PC video card

[reberto]

I need a good video card for my PC (Athlon XP 2700+ OC'd to 3200+ specs!). I will do heavy gaming (Doom 3, Quake 4, Battlefield 2 ect.). Here is the card I plan on buying.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814139173 . I have a budget of $140. Do any of you know of any better 256 meg cards? (128 is too little for me)

 

[cr2sh]

I need a good video card for my PC (Athlon XP 2700+ OC'd to 3200+ specs!). I will do heavy gaming (Doom 3, Quake 4, Battlefield 2 ect.). Here is the card I plan on buying.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814139173 . I have a budget of $140. Do any of you know of any better 256 meg cards? (128 is too little for me)

If you're going to buy a 6600... make sure you step up to the plate and get a GT.

I would suggest going with a refurb card from newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121178R

 

[me hate windows]

Not all 256 cards are better than 128s. I have a geforce 6600gt 128MB, and it is better than the geforce 6600 with 256 megs of ram. Clock frequencys, pixel pipelines, and other things all affect the performance. I would recommend checking out anandtech.com or tomshardware.com and reading their reviews on budget/mid line graphics cards. My 6600gt plays call of duty 2 at 1280 x 1024 with AA and textures up without any problems. FEAR doesnt do as well on higher settings, but it only cost me $170.

Edit: Dang you Cr2sh, you beat me to it. Yeah, go for a refurb 6600GT and overclock it. I bought the XFX brand, good stuff.

 

[mbl42]

Here's a good 128 card, even though that may be a little low for you.

 

[homerjward]

too lazy to find a link atm, but i'd pony up the extra cash for an x800. it's got 12 pipes as opposed to the 8 of a 6600gt and there's an appreciable real-world difference between my x800 and my friend's 6600gt (although he has a 3000+ as opposed to a 3500+ processor, and only 1gb of ram as opposed to 2).
any good x800 also has 256mb of memory

 

[Veritas&Equitas]

I will do heavy gaming (Doom 3, Quake 4, Battlefield 2 ect.).

No offense, but if you plan on doing "heavy gaming," you're not going to get by on your budget. If you plan on decent fps at BF2, or D3, your OCed cpu will be alright, barely, but probably alright. But if you get anything under a 6800 GT you'll be struggling. I've got the 7800 GTX, and it purrs along quite nicely , but it's anything but cheap. Also, keep in mind that 256 mbs on a gpu aren't always better than a good 128 mb card. Another thing that you will want to keep in mind is memory as well. Anything less than 1.5 gb with those games won't allow you to get the fps/benchmark scores you'd want for "heavy gaming." I've got 2 gbs of Corsair XMS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820145523, which I highly recommend. Although, if you only intend on shelling out $140 for a video card, good/a lot of memory is probably out of your budget. Again, if you want "heavy gaming," while getting good detail/fps, you're going to have to pony up more cash. Sorry

 

[mad jew]

While we're talking GPUs and VRAM, can someone help me out a little. I've been looking at the Dell site and on some pages they have a link from their Dimension's 128MB X300 saying that apparently it only actually has 32MB built onto the card. Does that sound right? If so, is that common practice because I always thought a 128MB card had 128MB onboard.

Sorry, I'd give a link but I can't get through to the Dell site right now for some reason. I found it in the information page about GPUs and which ones are better. I think it said pretty much the same thing about the 256MB X600. I'm not much of a gamer so I've never been massively interested in these things but I'd still like to know if it's true.

 

[reberto]

I forgot to add. I have a AGP 8x slot, not PCI-E. And I would need at least 256 V-ram due to Doom 3's engine being very demanding on that. Also, I know that core speed, ram speed, pipelines and all that crap are more critical that the ram but hay, I did not design a v-ram demanding engine!

 

[cr2sh]

I forgot to add. I have a AGP 8x slot, not PCI-E.

X800's are pricey in AGP form.. looking at the FPS from above... I really hink a 6600GT would be a fair card.

I know you say you need 256mb because Doom3 is so demanding of v-ram... but if you look at the benchmarks... the 128mb 6600GT gets better frame rates on doom3 then a LOT of 256mb cards.

 

[reberto]

X800's are pricey in AGP form.. looking at the FPS from above... I really hink a 6600GT would be a fair card.

I know you say you need 256mb because Doom3 is so demanding of v-ram... but if you look at the benchmarks... the 128mb 6600GT gets better frame rates on doom3 then a LOT of 256mb cards.

OR could I get the regular 6600 and OC' it to 6600GT specs?

 

[homerjward]

OR could I get the regular 6600 and OC' it to 6600GT specs?

the regular runs at 300 core/500mhz(ddr) memory
the gt runs at 500 core/900mhz (ddr) memory for agp, 1000mhz memory for pci-e

you could try, but you'd spend much more on cooling the 6600 than you would just spending a little extra for the gt.

 

[homerjward]

While we're talking GPUs and VRAM, can someone help me out a little. I've been looking at the Dell site and on some pages they have a link from their Dimension's 128MB X300 saying that apparently it only actually has 32MB built onto the card. Does that sound right? If so, is that common practice because I always thought a 128MB card had 128MB onboard.

Sorry, I'd give a link but I can't get through to the Dell site right now for some reason. I found it in the information page about GPUs and which ones are better. I think it said pretty much the same thing about the 256MB X600. I'm not much of a gamer so I've never been massively interested in these things but I'd still like to know if it's true.

the x300se with hypermemory has 32mb onboard and gets the rest from system memory, which it claims to accelerate somehow. it does have a faster memory clock (592mhz ddr) than the regular x300 but i don't know how it performs real-world in comparison.

 

[reberto]

What about this card? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161147

 

[mad jew]

the x300se with hypermemory has 32mb onboard and gets the rest from system memory, which it claims to accelerate somehow. it does have a faster memory clock (592mhz ddr) than the regular x300 but i don't know how it performs real-world in comparison.

Interesting. Thanks for that. I'm guessing this is solely a PC GPU phenomena then.

 

[reberto]

I am thinking of getting this one. Any thoughts on it? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814135186