it all that great.
pjaank said:Yup, it's going in the XP system. And yeah, definitely sub-100, since it's not a beast of a machine, nor are the gaming demands on it all that great.
Then definitely go for a 6600gt/6800nu/9800pro/xt used off of either ebay or FS/FT.
Those are most likely your best bets.
quadnad said:Then definitely go for a 6600gt/6800nu/9800pro/xt used off of either ebay or FS/FT.
Those are most likely your best bets.
What are the differences between the gt/nu and pro/xt cards? That is, differences between the cards using the same chipsets.
They don't always use the same chipsets. Here's a good article on the 6600 and 6600GT. http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/gffx/nv43-p01.html#p1pjaank said:What are the differences between the gt/nu and pro/xt cards? That is, differences between the cards using the same chipsets.
Usually the difference is core/memory speeds and pipelines.
I'd suggest the 6600GT if you want to play any recent games at high resolution with nice framerates. According to Tom's Hardware, in Doom 3 at 1280x1024x32 8xAF, the 6600GT does 57.4 FPS, while the 9800XT does 36 and the 6600NU does 34.4. Not much of a comparison.
pjaank said:What are the differences between the gt/nu and pro/xt cards? That is, differences between the cards using the same chipsets.
Here is a link directly comparing the 6600GT and 6800NU. The 6800NU has four more pipes and another four texture units than the 6600GT. The reason that the 6600GT is still quite close in terms of speed with the 6800NU at stock speeds is because it is clocked higher. The 6800NU does however offer the possibility of unlocking, allowing it to move from 12 pipes to 16, doubling the amount the 6600GT has.
Here is a link directly comparing the 9800 pro with the XT. As you can see, the only significant difference is the 9800XT is clocked higher.
This range of nVidia cards will certainly do better at Doom 3 engine based games. Other than that, the 9800XT should give you around the same performance as the 6600GT albiet without SM 3.0 capability.
In terms of speed, this is how I would rank them, fastest to slowest: 6800NU>6600GT=9800XT>9800PRO
My pick out of those would be the 6600GT. It'd be a good balance between cost and speed.
phoderpants
Gawd
- Joined
- May 11, 2005
- Messages
- 804
quadnad said:My pick out of those would be the 6600GT. It'd be a good balance between cost and speed.
thirded or fourthed, or whatever
I am still using a 6600gt myself, and I have been impressed for the year and a half I have had it. I can still play games with medium settings as long as I am willing to go down to 1024 and only 2xAA or so.
I bet you can find a used 6600GT AGP in for sale forums for $100. I think that any card much above it may be overkill for your setup currently, and it's a good "final upgrade" for that computer. If you really don't want to buy used, you can try a normal 6600 AGP which shouldn't be $100 for a decent model. The GT will give you a lot more oomph, though.
I bet you can find a used 6600GT AGP in for sale forums for $100. I think that any card much above it may be overkill for your setup currently, and it's a good "final upgrade" for that computer. If you really don't want to buy used, you can try a normal 6600 AGP which shouldn't be $100 for a decent model. The GT will give you a lot more oomph, though.