Video card

My "old faithful" Radeon 9500 is finally giving up the ghost after 3 1/2 years of loyal service--the system crashes after 10-15 minutes of gameplay. Two weeks ago, it was only during high end games (KOTOR II, WoW). Last week, it started during games that are not what you'd call taxing (WWIIOL, Madden 2005). So I went to Pricewatch last night and ordered myself a Chaintek Geforce 6600 AGP 8x for $135--that's all I'm willing to spend right now, since in a year or two, I'll be ready to upgrade my processor/mobo/RAM to a PCI Express. Hopefully it'll come in before the weekend.

Epilogue: this vendor gets very high marks from me. I placed the order on Tuesday night at about 10 PM (once the frustration of crashing every 15 minutes overcame my ingrained stinginess), selected the free shipping option, and learned today that my card left the UPS depot for delivery to my office THIS MORNING. That's less than a 36 hour turnaround using the free shipping option. These guys are called FuturePowerPC.com, and they're based out of NY State, so YMMV if you don't live in the northeast.

I wonder if the Radion is just poorly supported in some games. I too got Frequent crashes in KOTOR I. I just installed KOTOR II, and can't even get it to play.

Beast,

how you like this new card. My 9800 is starting to also act "funny" and has put me in the new card market. The 6600 or the x700 are in my price range.

A solid card for the low price. (I wasn't willing to spend more, as I'll likely be upgrading to a new mobo with PCI Express in another 18-24 months). I haven't really seen a huge increase in framerates or anything, despite moving from 128 to 256 MB of RAM on the card, but it's certainly solid. I'll give you an update tomorrow on how BF2 runs for me tonight--from what I've been hearing, that's the current "gotcha" that tells whether or not you've got an inadequate card. I can tell you that other games that would allegedly choke out lesser graphics cards run fine on the 6600, and ran on the 9500 as well--I'm speaking primarily of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2.

Pretty much your top shelf AGP card. It was a bit $$$ but I was due for a upgrade.
BFG

I'm looking at the 6600 as well (old ATI 9600 is showing it's age). Are you running BF2 with all settings maxed? How's she holding up?

I picked up a 6600 GT by MSI. I haven't been able to play much BF2 yet, but I'll post a review when I get deeper into the game.

I'm running at 1280 res with most detail settings currently medium and it's smooth as silk. I'm going to experiment with some settings tonight and see what I can turn up without sacrificing huge pieces of framerate.

I am going to have to get a new video card. My current Geforce4 Ti4200 does not support BF2. Bummer. So I am looking around for a good card at the right price. I am mainly looking for a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT AGP. I have been hard pressed to find one that is not a PCI Express. If anyone has a lead on one would love a heads up on it.

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Originally Posted by Bassiswild

I am going to have to get a new video card. My current Geforce4 Ti4200 does not support BF2. Bummer. So I am looking around for a good card at the right price. I am mainly looking for a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT AGP. I have been hard pressed to find one that is not a PCI Express. If anyone has a lead on one would love a heads up on it.

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Scroll up several posts and click on my 'BFG' weblink. That will bring you to a AGP version of the 6800. I got mine over at Best-Buy.

well i will chime in about my 9800 pro aiw , runs bf2 smooth until it crashes and reboots my system. This started happening with the demo, now with the retail release. Good times, it almost seems to be corisponding to keyboard input but who knows, its a major pita, I wasn't planning on buyin a new card as I suspected the 9800 would hold its own in bf2. I can't help but wonder if this is an nvidia thing, couldn't help but notice nvidea and creative adverts inside my dvd case... almost like a here is what you need to buy to play this game, now go and buy it you good little soldier. As much as Im upset about the problems Its still better than playing DC, I only hope that EA responds to the communities outrage.

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Originally Posted by [AK]JD

well i will chime in about my 9800 pro aiw , runs bf2 smooth until it crashes and reboots my system. This started happening with the demo, now with the retail release. Good times, it almost seems to be corisponding to keyboard input but who knows, its a major pita, I wasn't planning on buyin a new card as I suspected the 9800 would hold its own in bf2. I can't help but wonder if this is an nvidia thing, couldn't help but notice nvidea and creative adverts inside my dvd case... almost like a here is what you need to buy to play this game, now go and buy it you good little soldier. As much as Im upset about the problems Its still better than playing DC, I only hope that EA responds to the communities outrage.

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Im using a 9800 Pro 128 and have never had a crash to desktop with the demo or the retail (all 1 night of it).

I'm running the game at 1024X768 with 85 refresh. All settings are at "medium" and my sound option is switched to hardware (why it defaults to software I have no idea) at high quality with EAX enabled.

Mine is an all in wonder, and some people tell me its different but I dunno. I am starting to suspect it may be my power supply but at this point im troubleshooting by process of ellimination.

I just bought a Dell Ultrasharp 2005FPW 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor but now I need to upgrade my video card. My 9600 wont support the monitor.
So I know nothing about vcards and haven’t gotten any good recommendations reading this post. Stitch's 6800 is out of my price range. 399 is to much in my opinion. Ill pay 300. SO what do you guys recommend? And is pci better than AGP now?

How’s ATi vs. Geforce?

If you had 300 to spend, which card would you buy right now?

You can get a AOpen GeForce 6800 GT 256MB right now for $279. Check pricewatch.com.

6800GT 256MB for $264 is tough to beat!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814140053

I'd go with the 6800GT the gains people are getting from the Ultra over the GT are negligable and hard to justify for the added cost. And yes PCI-E is 16x vs AGP fastest 8x correct me if i'm wrong im just going from memory.

Either AGP or PCIx will perform identical as neither bus is being saturated under any circumstance a typical gamer will encounter at this time.

PCIx is just a new standard getting folded into the mix. Dont believe all the hype. If you have a PCIx slot then you might as well buy the card for it with future system upgrades in mind. You must have a PCIexpress 8 or 16x slot not just any ol PCIx slot. IE if your current system has an AGP slot then most likely that is the ideal card type for u. Unless you want to upgrade your mobo in the process.

Heres a 16pipe VIVO ATI card for $278 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102542

this card would have very similar horsepower to the 6800GT, both cards being fillrate monsters.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814123159


Abit Guru series Nice cooling, 16pipes (4x that of a 9600) and Vivo funtions! all for $240 now thats a deal.

I have a ATI 9800 pro. To be honest, I'm not that impressed with it - too many compatiability headaches. Knights of the Old Republic was very difficult to play with this card. I'd get an nVidia if you want to play games more than become a card configuration expert.

I will echo that statement Clay, I too went with a 9800 pro upgrading from an nvidia GF3 and wasn't impressed with it. I had numerous compatibility issues I never had before with the nvidia. Don't get me wrong ATI makes a great product but I think nvidia has the edge in the gaming arena. I am very happy with my 6800U OC :D

I have a 9800 Pro 128mb and have had it for quite awhile now and I have yet to find a game it is not "compatible" with. I've had absolutely no problems which is why I'm still using it. It handled Rome Total War, HL2, Doom3, Area-51 and now BF2 at 1024x768 Res. Im at "med" on all items in BF2 and my performance is generally fine, except on larger maps and larger amounts of players.

That being said, I'm probably going to buy a 6800GT in the next couple of months as the price pressure brings it down to the $250 or below mark. My motherboard is still AGP, so I'm not going to invest alot of money on a new video card until I have a reason to rebuild my primary rig. I'm quite surprised how long I've gone without building a new gaming rig. It's closing in on 2 years with the same PC with no significant upgrade of components. I've never gone this long before. :bounce:

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Originally Posted by [AK]Hylander

I've never gone this long before. :bounce:

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Well, with the state your network is in. No wonder ;)

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Originally Posted by [AK]StitchJones

Well, with the state your network is in. No wonder ;)

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My network is working perfectly fine now, no thanks to you!

If it were up to you, I'd still be trying to explain the difference between PURE FTP and PRO FTP to you! :uzi:

No talk of SLI /cry :confused:

Awsome info guys, thank you