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Geek Culture / Graphics Cards

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ArcAngel
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Posted: 13th Mar 2005 09:25
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Hey anyone know of a good ATI grapics card under $200? I'm looking at the ATI Radeon 9700 or the 9800. What are the reviews on the new X series ones (like X800). I'd like a graphics card that pretty much has it all. Game Development and Game Play are the ones I'm concerned with. I have an 8X AGP slot on my ASUS AMD 2700+ Processer (by the way what is the pentium equilevent to that AMD processor?). And is 256MB overkill or should I get 128 MB? And what is the difference between XT and PRO?

Thanks!

PS: Since I'm kinda growing out of all this BASIC stuff, anyone know any good C++ programming forums as good as this one?

"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."
"Visit my website! www.freewebs.com/stradigos"
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Trowbee
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Posted: 13th Mar 2005 12:13
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Quick glance (not being in America) and 9800 pro's are for sale at +/- £100, so thats roughly $200.
Check ebuyer, it'll no doubt have something there.

The X*** family are the next generation of graphics cards. They'll all pretty much wipe the floor with the 9000 family. But that comes at a price, which is out of your range.

Quote: "I have an 8X AGP slot on my ASUS AMD 2700+ Processer"
.
On the processor?
8X is standard for AGP, basically all graphics cards (that are AGP) that you buy today will be 8X.

It never hurts to get more memory on the card. If you can get 256mb for not much more, get it. More and more games are utilising (or needing) it nowadays, and it'll only get worse with time.
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Posted: 13th Mar 2005 23:34
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Quote: "PS: Since I'm kinda growing out of all this BASIC stuff, anyone know any good C++ programming forums as good as this one?"


I have found the GameDev, and Microsoft Developer Network Forums to be very helpful.

Not sure what you mean by "growing out of all this BASIC stuff" though.

Pure Basic is as useable, and fast as C with as much extendability.
Nothing childish about programming languages, only what you decide to do with it.

System: Windows XP CPU: AMD Athlon 2600+ RAM: 512MB Video: GeForce FX 5200 Audio: C-Media 9739 DirectX: Version 9.0c
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Dot Merix
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Posted: 14th Mar 2005 00:39 Edited at: 14th Mar 2005 00:40
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I'd recommend the ati 9800pro(which you may have to save up a bit more for), which is what i have.. Works like a charm for all games that i've tried so far.. Just make sure you have atleast 512mb ram, if possible... a Gig and everything should run smoothly.

Also, go for the 128mb, there's really no difference, no game uses the extra memory enough that the price should be effected.

The X800's and such would be nice to have, and there are agp aswell as PCI Express versions of the card.. But unless you get the PCI Express version, it's not really worth it to get the AGP version of it.



WindowsXP Home(Service pack 2), Athlon XP 2400+(2.1Ghz), 1GIG Ram, Ati Radeon 9800Pro 128MB.
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code spinneker
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Posted: 15th Mar 2005 11:34
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Yah I was kind of wondering whether or not the 128mb 256mb debate actually had any merit?? The 6600gt from nvidia only comes as 128mb as far as I can tell and that is one of their newer cards other than the 6800 it is the best so i was wondering if that extra memory will EVER be needed (At least not for a year i hope) most games these days only need a 32mb (Half life 2 minimum) so i didnt think there was much point in going for a 256mb version of any card.
Any answers wanted please.
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 15th Mar 2005 12:47
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i have a 256mb card, but its the latest nvidia 6800 PCI Express...
im still dr00ling

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Posted: 15th Mar 2005 19:02
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Video Memory, is important. In the same breath it isn't.
128MB is the minimum, provided you want to be able to do everything your card is capable of.

The argument to having more though is a little more complicated.
There are cards with 256MB, in some cases even 512MB. The advantage this extra Memory has, is only as good as the Memory Interface.

A card with a 64-bit Interface, should be limited to 64MB Memory. If it has more than any excess will cause a great slow-down when using it.

Only example of this I can currently think of is my MSI Geforce FX 5200 64-bit 128MB, and my brother's Creative Geforce FX 5200 128-bit 128MB. When they both run the Dawn demo, his will run a good 10 Frames Per Second faster.

If we both activate 2x Anti-Aliasing, this gaps gets bigger. So while his rendering is nice and smooth, mine starts looking like it is dropping every few frames.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 15th Mar 2005 22:40 Edited at: 15th Mar 2005 22:48
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my brother bought a 400usd x800 (I think an x800)..

He's quite happy with it... plays Thief 3 at 1600x1200 with everything full on and no slow down..

Things freaking amazing..

Of course, he's also running an p4 3.8ghz and 1gig of ram

btw.. this is on a pci express card

As for your amd vs p4 question.. they're rated differently really..

From what I've been reading, the amd's "rate" themselves with their numbers.. the p4s give you the actual speed of the processor..

From what I've been reading the p4's will beat any amd, when using rambus ram, which is about twice the cost of ddr

So from what I understand, it's close with pentium ahead, I personally favor the pentium.. I really don't like the idea of a company telling me how fast their processors would go if they were a competing company Marketing bullocks..

Ready blackviper's article about amd.
http://www.blackviper.com/TheRant/amd_vs_intel_2.htm

I'm sure there's a million articles targeting intel the same way... but eh.. it's upto you


Yarr join teh New and Improved LoGD!
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 00:04
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AMD Provide the Pentium Rating, or PR.
For example, my Athlon XP 1.8GHz is PR2600+, because it is capable of equal speed to a Pentium 4 2.6GHz Processor.

While I do agree with Black Viper's original argument against using AMD. I feel that he is quite bias, not taking in consideration the facts of these processor types.

There are currently three Computers at this location, they each use a different processor type.

AMD Athlon XP 1.8GHz 2600+ (Mine) - £24 32-bit
Intel Pentium 4 2.52GHz HT (Brothers) - £65 32-bit
AMD Semperon 1.6GHz 2500+ (Spare) - £40 32/64-bit

Running several tests of these processors, under several conditions came up with the simple fact that really, they are very close in speed.

Given they all use the exact same Graphics Card (Geforce FX 5200), and posses the same RAM (512MB PC2700 333MHz). It ment they could be tested and it would be quite a fair test under the same conditions.

Under Windows XP, the stability of the AMDs is now a non-issue.
The enhancements added by the 64-bit Processing of the Semperon, allowed a slower Processor with less Cache (192K compared to 512K of the others) to be able to keep almost level in speed.

When it all comes down to it, I feel the question is just Cost.
It is quite painfully obvious, which processor has the best Costower.

In my experience AMD has never let me down, Intel has never let me down. In-fact the only aspect of my systems that have are Budget Motherboard and RAM components.

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Kanati2
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 00:47
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I think someone has mentioned the 6600 from nvidia... it's the best bang for the buck right now. This coming from someone with little loyalty to any one company, so you will know I'm not biased. I had a 9800XT before switching to my current 6800GT.
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 01:27
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Thanks for the info.
Do you think getting the £140 GT would be better than the £90 Standard model?

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Jimmy
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 02:24
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Quote: "Thanks for the info.
Do you think getting the £140 GT would be better than the £90 Standard model?"


You know, it'd work better if you didn't have 2 large posts spouting off your knowledge of hardware.


Well we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 02:34
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Quote: "You know, it'd work better if you didn't have 2 large posts spouting off your knowledge of hardware."


I can have all the technical knowlage in the world.
The only thing my knowlage will tell me is that, technically the GT is faster than the Standard.

It does not tell me by how much it will improve my Frames Per Second in Doom 3!

I feel the question is a valid one. I am getting quite annoyed by the attitude of some of the users on thier forum. There are some very unfriendly people here.

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Jimmy
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 02:55
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Sure it's a valid question, but not when you already KNOW the answer.


Well we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 02:57 Edited at: 16th Mar 2005 02:58
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IF I KNEW THE ANSWER I WOULD NOT HAVE ASKED.

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Jimmy
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 03:01
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CHIBBLY!


Well we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.
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Hawkeye
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 04:29 Edited at: 16th Mar 2005 04:29
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Now now jimmy, give the poor man a chance Being so obiously endunted by your smarts and dare I say it, dazzeling looks, he's tried to sprout off as much techincal knowledge as possible and has completely unknowingly asswered his own question. Only he doesn't know the answer, and neither do we.

So to get back on topic, two questions: a) are we having steak for dinner tonight and b)what is teh meaning of liff??? (and indeed life)











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Preston C
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 04:45 Edited at: 16th Mar 2005 04:53
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Quote: "I can have all the technical knowlage in the world.
The only thing my knowlage will tell me is that, technically the GT is faster than the Standard.

It does not tell me by how much it will improve my Frames Per Second in Doom 3!"


For someone who "has all of the technical knowledge in the world", no, it is not a valid question. There's a thing called "Google", you know, at http://www.google.com. It's a tid bit called a search engine, you type in what you want to search for, using key words, and it'll bring you the best matches for what you need.

If you typed in NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT Review or Benchmark, you'd get your answer.

Here's an example of a link that I got from a google search for the 6600 GT Benchmark (and since you're so obviously stupid, I've linked right to the Doom 3 review for you):
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1643486,00.asp

Original Link:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1643479,00.asp

And even if you did a simple search for the card, you'd find out NVIDIA has dubbed it the "Doom 3" card, for the obvious reason that it plays Doom 3 quite well when the rest of your computer is up to it.

So yes, the 6600 GT would make quite a difference in your Doom 3 performance, especially compared to it's 6600 counterpart.

If you're getting annoyed by the people on this forum such as Jimmy, just take our perspective. You're dumb as a fricken rock from to most people, and from your posts, it's pretty obvious why. So more often than not, it's people like you that are annoying us. If it's the other way around, it's your fault to begin with.

Now go get run over by a snowmobile driving penguin, for all of our sakes.

Now for the original post by Stradigos, may I suggest saving up about $20 or so more and buying the AGP 8x 6600 GT. Thats practically top of the line for your price range, and, like I posted above, the Doom3 card. If that doesn't say something, I don't know what will

Intel Celeron 1.3 Ghrz | 512 MB Ram | NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB
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code spinneker
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 09:32
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Nice glad to know I am getting A 6600gt on saturday, unfortunatly it is Agp but heck it is still better than a LAME 5200 (thats what I have now) Someone said they were running the DOW demo on 5200 LOL this thing sucks and can barely START half of the new games i try. Half Life 2 for esample loads but then the video lags so much that I dont even bother playing, luckily it is only a demo Version.
All Hail 6600gt
All Hail Doom3
All hail Half Life 2 as it is the best game in existence.
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Posted: 16th Mar 2005 17:46
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Current Market Cards

I did not find this on Google. I am also warey over the validity, given there are different results on here than there are on the site posted by Preston.

It appears to be that speed-wise it goes,

174% - Geforce 6600 GT
168% - Radeon X700 XT A.I.
147% - Radeon X700 PRO A.I.
125% - Radeon X700 A.I.
100% - Geforce 6600

What is annoying, is the systems used are FAR beyond the power of my own. So I can not even hope to get similar performance.
It seems that without the driver enhancements that list would be very different.

These Scores are from FarCry where the difference between the cards was smallest. If this online Benchmark can be trusted, it does clearly show that I would be better of buying a Geforce 6600 GT.

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