[Stealth]

I need a video card for my new computer i'm building.  it's got to be a Radeon, because I like Radeon, but which one?  I'd like to not get the newest one(s) because i don't want to pay a fortune for it, there's a lot of good discontinued cards, but which do you recommend?  i was thinking of the following:









i just need one that will run games like warcraft 3, freespace 2, etc. good... features are good


Also, should i go the extra distance and get "TV" features?  or should i just get the Hauppauge tv card later?  regardless, something that would allow me to hook it up to my TV would be good... i was thinking (because of this) one of the older "All in Wonder"s, right?

I was looking at the one Radeon a few years ago, it had the box with that animal with three dogs heads on it (or was it two, you know what i mean) and i can't remember which it was but it seemed pretty good at the time... anyone remember which one that was?

Anyhow, any suggestions i'm open to

[Grey Wolf]

Search for a 9500 w/ 128MB of RAM. Try to flash it to 9500 Pro. If it doesn't work, flash it back to 9500. If it does, rejoice in saving over 100 dollars.

(As a note: 9500 is far superior to 9600)

[Drew]

dont get a radeon thats under the 9000(even thats getting underpowerd). Its best to get a 128 DDR version nowadays. You can find a mid level card cheap now; I saw a 9200 for like $50 at bust buy today. anyway wats ur price range here?

[Stealth]

OK remember i don't play many FPS games, so i don't need a card that can handle extreme framerate, etc.  like i said, Homeworld, FS2, WC3, and occasionally Counterstrike or HL2.

price range, well, i want to get what ever is best value for money... if i end up paying $100.00 (i'm buying it online) for a video card, it's cool.  if i end up paying $2.00, it's cool too... but i don't want to spend $265 on one... that's out of the question, which is why i said i don't want a really new one (which is therefore really expensive)... i mean my computer's only going to be running on a XP2800+ with 512MB DDR for now

[Killfrenzy]

Just for the record, I've got a GeForceFX 5600 with 256MB onboard memory, and it's a real beast!

I've never used a Radeon card so I could only advise looking carefully at what you want, what you may need in the future, what your price range is, and what the card is capable of.

[Grey Wolf]

That's actually a pretty good setup (the 2800+ and the 512MB DDR).
A Ti4200/Radeon 9500 are what you should aim for.

And Drew: A 9200 is not a mid-level card. The current mid-level cards are the Radeon 9600/GeForce FX 5600, not the 9200/FX 5200. The 9200 and FX 5200 are bargain cards.

[Stealth]

yeah well i mean it's going to be the computer that i'm going to use till the end of college, for everything, gaming, experimenting, programming, etc.  dual boot (XP Pro and 98 SE).  i've got a 250 GB Western Digital "Special Edition" hard drive (i.e. 8 MB Buffer). and i'm going to be running it with a 120 GB drive, which i just bought on Ebay a few minutes ago... so i've got storage set out of the way. case i've already bought, it's a best, 6 5.25" bays, and 8 3.5" bays (2 external, 6 internal), like 8 fans, dual 400W power supplies.

52x24x52x cd burner (just bought today on Ebay)

now the next thing on my list is motherboard, processor, and RAM.  i already know what board i'm getting, the Asus A7V8X-X, processor i already have (not in my possession, but paid for), same with RAM.  only big thing now is video card, but i'll only buy one in like 2 weeks, cause i've got to save up first, and with the end of the month coming i've got insurance, etc. to pay for.  like i said though, something that's top of the line i don't want, because if i'm going to have to pay $100 more for a card that's only slightly better than, say, one that's a few weeks/months old, i'd rather go for the older one.  i'm not doing professional video editing or HARDCORE gaming...  thanks for the help so far Grey Wolf and others, keep it coming

[Admiral LSD]

Get an nForce2 motherboard, it's the best chipset the 32 bit Athlon platform has ever seen. Even if you don't use the onboard LAN and sound (and there's no reason why you shouldn't, it's better than a lot of what's out there, both on and off board) it still generally outperforms any of the **** Via put out. The board I have, the EPoX 8RDA+, remains one of the best value for money boards I've seen but if you're determined to spend your money with Asus then you should get the A7N8X Deluxe Rev. 2.0. It's more expensive and doesn't offer much above the 8RDA+ but it's the best nForce2 board in the Asus stable.

[Beowulf]

9800 All-In-Wonder Pro.

[Grey Wolf]

Out of his price range.

[Setekh]

Hey, I'm gonna upgrade soon too. Should I completely boycott nVidia, or what?

[Gloriano]

ATI is beating Nvidea so Radeon is better choice

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by Setekh
Hey, I'm gonna upgrade soon too. Should I completely boycott nVidia, or what?

Only if you intend on buying a Pentium 4

[Setekh]

That's the other thing. I've really been fond of AMD and I'd like certainly love to get an Athlon, but I haven't been keeping up on how the two chip giants are stacking up against each other in terms of performance in various areas.

[magatsu1]

I seem to remember there being display issues with either direct3d or OGL (or both) when it comes to TV Outs.

Is that right ?
or was it just with earlier cards ?

[DragonClaw]

Originally posted by Setekh
That's the other thing. I've really been fond of AMD and I'd like certainly love to get an Athlon, but I haven't been keeping up on how the two chip giants are stacking up against each other in terms of performance in various areas.

Well as it is, they are still competiting extremely well, between Athlon's 64 bit FX processor, and Pentium's P4 Extreme Edition. Technically the P4 should outperform the Athlon in games(the P4 has higher benchmarks in other things, but not by much mind you), but since most games out there prefer the Athlon architecture, the Athlon FX actually runs games like Quake 3 and UT2003 better.

These are just the highest end processors out to date btw.

I actually favor Athlon better, their processors are always cheaper than the Pentium equivelents, and since games like their architecture better I tend to go with them.

[Admiral LSD]

The whole value for money thing has been turned upside down with the release of the 'C' class 800Mhz FSB P4s though. Since they start at 3.2Ghz and are just underclocked to provide the lower speeds they'll all overclock to at least 3.0Ghz without breaking a sweat (just wind the FSB up to at least 250Mhz and set the memory divider to 5:4 and your set, no voltage adjustments, no extra cooling, nothing) making the 2.4 and 2.6Ghz parts the best value for money CPUs since the Celeron 300A.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by DragonClaw


Well as it is, they are still competiting extremely well, between Athlon's 64 bit FX processor, and Pentium's P4 Extreme Edition. B]

yeah but as far as I know there still hasn't been an OS released that utilizes the AMD 64 processors, so you'll just end up buying a $700.00 processor for nothing :-/  .

The same thing happened with the release of the Pentium IV months before the release of WindowsXP... remember?


anyhow, any more ideas?

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Admiral LSD
Get an nForce2 motherboard, it's the best chipset the 32 bit Athlon platform has ever seen. Even if you don't use the onboard LAN and sound (and there's no reason why you shouldn't, it's better than a lot of what's out there, both on and off board) it still generally outperforms any of the **** Via put out. The board I have, the EPoX 8RDA+, remains one of the best value for money boards I've seen but if you're determined to spend your money with Asus then you should get the A7N8X Deluxe Rev. 2.0. It's more expensive and doesn't offer much above the 8RDA+ but it's the best nForce2 board in the Asus stable.

Yeah i was planning on using the onboard LAN and sound temporarily (until i get money to get a better setup anyway ) so what exact nForce 2 board do you recommend?  i've checked out the A7n8x, still looking at it though

what do you think of this board? : http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3442838070&category=42013
haven't heard much about its reputation, but its features seem good enough.

if there's other boards that have as good or better reputation as the A7V8X-X then i'm willing to look at them, but i don't want to spend too much, because, well, you know money's the main thing

EDIT:  I think i'm going to buy the A7N8X... i don't really see a big difference between it and the A7V8X-X though, but it looks good...

[Stealth]

OK i'm getting one of these two cards:





i'm leaning towards the second one.