GFX card buyer desicion maker Before you buy anything, ask yourself some questions: 1) Do I need a new card? Is it necessary? 2) Any other more easy ways to get the performance I need? Like overclocking or upgrading mobo+cpu instead. 3) How much more performance do I need? 4) How much am I willing to spend? 5) What will I be doing with the card? Gaming?Or just surfing the net? 6)PCIexpress vs. AGP 7)Dual core vs. single core CPU 8)SLI and Crossfire 9)Influence of cache memory in game 1)Mostly if you into gaming,you need to upgrade if you already have a slow gfx card like GeF2,and want to play DX9 games like FarCry,you need at least 9600,but a 6600GT is better And also you need at least 2GHz CPU if you want to bring justice to both game and the gfx card. To buy a new gfx card,you should look your hardware first,if you have Celeron 500MHz and wanna buy a R9800 for example is only waste of money and you better shell that money on a new CPU+MoBo. 2)If you got at least 9600/5600 and want to upgrade,I suggest wait for new card (X1600XT,6800GS) 3a)Before you buy anything,look at this com config and you know what is the bottleneck: Suggested Com configuration(Entry-Level for a bit gaming) P4/Sempron 1.8GHz/2800+or faster 256KB L2 Cache or more 512MB or more ram 7200rpm ATA100 HDD at least Suitable cards PCIe setup: Radeon X300/X550 Geforce 6200 AGP Radeon 9600 GeForce 6200 Suggested Com configuration(Mainstream for gamers on a budget) Athlon 64 3000+ P4 2.8GHz or faster 512KB L2 Cache 512kB recommended 1GB of RAM 7200rpm ATA100 HDD Suitable Cards PCIe: Radeon X800GT/(or wait for X1600XT,6800GS) GeForce 6600GT/6600NU/LE(both good) AGP Radeon X700 GeForce 6600GT/6600NU/LE(best) Suggested Com configuration(High-end for gamers) Athlon 64 3200+/ P4 3.2GHz or faster 512KB L2 Cache or more 1GB or more ram 7200rpm ATA100/SATA150 HDD Suitable cards 6600/6600GT(best budget) X700Pro/XT(best budget) X800GT or 6800NU/LE X800Pro/XT or 6800GT/Ultra(maybe little CPU limited) For PCIe: X800XL/GF 6800GT/X1600XL/6800GS Suggest Com Configuration(Ultra high end for rich one...) Athlon 64 4000+/Athlon FX-55/FX57/P4 3.73 EE(I recommend Athlon FX bcoz superior game performance) 1024KB cache 2GB RAM 10000rpm ATA150 RAID Suitable cards 7800GTX(ultimate card) X1800XL/XT GeForce 6800/Ultra Radeon X800Pro/XT Radeon 9800XT/Pro For PCIe: GF 7800GTX/6600GT/6800GT/6800Ultra SLI 3b)Speed chart for most recent AGP cards(Overall Performance) GF 7800GTX SLI RadeonX850XT Crossfire GF 6800Ultra SLI GF 7800GTX/Radeon X1800XT GF 6800GT SLI/Radeon X1800XL RadeonX850XT-PE/GF 6600GT SLI GF 6800Ultra/X800XT-PE Radeon X800XT GF 6800GT/X800Pro/X800XL GF 6800NU/X800 GF 6800LEGF 6600GT/X800GT X700Pro ATI Radeon9800XT/GF FX5950 Ultra ATI Radeon9800Pro/GF FX5900 series ATI Radeon9800np/ATI Radeon9700Pro 6600LE/X700np ATI Radeon9700np Radeon9600XT/FX5700Ultra Radeon9800SE 256-bit GF FX5700nu GF FX5600 Ultra Radeon9600Pro GF FX5600 Radeon9600np GF4 Ti4600 GF4 Ti4400/GF4 Ti4800SE GF4 Ti4200/8X GF FX5200 Ultra Radeon8500/Matrox Pahelia Radeon8500LE/Radeon9000Pro/Radeon9200Pro Radeon9000/Radeon9200/GF FX5200/GF4 MX440-8X 4)Budget-based gfx buyer: Best Low End Budget Card:<$200 GeForce 6200 TC Radeon X300 HyperMemory Best Upper End Budget Card: GeForce 6200 128-bit Radeon X550 128-bit Best Lower Mid Range Card GeForce 6600 Radeon X700 4)Best Upper Mid Range Card 6600GT x800GT(wait for X1600XT or 6800GS) Best Mid-High-end Card GeForce 6800GT/Ultra,Radeon X800XT-PE/XT/PRO 6600GT/6800GT/Ultra 7800GT Ultimate Gaming Card GeForce 6800GT/Ultra,Radeon X850XT-PE/XT/PRO Radeon X1800XL/X1800XT 7800GTX/7800GT/6600GT/6800GT/Ultra in SLI mode(PCIe only) Recent Card DirectX Support: GF3 Series -> DX8.0 GF4Ti Series ->DX8.0 GF4MX Series ->Exceeds DX7 requirement Matrox Parhelia/P750/P650/Radeon8500 -> DX8.1 Radeon9000/9100/9200 -> DX8.1 FX5200/5600/5700/Radeon9500/9600/9700/FX5900/5950 -> DX9 Radeon9800/Radeon9800XT ->Better DX9 performance GeForce 6800LE/NU/GT/Ultra/7800GTX/GT -> DX 9.0c Radeon X800/XL/SE/XT/XT-PE/PRO ->DX 9.0b Radeon X1300/X1600Pro/XT/X1800XT/XL -> DX 9.0c 5)If you are only surfing the internet,a low-cost gfx card is good enough like FX5200 or MX-440.Dont use integrated gfx because it use system ram 6)With latest 7800GTX only out in PCIe platform,you should upgrade to PCIe if you have the money and want fastest gaming performance(especially SLI and Crossfire) and future proof 7)No games is multithread for now,so buying dual core CPU purely for gaming is worthless for at least 24month 8)SLI stand for Scalable Link Interface,use by nVidia for its dual card to boost performance and only available in nForce 4 SLI mobo for now.Supporting card include 6600GT 6800/GT/Ultra and 7800GTX,need to buy same card e.g 6600GT and 6600GT to enable SLI and the exact same brand.While Crossfire is ATi answer for SLI.Only avail in ATI Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition chipset for now.Supproting card is X800/X850/PRO/XT/XT-PE,need to buy a master card to enable Crossfire 9)Cache memory did influence heavily in games especially for NetBurst architecture,it needs at least 512kB L2 cache bcoz didnt have any exclusive L1 cache and its the major storage space for this architecture unlike K8 architecture (Athlon64)which have 128kB L1 exclusive cache and on-die memory controller which reduces latency and faster performance than Intel counterparts
Nice post najmi....lots of info there for people with questions about when, why and how much to upgrade. I'm sure some people would differ with some of your information, but generally its a good source of info for people who don't know alot, and are considering upgrading. (probably make a good 'sticky'....)
Dude, we dont need your input atm. Best, to reply directly to poeple that need help on hardware advice.
So what should I get for this system? I'ld be gaming with DirectX 9.0B and open GL as well as direct Draw. heh I know the latter 2 APIs are ancient but still very usefull. Note: Current system specs are on the right. Note: I can't do Mother Board or CPU Upgrades But I can upgrade the Ram, Video Card, and sound card.
Good work Najmi, your making the place a more efficient forum, saves people asking a million questions in-order to get the same answer as we give to all the others. Captian, put another 256MB of RAM in and put something no lower than a 9600np/5700 in.
very helpful I have just registered with guru site, i was trying to get info on graphics cards and found you info very helpful Thanks
i dont mean to offend but you write a guide to buying graphic cards yet you have a GF4 MX card in your system, notoriously the worst cards ever. Bizarre...
FYI b4 this I already have a GeForce 4 Ti4200, Radeon 9000, Radeon 9600ProEZ,Radeon 9600XT 2.8ns FX5200, FX5700, and Radeon 9600XT 2.5ns Some of it destroyed during Voltmod and the rest of it I sell already.
Please man, 9500Pro vs. 5600Ultra 9500 wins bcoz of its 8 pipeline while 9500np vs. 5600nu 9500np wins bcoz most of it have 256-bit and even 128-bit are faster.
Please dont take this the wrong way but could some with thier native language as English re-write that. I cant stand people using inproper language to that extent. bcoz itz annoyin
LOL im jus still shocked how close a 5200 ultra comes to a 5600 its amazing how bad they messed up the fx line... i think i have a semi 5200 ultra lol 320/475 does this beat a 5500? i belive so