What card is a good buy for the money ?

[Brad]

I have an ATI 32 meg radeon AIW.

Games run fine most of the time, but now some annoyances arise. Such as
playing day of defeat, at longer distances, I cant see the building too
clearly or the enemies shooting from the windows in them so i have to change
my tactics to closer quarters. I dont know if thats just the wrong setting
or if its the cards limits.

If anybody has any quick fixes for that kind of thing, i would be greatly
appreciative

My next query is, if it is the cards limits then its probably time to get
something new. I like playing the games and beleive in getting the higher
end card so im not udgrading again in 6 month. I see theres 9200, 9500,
9600, 9800 models and their sometimes pro or non-pro and sappire or XT or
all sorts of stuff.

Is there any website that may list the comparisons so I can understand whats
the best for me ?( and reseaonable price) On ati's site it has the millions
of super-pixels and fling flangs and dips and loops listed per card and all
the other stuff that means abosultely nothing to me.

Im hoping for a comparison in english that i can understand
Any input is a terrific help

 

[Paul Grunwald]

Is there any website that may list the comparisons so I can understand
whats the best for me ?( and reseaonable price) On ati's site it has
the millions of super-pixels and fling flangs and dips and loops
listed per card and all the other stuff that means abosultely nothing
to me.

There are some great review sites out there - try google for specifics.

I have found a lot of good information at:

http://www.tomshardware.com/
http://www.anandtech.com
http://www.hardocp.com/
http://www.guru3d.com/

These should get you started.

P.

 

[Magwheelz]

Im hoping for a comparison in english that i can understand
Any input is a terrific help

http://www.ixbt-labs.com/articles2/radeon/sapphire-4.html

Gotta go,
Magwheelz

 

[Tod]

ATI 8500, 8500LE and 9100 are the same GPU chip (direct X 8.1)
(8500LE and 9100 are slightly slow GPUs)
9000 and 9200 is a slightly stripped down version of that GPU chip.

I'm the proud owner of an Sapphire ATI 9100 128MB, about $75 at
www.pricewatch.com

Current good bag for the buck is the ATI 9600 SE (direct X 9.0) $90 on
pricewatch
Better performance is the ATI 9600 Pro at $135

 

[Judge]

beware anything ATI powered. Unless you like incompatible, unsupported
headaches galore. Yes, ATI's rock the gaming world - but they have a
loooooooooong way to go in the desktop world. (read that, 90% of your
typical PC usage)

save your money and buy an nvidia powered card sometime in the spring
or summer when we see what Doom3 is going to look like and require.

 

[Leadfoot]

This site goes from slowest to fastest chipset by MANUFACTURER i.e slowest
to fastest ATI then slowest to fastest nVidia etc, etc,.

http://tinyurl.com/ypwc

Really helps eliminate a lot of confusion

 

[J.Clarke]

beware anything ATI powered. Unless you like incompatible, unsupported
headaches galore. Yes, ATI's rock the gaming world - but they have a
loooooooooong way to go in the desktop world. (read that, 90% of your
typical PC usage)

save your money and buy an nvidia powered card sometime in the spring
or summer when we see what Doom3 is going to look like and require.

beware anything nvidia powered. Unless you like incompatible,
unsupported headaches galore. Yes, nvidia's rock the gaming world - but
they have a loooooooooong way to go in the desktop world. (read that,
90% of your typical PC usage)

save your money and buy an ATI powered card sometime in the
spring or summer when we see what Doom3 is going to look like and
require. --

See how easy it is to make unsupported assertions?

But I do find the "desktop world" comment to be amusing--nvidia has
_never_ produced a product that was superior to ATI's in the kind of
performance needed in "the desktop world", where any board made in the
past ten years or so has far more speed than is needed and sharpness and
color fidelity count for more. But in that world Matrox still rules.

 

[Strontium]

You're still and idiot that can't even configure hardware.
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH yeah! blame your IGNORANCE on ATI...what a
****ing moron.


-
Judge stood up at show-n-tell, in
(e-mail address removed), and said:

 

[Paul Moloney]

This site goes from slowest to fastest chipset by MANUFACTURER i.e slowest
to fastest ATI then slowest to fastest nVidia etc, etc,.

http://tinyurl.com/ypwc

Really helps eliminate a lot of confusion

That's an interesting site.. for those of us interested in
comparing the Theoretical Peak Performance statistics but
not games programming whizzes, could anyone give a
layman definition of the following:

* Vertex throughput (Mverts/sec)
* Single texel fill rate (Mtexels/sec)
* Memory bandwidth (GB/sec)

I noticed there's no linear progression between these
stats, so wondered which was the most important; for example,
my GeForce 2 Ti has the following:

* 31
* 1000
* 6.40

while the GeForce 4 Ti4200 has the following:

* 113
* 1000
* 7.10

Does the fact that two out of three of these figures are
comparable means that my card is comparable to the above, or
does the vertex throughput matter a lot more? Some cards
have a 1:10 ratio between the v.t. and the s.t.f.r, while others
have anything up to a 1:30 ratio - what affect does this have?

Thanks,

P.

 

[Kevin Miller]

I have an ATI 32 meg radeon AIW.

Games run fine most of the time, but now some annoyances arise. Such as
playing day of defeat, at longer distances, I cant see the building too
clearly or the enemies shooting from the windows in them so i have to change
my tactics to closer quarters. I dont know if thats just the wrong setting
or if its the cards limits.

If anybody has any quick fixes for that kind of thing, i would be greatly
appreciative

My next query is, if it is the cards limits then its probably time to get
something new. I like playing the games and beleive in getting the higher
end card so im not udgrading again in 6 month. I see theres 9200, 9500,
9600, 9800 models and their sometimes pro or non-pro and sappire or XT or
all sorts of stuff.

Is there any website that may list the comparisons so I can understand whats
the best for me ?( and reseaonable price) On ati's site it has the millions
of super-pixels and fling flangs and dips and loops listed per card and all
the other stuff that means abosultely nothing to me.

Im hoping for a comparison in english that i can understand
Any input is a terrific help

The ATI 9800XT.

Oh, I'm sorry -- I thought you wanted a card that says goodBYE to your
money!

I just bought one anyway.

Kevin Miller

"The avalanche has already started;
it is too late for the pebbles to vote."

 

[Magwheelz]

You can get 9600 pros on eBay for under 100.
good card and easy on your wallet.

Gotta go,
Magwheelz

 

[jejj]

You can get 9600 pros on eBay for under 100.
good card and easy on your wallet.

no.

9600 pros go for more like for $140-$150 on Ebay.

9600 XTs go for like $180+.

The 9600 NonPros and 9600 SEs are the ones that go for under $100.