Video card question

[vulturesrow]

Ok my plan is to go somewhere like Best Buy and get a computer (desktop) on the cheap and then do some piece by piece upgrades using stuff that I have already or buying certain components. My biggest concern is video cards. How much am I losing if I got with say a Raedon 9600 vs. a Raedon X800. There is a big price gap. However if the X800 is that much better, I will spend the extra money.

Thanks.

[nolanfan34]

Do you play games? If yes, then the video card may be worth spending more money on. If no, then just make sure you buy one that can handle dual monitors if you plan to do that.

I think I have the 9600, if I remember correctly, and it works fine for the gaming I do. Works well for GTA3, which I'm finally getting around to playing!

[vulturesrow]

Shouldve mentioned the obvious. Yes on the video games. Just trying to figure out if the X800 is so far ahead that its worth the extra dough.

[ThaSaltCracka]

I expect some good recomendations from Wacki, otherwise I will vote for Nader tomorrow Wacki!

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
I expect some good recomendations from Wacki, otherwise I will vote for Nader tomorrow Wacki!

[/ QUOTE ]

Aren't you voting for Kerry anyway?

[wacki]

Vulturesrow,

The BFG 6800OC that they're selling for $250 is pretty good. If you are going to be playing video games it seems like the word around the campfire is that the 9800 Pro is about the lowest you want to go. There is a massive performance difference between the 9600 and the x800.

wacki

[Mano]

For a comparison of features between any two ATI cards, try this (http://apps.ati.com/ATIcompare/) link.

[vulturesrow]

Wacki,

Just about anything really. I really like roleplaying, my favorite right is the Morrowind series. I like some FPS games, most notably Call of Duty. However the main reason I want to upgrade is so I can play Half Life 2 when it comes out. That game is going to be nothing short of amazing.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
For a comparison of features between any two ATI cards, try this (http://apps.ati.com/ATIcompare/) link.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a decent link, but I think benchmarks would suite him better.

Normally I would be full of valueable information but Astroglide recently informed me that my favorite hardware review sites tomshardare.com and to a much lesser extent anandtech were no good. He said, and I quote:

tomshardware is a piece of advertiser-owned [censored]. trust them for announcements and tech articles, but not for reviews.

Trying to find benchmarks on arstechnica but it's not easy.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I expect some good recomendations from Wacki, otherwise I will vote for Nader tomorrow Wacki!

[/ QUOTE ]

Aren't you voting for Kerry anyway?

[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe

[wacki]

Half Life 2 is a FPS game, you are going to need some real horsepower to play that game. Slow frame rates are not a good thing in games like that.

[vulturesrow]

I know, thats why I am asking about these two cards /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[wacki]

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/radeon%20x800%20pro%20xt_05040480526/2096.png

[wacki]

Doom3

Here is a review (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2146&p=3)

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/doom3gpu_08030440817/3428.png

[wacki]

Hey vulturesrow, this is a very suprising review. CSS is built of of Half Life 2 and the benchmarks aren't as drastic as they are in Doom 3 and other games.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/counter-strike_source_2/

Hopefully Astroglide will add some input. But on the surface, it looks like the 9800 Pro and up cards might be fine for half life. Honestly, I would wait till the game comes out and read a review then. Buy the card and the game at the same time.

[astroglide]

9800pro is very good for today's games. it plays the halflife2 well and that will be a big deal going forward. it's not as good as the nvidia stuff for opengl (doom 3 is about the only one worth considering that uses it instead of direct3d). i'm using one right now and i wouldn't feel bad about keeping it for a bit. if you're asking the question i'm inclined to think you'd be satisfied with the card.

FULLY future forward i'd put the smart value segment money on the pci express nvidia 6600gt. good performance, dual dvi cards are available (e.g. the xfx one), and their 3dfx-inherited sli technology will let you add another one at a later date to bump up your speeds. you probably don't have a pci-e motherboard though.

[vulturesrow]

Astro,

How common are PCI-e motherboards right now? I am in the market for a new desktop. Do you think its worth going with that option?

[astroglide]

they're not highly common yet for built systems but the motherboards are out there now for builders. the shuttle sb81p (http://us.shuttle.com/specs2.asp?pro_id=509) sff is pretty hot.

[The Dude]

I don't know how common they are overall, but the HP Media Center 1070 I bought a few months ago has a PCI-e motherboard.

[vulturesrow]

If you dont mind my asking, what did you pay for it? What are the specs? Are you satisfied with it? Im not real big on HP in the desktop market, but I could be persuaded.

[wacki]

Astroglide,
When you were ripping apart tomshardware's reviews you used harsh language. What have you seen them do to deserve that? Also, are their benchmarks on video cards accurate? If not what is the best place to go for video card benchmarks?

You also said that anandtech had to be taken with a grain of salt. Why do you say that?

[wacki]

Vulturesrow, you could always build your own computer. It's easy to do and it's a very good skill to have. Plus you get exactly what you want and upgrade only the parts that need upgrading. The hardest part is knowing what to buy, and I think astro just helped you on that.

[vulturesrow]

Like I said in another post, I dont really feel up to building my own right now. I know it isnt that hard to do, I just dont feel like taking it on.

[astroglide]

stuff like 2% differences in metrics and then in the conclusion (which most people skip to) with no mention of numbers he declares the winner (an advertiser) the landslide winner. for video benchmarks i think firingsquad and anandtech are good, xbit has more rigid methodologies but their roundups are less frequent.

anandtech glosses over lots of technical issues and comes to bad conclusions, most notably with storage devices. their optical reviews have gotten better but it's still nowhere near as good as cdrinfo/cdrlabs + forums. storagereview's hard drive reviews are so far ahead of everybody that nobody else should even attempt them. anand's regular building guides are a joke as well.

[Blarg]

9600's are still fine for most games out there, but 9800's are on such great sales all the time, and prices are coming down so much on them, that I'd get at least a 9800 myself now, if I were thinking of gaming. If all I wanted to do was operate dual monitors for poker, I'd spend 50 bucks on a Verto 5200 from newegg.com.

[wacki]

He wants to play half life 2. If you post recommendations for buying a 9600 for playing half life 2 on any tech forum you will get ripped to shreds.

The rest of your post is good though.

[Blarg]

Nah, I just noted that 9600's are fine for most games. Which they are. But not all And I noted that I would still get at least a 9800 now because they've become such a good bang for the buck now. Really recently a 9600 was an easy recommendation for people looking for the best bang for the buck, but now it's not even that anymore, if you find a good sale on a 9800. I wouldn't bother buying a 9600 now.

[Sponger15SB]

[ QUOTE ]
If you post recommendations for buying a 9600 for playing half life 2 on any tech forum you will get ripped to shreds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah but you could always comeback with the always applicable...

"At least I've kissed a girl"

[Lawrence Ng]

Get a ATI 9800 Pro...trust me.

[wacki]

Just came out.

Half Life 2 GPU Roundup Part 1 - DirectX 9 Shootout
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278

[Matt Flynn]

excellent reviews at www.sharkeysextreme.com (http://www.sharkysextreme.com) (may be www.sharkeyextreme.com (http://www.sharkeyextreme.com) - one is a hardware review site and the other is a teen porn site - great good fun misspelling THAT one when the dept. chair walked into the residents' room and a well-shaved teen babe popped up)

basically it's about $1,000 extra to tool out completely. get the second fastest CPU you can (final upgrade there isn't worth it), then buy the latest nVidia card (see the graphic in the other post for the number - runs about $600. 3 trillion triangles/second, but like all high end cards it's CPU limited under most high-end gaming conditions.

i don't play video games much but was investing heavily in the graphics card industry a few years ago.

matt

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
then buy the latest nVidia card (see the graphic in the other post for the number - runs about $600.

[/ QUOTE ]

The ATI Radeon X800 XT outperforms all Nvidia cards in all Half Life 2 benchmarks.

Still that card might be a bit too much power.