Which Graphics Card Do I Buy?

DY357LX

<div class="IPBDescription">It's (limited) Upgrade Time!</div>Seeing as my Radeon 9800 Pro is just BARELY coping with these fancy pance modern games
(oh Team Fortress 2 - how I love you - roll on the rest of The Orange Box!) I've decided to
treat myself to a new graphics card.

But... I'm limited to AGP cards due to the motherboard in need of an update too. (I'll sort
that out some other time.)

I've narrowed my choices down to:

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1950PRO 256MB GDDR3 AGP 8x
<a href="http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/ProductList.aspx?CategoryId=6.5&Link=BrowseSubCategory" target="_blank">http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/ProductL...owseSubCategory</a>

OR

EVGA GeForce 7800GS 256MB DDR AGP
<a href="http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/ProductDetail.aspx?StockCode=GRAEVGA7800GS&Link=SearchResults" target="_blank">http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/ProductD...k=SearchResults</a>

The ATI card looks better to me but I thought I'd ask you guys for input first.

Are there any other options for a high-end AGP cards? (I'm mainly playing Half-Life 2 mods, Portal,
World of Warcraft, that kinda thing.)
Am I going to get much of a performance boost compared to my old card? (Radeon 9800 Pro 128).

Thanks.

TychoCelchuuu

I heard the 9800 runs TF2 fine (not at high detail or anything but still easily playable). What kind of frame rates are you getting? What processor do you have? How much RAM?

DiscoZombie

I don't know much about AGP cards these days. all I know is that you get more performance for less price from PCI-E now. my best suggestion would be to hold out til you can afford a new PC and just upgrade all at once then - at least that's what I did. Wait until the actual techies come to this thread to give you better advice though ;p

schkorpio

depends on your cpu, if you have a slow cpu you might not see any benefit at all.

but the x1950 is almost twice as fast a 7800gs <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
The thing is though, you will still barely scrape through any new games - i doubt you'd get 6 months of upcoming games on either of those cards.
(of course you can start lowering details and resolutions, but it seems more like a good idea to save what money you have now and wait till you can afford a real upgrade)


I faced a similar dilemma a month, but i was lucky enough to sell my old pc for a decent price which payed for 1/2 of my new rig. And I'm really glad i just got a clean new box.

think about this too - the video card will be the most expensive part in a PC, is it worth spending so much on an old model? of course not. Especially considering you can get a pretty cheap mobo/cpu/ram that will in most cases be faster than what you have now (even the bottom of the line stuff). AMD are basically giving away their cpu's and mobo's, but it'll also let you upgrade your CPU at a later time if you feel the need.

Cause i'm guessing with an AGP slot motherboard your CPU slot will be an old style one, and the cpu will soon be a bottle neck too.

so i say wait, and go the full hog when you can <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />

DY357LX

My CPU is an Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.00 GHZ.
(My DxDiag and Device Manager don't give any more info than that.)


Thanks for the info guys. Hopefully I'll be starting a new job soon so I'll scrape
together the cash for a full new system.

schkorpio

<!--quoteo(post=1651842:date=Sep 25 2007, 11:45 AM:name=The_Necroscope)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(The_Necroscope @ Sep 25 2007, 11:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1651842"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My CPU is an Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.00 GHZ.
(My DxDiag and Device Manager don't give any more info than that.)
Thanks for the info guys. Hopefully I'll be starting a new job soon so I'll scrape
together the cash for a full new system.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

yeah p4 is probably comming to the end of its life too - even though its pretty fast @ 3ghz - a p4 at 3ghz is only about 1/4 as fast a core 2 duo at 3ghz.
Also a p4 uses heaps more electricity, getting brand new system will probably return you some of that cash in your electricty bill

Abra

My 7900 GT runs everything.

Kouji_San

<!--quoteo(post=1651829:date=Sep 25 2007, 02:57 AM:name=TychoCelchuuu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TychoCelchuuu @ Sep 25 2007, 02:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1651829"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I heard the 9800 runs TF2 fine (not at high detail or anything but still easily playable). What kind of frame rates are you getting? What processor do you have? How much RAM?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Even a Geforce 4 TI4400 can run TF2 smooth and from the screenshots I've posted in the TF2 thread you can see it aint all that bad <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />

TheTitan

Get the ATi car. I recently bought the 1950Pro 512 RAM - AGP, from <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161082" target="_blank">NewEgg with a $40 discount</a>. I had to buy it because I wanted to play BioShock and my Radeon 9800 Pro 256 RAM couldn't run it, because of the stupid Shaders 3.0 and nVidia providing some kickbacks to 2kgames to lock the hardware requerments.

Anyways, at first i bought the Radeon 2400Pro HD Overclocked to 700 MHz, but it just could not handle the game. So I returned it and bought the 1950. I did not go with nVidia, even though it is the "recommended brand", because I am an ATi brand follower. The game runs great and I am happy with the card.

The only issue with the card is that it is so damn long. I had to move one of my hard drives so I can fit in. <a href="http://gallery.titanfusion.net/v/bsi/100_1213.JPG.html" target="_blank">Picture here</a>.