budget video card recomendations

Post by **horton** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:58 am

i need a video card for a cheap PC (athlon 2000 - 512mb)

this is gonna be done on a totally tight budget, i looked in a shop yesterday and saw the following.

ASUS GF FX5200 V9520 128mb $47
GIGABYTE Radeon 9550 GV r955128D 128mb $68
GIGABYTE GF6200 GV N621128DP2 128mb $65
LEADTEK G6200 winfast A6200 128mb $67
GIGABYTE Radeon 9600Pro 256mb $86
Aopen GF FX5200 Aeolus FX5200 128mb $50

I certainly dont want to spend any more than that, this is not intended to be anywhere near a decent gaming PC. just something thats better than my onboard video for games.

well? what do i go and buy?

Post by **bitWISE** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:04 am

IMO a 6200 is the best bet

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/02/08/ ... age12.html

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=264

Post by **Turbine** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:09 am

Get,

XFX GEFORCE 7600GS EXTREME 256MB 256BIT DDR2 DUAL DVI (PVT73PUDS3)

this is a pretty decent card
Ultrasilent Cooling (Passive Thermal Solution)
Core Clock rate: 500 MHz, Memory Clock: 900 MHz, Chipset:7600 GS, Memory: 256 MB, Memory Type:DDR2, Memory Bus:128bit

Post by **horton** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:23 am

Turbine wrote:Get,

XFX GEFORCE 7600GS EXTREME 256MB 256BIT DDR2 DUAL DVI (PVT73PUDS3)

this is a pretty decent card
Ultrasilent Cooling (Passive Thermal Solution)
Core Clock rate: 500 MHz, Memory Clock: 900 MHz, Chipset:7600 GS, Memory: 256 MB, Memory Type:DDR2, Memory Bus:128bit

it sounds expensive.
Im trying to build something totally budget.

how much do they cost?

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:34 am

7900 GTX 512

Post by **horton** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:13 am

after comparing some scores on 3dmark, the 9600pro seems to get about 2000 more points on 3Dmark2001..... i know its an ancient card but, any reason why a decent old card wouldnt be better than a new budget card?

Post by **horton** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:14 am

infact the new budget cards dont seem to be getting scores as high as my old GF4 4600..am I overlooking something, or is the 9600pro gonna be the best cheap replacement for my dead GF4 ?

Post by **JooKed** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:24 am

I enjoyed having the 9600 pro as a video card. I techinically rented it for about 15 hours, or at least untill my small 2 computer gaming lan was finished. The 9600 performed very well on most or all my games. I was expecting the card to perform like total crap on Doom 3 and BF2. The games played between 20-35 fps on low-medium graphics. Doom 3 co-op is so much fun with virtually no ping, and same goes with the new bf2 co-op mod introduced into their recent patch. The computer hooked up with the Radeon 96 had an AMD 2700, 512pc2700, 120gb 7200rpm.

Edit: I dont even think the 96 was a pro model. It didn't even have a fan on it, just a heatsink. Possibly the Se model? You know.. the shitty version of the original 9600...

Another Edit: The 7600gs that someone mentioned above is pretty cheap. Its like $80 or something at circuit city. You must buy it for retial price (Idk, like 140?) and then you get a big rebate on it.

Post by **Turbine** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:08 am

horton wrote: it sounds expensive.
Im trying to build something totally budget.

how much do they cost?

XFX GEFORCE 7600GS EXTREME 256MB DUAL DVI

They run arround $100, $90 if you are lucky.
Not mutch more than that.

That is the card to buy for money/performance.
In my opinion.

Post by **c0ld** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:11 am

My 9600 all-in-wonder(I dunno wtf that meens or if it was a PRO.. it did have a fan though lol) died recently and I replaced with with a 9800SE that I got for free.
I tried looking around but I couldnt find any specs on this crappy card.. Not even ATI has the damn thing listed. Does anyone know where I can find specs on it?
Or what could be real handy, a site that not only reviews and shows the specs on many different cards over the years but lists their specs so that it is easy to compare my old 9600whatever to some of the newer cards.. Few sites I looked at seemed to always alternate their lingo or what specs they do and dont describe so it's very hard for me to see just how well they compare.

Post by **Tormentius** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:27 am

c0ld wrote: I tried looking around but I couldnt find any specs on this crappy card.. Not even ATI has the damn thing listed. Does anyone know where I can find specs on it?

Review including the 9800SE

Info on the 9800SE

More info

Post by **Grudge** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 1:49 pm

Don't buy a card that's already two generations old. Either get a nVidia 7xxx series or ATi 1xxxx series card.

Post by **Foo** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 2:14 pm

Disagree grudge. THe budget current-gen cards often suck massively in comparison to the mid or high end cards of one or two generations ago.

Why buy a shitty 'new' budget card when you could get something that will perform better for the same price? All you stand to miss out on are some newer DX features, but even those are mostly crippled on the budget offerings.

Post by **SOAPboy** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:20 pm

Foo wrote:Disagree grudge. THe budget current-gen cards often suck massively in comparison to the mid or high end cards of one or two generations ago.

Why buy a shitty 'new' budget card when you could get something that will perform better for the same price? All you stand to miss out on are some newer DX features, but even those are mostly crippled on the budget offerings.

I disagree foo.

Current mid range generally equal last gen high end.

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:30 pm

BUJ-IT

Post by **Tormentius** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:54 pm

SOAPboy wrote:
I disagree foo.

Current mid range generally equal last gen high end.

He was talking about budget cards and he's right. The low-end cards of the current generation are usually outdone by the mid to high range cards of the previous generation for often the same or less price.

Post by **Captain** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:57 pm

Turbine wrote:
horton wrote: it sounds expensive.
Im trying to build something totally budget.

how much do they cost?
XFX GEFORCE 7600GS EXTREME 256MB DUAL DVI

They run arround $100, $90 if you are lucky.
Not mutch more than that.

That is the card to buy for money/performance.
In my opinion.

AGP?

Meh, my next video card upgrade will come well after Vista and DX10

But damn MS for not releasing DX10 for XP :icon7:

Post by **axbaby** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 6:31 pm

my 3 year old agp 9800xt $800 at the time seems as fast as my new budget pciexpress geforce7300gs that i paid $90 yesterday in quake4.

Post by **prince1000** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 10:37 pm

u paid $800 for a video card??? jesus christ...

Post by **prince1000** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 10:40 pm

SOAPboy wrote:
Foo wrote:Disagree grudge. THe budget current-gen cards often suck massively in comparison to the mid or high end cards of one or two generations ago.

Why buy a shitty 'new' budget card when you could get something that will perform better for the same price? All you stand to miss out on are some newer DX features, but even those are mostly crippled on the budget offerings.
I disagree foo.

Current mid range generally equal last gen high end.

geforce 4 mx440 i had was barely better than a geforce 2 ti...

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 10:42 pm

beacuse it was using the Gf2 GPU....

Post by **prince1000** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 10:51 pm

i did not know that...