Radeon 3650 or something else?
Hi again guys,
Looking for a cheap video card for my next rig, whist the dust settles on the next gen GT200 and 4xx0.
My current card is a AGP 6800GT and always had NV cards for years but nothing in the current NV £40-£60 inc VAT range is calling out to me.
My last ATI card was a 8MB AGP2x Rage Pro Xpert@Play so have not really got an idea how the latest cards and drivers are shaping up, I am interested in how stable ATI's drivers for both XP/Vista x64.
I do a bit of gaming now and again (FPS) don't really have the time these days, as such I am more interested in desktop and HD decoding performance atm to hold me over.
Thanks.
EDIT: Wrong section sorry, can a mod please move to Graphics cards and Monitors? Thanks.
Re: Radeon 3650 or something else?
I'd say you're looking at pretty much the right level of card - you could even get away with the 34xx series, except gaming really would be at low levels (see here).
With the 36xx series you could add more detail and have higher resolution, so go for it.
The power draw and heat dissipation is good.
I don't have one personally yet, but regarding drivers i am certain there is nothing to fear from everything i have read. You will find the odd one or two people that will slate any driver from any company, but overall AMD (as they are now, having bought ATI) have done well.
Re: Radeon 3650 or something else?
Thanks for this, I've been looking at Sapphire's various HD3650 SKU's, now would I be right in thinking that the power draw on GDDR3 equipped 3650 will be less than a DDR2 one?
Also the 3650 has a 128bit memory interface, would it make any difference if the card had 256mb or 512mb of memory, 1gb need not apply. ;)
Re: Radeon 3650 or something else?
Could you not squeeze a few more quid and get something like a 9600GT or 8800GT? In my opinion they are cheap as chips and very, very worth it.
I don't know much about the following, but I had nothing but trouble trying to put a Radeon 9700 in a geforce 2 mx clad computer, infact the one I'm using now till my new rig arrives. Basically it wouldn't work; I'm not sure if it was a PSU issue (300 watt, from 2001) or a clash of Nvidia and/or motherboard. It did work once (with Far Cry, amazingly well at the time too considering the age of the PC) but when I restarted the computer I never got it working again.
Might have been going off the point there, but switching from Nvidia to ATI is probably less straight forward than staying with one brand. Make sure you know all about the compatibility of your specs (I'm sure many members here could help).
I hope I raised some points to consider, cheers!
Re: Radeon 3650 or something else?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
WoLFe
Could you not squeeze a few more quid and get something like a 9600GT or 8800GT? In my opinion they are cheap as chips and very, very worth it.
Well the plan is to keep as much money back as possible at the moment until the dust settles on the next gen highend and midrange video cards and if they are no good, pick up a dirt cheap 9600GT, 8800GT/GTS 512 or 9800GTX.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
WoLFe
I don't know much about the following, but I had nothing but trouble trying to put a Radeon 9700 in a geforce 2 mx clad computer, infact the one I'm using now till my new rig arrives. Basically it wouldn't work; I'm not sure if it was a PSU issue (300 watt, from 2001) or a clash of Nvidia and/or motherboard. It did work once (with Far Cry, amazingly well at the time too considering the age of the PC) but when I restarted the computer I never got it working again.
Might have been going off the point there, but switching from Nvidia to ATI is probably less straight forward than staying with one brand. Make sure you know all about the compatibility of your specs (I'm sure many members here could help).
I hope I raised some points to consider, cheers!
You have, many thanks. Not sure what happened with your Radeon either.
The video card will be going into a new build, stuff I have already:
Intel DP35DP motherboard.
Q6600 B3 (yeah I know) CPU.
Coolermaster Cosmos RC-1000 Case.
Re: Radeon 3650 or something else?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
WoLFe
Could you not squeeze a few more quid and get something like a 9600GT or 8800GT? In my opinion they are cheap as chips and very, very worth it.
Only those two cards are useless at media handling, in contrast. The 3870 on the other hand is excellent at it, and it still holds its own in gaming. So it's a better fit for the OP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
WoLFe
Might have been going off the point there, but switching from Nvidia to ATI is probably less straight forward than staying with one brand. Make sure you know all about the compatibility of your specs (I'm sure many members here could help).
The only thing that's needed to keep in mind when changing from one GPU make to another is booting the machine in safe mode after installing, uninstall the old drivers completely, and download/install the latest drivers for the new GPU, assuming the new card isn't a dud, then everything will work.
Re: Radeon 3650 or something else?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
aidanjt
Only those two cards are useless at media handling, in contrast. The 3870 on the other hand is excellent at it, and it still holds its own in gaming. So it's a better fit for the OP.
Haven't really considered the 3850 or 3870. Is UVD still considered superior to Pure Video HD then? Will it make any difference with a Q6600?
Re: Radeon 3650 or something else?
Yes, UVD is still superior, Radeon series cards also have the added advantage of AVIVO, or in laymans, it'll let you transcode video files from one format to the other using the video card, which is much faster. While the Q6600 could deal with encoding/decoding HD video completely in software, it's nice to let it do other more useful things in the background while you're enjoying a movie or whatnot. And given that the 3000HD series cards are so affordable, it's a win-win really.
Re: Radeon 3650 or something else?
You can get a 3850 for about £63 on Scan Today Only, I would try to up your budget a little to it if you wanted the card for gaming.
Re: Radeon 3650 or something else?
Right then, I bought both a 3870 and a 9600GT, after playing around with them I've decided to DSR the 3870. I just can't get use to the ATI's picture quality, The drivers also bug me after having to install .net for the control center.
The 9600GT is an EVGA one so I'll probably use their stepup program soon.
Thanks for the advice guys.
