For newbs choosing a new GPU it comes down to these basic things:

Spuk0 · *Last edited by osama1234; 02-06-2004 at 02:15.*

With so many questions about which card to get maybe this will enlighten some folks. I thought about writing a thorough guide on this with terminology and such but haven't got to it yet.

1. Budget: If you don't have one then its not a problem either way eh?

2. GPU-Bottleneck, you have a high end system like some but don't have a card to run with it. You're certain its the weakest link.

3. System-Bottleneck, make sure you upgrade all your weakest links first. If you're smart and upgrade a little each year then its all good. But if your running some SDRAM and a 2x AGP Mobo that's slowing you down, 5900Ultra isn't going to solve all your problems.

3. Do not buy a card in anticipation for future games, which is really dumb. 5900-Ultra owners and Doom3/HalfLife 2 wannabes, they've owned them for months now and the games still haven't come out yet. Wait for reviews first.

4. Those of us that are bargain shoppers, happen to see a $20-30 rebate on something and go ahead and grab it when the price is right.

5. Determining the # of FPS that satisfies YOU!. You may not even want 60-100fps. It may not make any difference to you. As long as I can play the game in what details and resolution "I WANT" and it runs smooth without any pausing or slowness I could care less if it was running 25fps.

6. Auxillary features such as upgrading to get VIVO, software and games.

7. Upgrading for principal features like DX9 support which I had fell into this trap early in the year also, I admit was silly. Paid ~$80 for my 5200 early summer and have yet to play full DX9 game yet, or good drivers to support it. But there really isn't any excuse for this either so I temporarily blame Nvidia for the setback.

If you are confused about the whole model listing for ATI or Nvidia here is an url giving a brief description in order.
http://www.nordichardware.com/article/2003/Names/

Here is another link http://www.d-silence.com/feature.php?id=236

Here is a review comparing 80 video cards together just to give you an idea of performance.
http://216.239.37.104/translate_c?hl...003/index.html

Ultraq · 10-07-2003, 07:20 | posts: 848 | Location: New Zealand

Amen.

*bump*

RagDoll_Effect · 10-07-2003, 08:06 | posts: 3,923 | Location: Australia

Well done spuk0, great post

Mr.Bigtime · 10-07-2003, 10:54 | posts: 16,730 | Location: Turkey

yes these words explain it all

Spuk0 · 10-07-2003, 17:31 | posts: 1,819 | Location: Ohio, USA

WOW! Never thought that post would make a sticky. Anyways I'll polish the post some more later. Makes me want to finnish up the technical guide I started.

MizuChi · 10-18-2003, 05:23 | posts: 957 | Location: Japan

go Spuk0 go!

10-24-2003, 06:36 | posts: n/a

Yep. I can testify to that. The 5900 was overkill for everything Ive played on it thus far. Simply too much power.

On another note, Ive been talking to a fellow that modifies ATi cards into monsters. I'll post a link to his stuff later when I can find it, but he used to work for ATi's R&D dept for 8 years, and still talks to people over there. According to him, you can overclock a 9800 pro to within 5% of the r420's projected spec of operation. This both shocks and disappoints me. Its shocking that such power can be achived with the right cooling - yet cooling is whats usually skimped on, except for nVidia's behemoth coolers as of late. Also, its disappointing to hear that the new technology wont be leaps and bounds faster than whats here today.

Anyway, good read spuk0 - Ill remember this is here and link n00bs to it when they post something like, "should I get a 'xxx' or a 'yyy'?"

I posted a similar thread that was sticky'd in the detonator forum. A thread on how to properly uninstall catalysts/detonators. So when n00bs complain about stupid driver-related problems, they can be linked to the sticky similarly. Its also a good thorough read. Check it out.

pedropaulo · 11-13-2003, 22:29 | posts: 1,984 | Location: Portugal!

great post.

amakusashiro · 11-19-2003, 18:14 | posts: 354 | Location: Arkansas

This is why I love Best Buy,even though a tad more expensive then Ebay,or Pricewatch,you have complete freedom to try a card out,see if it meets your needs,and take it back and get a full refund,if it doesnt.Its a great way to try out many cards,even if they look at you funny when bringing them back one after another,you get to play stupid and claim,it had a conflict with my BX chipset,or my agp slot is 2x,and has problems.Most of the customer support at Best Buy doesnt give a crap,they dont have time to interrogate you,so you get your refund,and get to do this over and over again.mind you at least give a weeks time before taking the card back to choose another one.Dont do 5 cards in a week,that would cause problems.
I did this originally with a 9600 Pro.I was happy with its test scores,but it crashed a few games,not many,like maybe 3.NOLF2,Battle Engine Aquila,V Rally2,and another one.And there was aproblem with the newer driver causing 3D Mark 2000 to crash in 32-bit mode.It was odd because the older drivers,3.2 I think,didnt have this problem. I took the card back,got a PNY fx5600 Ultra,supposed to be 128 meg card,but posted as being 64 meg,even in Windows,it wasa flashing of the bios screw up I guess,PNY's faulght.I called them,but it took them too long to get back to me,I replaced the PNY version with a BFG Asylum FX5600 Ultra.The card cleanly rocked in alot of games,but the fog bug in open gl drove me nutts,and some games did run slower,like Aquanox 2,and GTA Vice City,State of Emergency,and a few others,not way slower,but noticable enough.I kept the card for a few days,but just wasnt blown away by it.So I took it back,rested back into a Radeon 9600 Pro,and said to hell with the 4 games that didnt run right.Why you ask??????? NOLF2 is a great game,but I have over 140 games,most run better on the 9600 Pro.It was shear numbers people.i wanted most of my games to run top notch.
But I feel if your very into compatabilty,with everything,Nvidia is the way to go.But if your into higher performance,AtI is it,you just have to make sacrafices here and there on a few games I think,very few,but still a few.Even the 8500 is still a great card,and the 9200 Pro.
On a side note,NOLF2 runs fine on a Radeon 8500,as does Battle Engine Aquila.I used to use a 8500,had no problems there.

amakusashiro · 11-19-2003, 18:22 | posts: 354 | Location: Arkansas

The Geforce 3 TI200 is also a great card,very overclockable,and gives great framerates for the price.I stuck mine in my girlfriends kids computer I built them,only after finally settleing down on the 9600 Pro. I did for a week there try out a FX5200 non-ultra.I can easily say its in someones best interest to avoid this card,hit ebay,and buy a GF3 of any kind before dishing out hard earned money on that FX5200 crap.The Gf3,even the higher TI500,can be had on ebay for a price comparable to the 5200,most of the time,at the same price,or lower.

12-01-2003, 16:00 | posts: n/a

w00t ?

12-04-2003, 19:44 | posts: n/a

Good! but it is a begining...

PvtGump · 12-18-2003, 19:56 | posts: 24

Being the vid card newb that i am this post helped me make up my mind. I think i will stay with my ti4400. But i still might get the 5900nu from newegg.com for around 200 to $225.

**WOW -** 12-19-2003, 09:07 | posts: n/a

Ive been into pc builing big time for a couple of years now built my own machine and ive read lots and lots of rubbish in various forums about Graphics cards usually with the same story about you must have a ati 9800 xe 256 mb or 5900ultra if youre into games. I only upgraded to a fx 5600 a few months ago before that had a mx 440, i only ever play at 1024 X 768 and the 5600
is more then enough for me.
Congrats on a excellent sensible post

**take a look at this -** 12-19-2003, 13:41 | posts: n/a

DELETED BY MODERATOR

Bloodstrike · 12-31-2003, 23:46 | posts: 37 | Location: Netherlands

People must also consider that when they have a 17-19inch TFT screen they are forced to play at the resolution 1280x1024. Watchin games with lower resolution on TFT 1280x1024 looks horrible. So in this case you need a card which is fast enough to play games at high detail and at res. 1280x1024.

I've ordered a Samsung 192T (TFT), but I've also got a small 15inch crt to play games at lower res.

exerier · 01-21-2004, 14:29 | posts: 99 | Location: Finland

Gotta say my GAINWARDS GF 4 TI 4200 128 DDR overclocked to 4600 is well enuf for me

loop29 · *Last edited by loop29; 01-27-2004 at 19:34.*

That´s it, well done. Graphics industry will always tempt you to buy the latest and greatest for your Entertainment needs. Wait a year and see what your 500 $ card is worth then. If you can sell it over ebay for half the price you once invested you´re a lucky user. Don´t let them fool you in that marketing carousel !

I forgot, it gets more worse if you´re looking at so called "professional video cards", there is hardly anything new available besides PS and VS which are available for gaming cards too. So why are those Quadro and Fire cards so darn expensive, they still only feature traditional functionality that was available 3 or 2 years ago, that´s embarassing.

regards