Which budget Gfx Card help

[Ravens Nest]

Yep the 8 pipelines & 256 memory bus of the 9700 make the most difference.

Oh the XT, well it has "overdrive" which will enable automatic stable overclocking based on the reported temperature of the core (a gimmick more than a feature).

It has 500mhz core vs the 400mhz of the 9600 pro (which will allow for a pixel fillrate of upto 25% more than the 9600 pro).

Reduce power consumption, i think the 9600 pro & XT allow for the use of AI in the catalyst drivers (For increased speed) and Shadow volume rendering acceleration (For OpenGL based games i.e. Doom 3)

But the 9700 non pro is still faster

[CeeJay]

so would you say the 9700 is going to suit me better then? im not a heavy gamer but i dont want to buy it then have to upgrade in the near future, i want to be ok for the new games being released etc.
do you know anything about opening up another 4 pipes on the 9600xt? ive not read you can, only with a 9800 i think, but someone might know

[iranu]

just a thought

http://www.retekdirect.co.uk/acatalog/Video_Cards.html

I bought my 9700 pro from these guys 12 months ago for £160 performs faultlessly o/c'd @ 360/330 gives 3dmark03 of about 5300 with xp2800 if I can remember. Worth it for 60 quid.

I can run doom3, farcry etc at good res and fps.

[Ravens Nest]

Well if you looked at the vga card chart i gave the link to the 9700 has a 10-20 fps lead on the 9600 xt depending on the game.

The games are gettin a lot more complicated and the extra pipelines and bits are needed more and more as the higher the bits and pieplines the more information can be moved at one time.

To be honest to say you dont want to upgrade in the near future and you only want a budget card, im afraid that with PC's if you want something to last a long time you have to pay the premium i.e. not budget prices at least mid-range prices (not under £100 over £200-250) X800 pro or 6800 GT

If you cant afford that then the 9700pro that iranu has gave a link for is most definetly the best value for money you are going to get, games already struggle with my 9800 pro!!

The best you can hope for from a vidoecard under a hundred pound is a year or more out of it before upgrading again, what you can do is not be too picky about image quality and not try anti-aliasing too high or at all in some games and be happy with 1024x768 and sometimes 800x600.

But i would pick the 9700 np or pro (Get the pro) over the 9600 pro\XT any day.

It will last a lot longer, anyway the 9600 is only a little faster than a GF4ti4200 but it has Direct X 9 which will be needed for the latest games to run well, and had Anistrophic filtering for free (nearly) and Anti aliasing will run quite well on a few games.

[Ravens Nest]

As your not a heavy gamer, you can live with lower qraphics settings on some games, the only thing i wonder is what the rest of your PC is like??

As you need a good CPU, memory and motherboard to get the best out of your videocard.

[CeeJay]

a year wold be fine, thats about as long as ive had my last one for, so thats not a problem.
ok at the minute the rest of my pc is this,
xp2000
msi ktv4
1gb ddr2100

im looking at upgrading the cpu now too as this might be a little slow to keep up

[Ravens Nest]

I've got an XP2200 (FSB at 166) and 1GB DDR 2700 so our PC's are quite similiar so yeah a 9700pro will do nicely for your needs, and you should get another year out of it playing games at medium settings.

Perhaps you can put a barton in the motherboard or a mobile, depends on your BIOS and whether your motherboard supports it.

The speed of your memory will hold the CPU back a bit, im also not to sure whether there will be problems going with a faster CPU and using 2100 DDR, as that is rated for 133mhz and normally to get the best performance your CPU FSB and the DDR ram should be in sync as in your current PC FSB 133mhz DDR 133mhz.

You can run them out of sync so you may be able to get a 2.5ghz-3.2ghz (166mhz or 200mhz) and still use you memory at 133mhz or overclock to 166mhz and see if it can handle it without becoming unstable.

It would be a good time to upgrade the BIOS on your motherboard before getting your new CPU, just to make sure it is 100% compatible.
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/suppor...UID=620&kind=1

Going by this chart your motherboard supports upto a 3 ghz XP cpu
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/produc...il.php?UID=620

[BAcon]

yeh mate, pixel pipes are far more important than clock speeds when comparing a 9600 and 9700

the 9700 is a different league to the 9600

like stated before 9700 has 256bit bandwidth mem 8 pipes

while the 9600 has 4 pipes an mem 128bit bandwidth


no offense but a 9700 will kich a 9600/pro/XT's ass anyday, it doesnt matter if its older than the 9600 its still a superior card dude


browse for sale forums also, you may be able to pick up a 9800pro for around £90

[CeeJay]

thanks guys,
im probably gonna go for a xp3000 or around there anyways.
and the ram will get upgraded soon after too when more cash becomes available


i cant get into the classifieds yet, i need 50 posts i think to be able to view it.
(which is quite a decent idea tbh)

[BAcon]

yeh 50 is what ya need dude