New graphics card advice

[Paul H]

My Current system:
P4 1.6
512MB ram
Asus P4B533 (AGP 4x slot)
GeForce MX4400 64MB

I have about £150 to spend

The best "new" card within my budget, seems to be the Nvidia 6600GT. But I
can not find an AGP version in the UK yet. Also this card will be AGP 8x,
will that still fit in my 4x slot?

The alternative seems to be and ATi 9800XT or 9800 Pro - which of these is
best?

I am upgrading so I can run Doom3 and Half Life 2 on higher settings.

Any advice much appreciated.

Paul

 

[JK]

Doom 3 requires a powerful cpu to run well. Even with the best video card,
a P4 1.6 ghz probably won't run Doom 3 very well. I suggest that you upgrade
to an Athlon 64 processor before getting a new video card.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=7

 

[John]

My Current system:
P4 1.6
512MB ram
Asus P4B533 (AGP 4x slot)
GeForce MX4400 64MB

I am upgrading so I can run Doom3 and Half Life 2 on higher settings.

Well obviously the 9800XT is better than the Pro. But Ive seen some
tests on the X800 ATI top of the line cards and they came out
surprisingly well on the HalfLife2 tests besting the NVDIA card.
Not by a huge margin but since they seemed to lag in DOOM they dont
seem as bad now. I remember there was big hype about how HL2 worked
with ATI better so people were ready to buy ATI especially since the
9800 pro/xt was the hot card but then DOOM came out first and it
worked much better with the NVIDIA which turned many people off the
ATI.

 

[Grinder]

Doom 3 requires a powerful cpu to run well. Even with the best video card,
a P4 1.6 ghz probably won't run Doom 3 very well. I suggest that you upgrade
to an Athlon 64 processor before getting a new video card.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=7

I'm running Doom 3 with default settings. My system as a P4 1.6Ghz and
an Radeon 9600XT.

 

[John Smithe]

I have about £150 to spend

The best "new" card within my budget, seems to be the Nvidia 6600GT.
But I can not find an AGP version in the UK yet. Also this card will
be AGP 8x, will that still fit in my 4x slot?

Probably, but you should check the spec's for whatever card you purchase.
Spec's will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Also check your mobo's
spec's just to be sure. Take a look at:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/PDF/321018.pdf

for spec's on the XFX 660GT AGP card. I believe that the 6600GT AGP is
performing a little better than the 9800Pro in various reviews. Check the
internet for reviews of the 6600GT AGP. Try:

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=1
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjkyLDE=
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1727954,00.asp

Good Luck

 

[John]

My Current system:
P4 1.6
512MB ram
Asus P4B533 (AGP 4x slot)
GeForce MX4400 64MB

I have about £150 to spend

The best "new" card within my budget, seems to be the Nvidia 6600GT. But I
can not find an AGP version in the UK yet. Also this card will be AGP 8x,
will that still fit in my 4x slot?

The alternative seems to be and ATi 9800XT or 9800 Pro - which of these is
best?

I am upgrading so I can run Doom3 and Half Life 2 on higher settings.

Any advice much appreciated.

Paul

The 9800XT is still very decent , Ive got the 9800.

But if you spend a bit more you can get the
6800GT 128 megs - this is blazingly fast. A neighbor bought the 256
meg version. Right now I dont think it makes that much of a difference
- the memory.

Or if you cant spend then much - look at the standard 6800 128 meg
it uses 12 pipes instead 16 I think and its a bit slower but still
blazingly fast and well reviewed by several sites. Where it falls down
is if you have everything on (effects) and set it to the highest res
1600x1200 it starts lagging a fair amount vs the 6800GT and Ultra
cause it has less pipes etc. But you can still play it at fairly high
res and keep the framerates up quite high.

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/components/graphicscards/productView.htm?quicklinx=39TP
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002JC2SW/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/026-2281705-2567634

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/components/graphicscards/productView.htm?quicklinx=37XH


http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/149/