K7S5a graphic card suggestion

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.elitegroup (More info?)

I am looking to replace my Radeon9000pro card with something that could run
DOOM3.

System: K7S5A with Honey-X bios
Mobile Athlon @2000mhz
DDR 333 @138mhz

I am putting an IDE raid card next week because I want to have 48bit LBA,
ATA133 and I might even raid my two hard disk

Now, I am looking at these card for my "final" upgrade. I would like to
get a 256mb card.

My power supply is OK but power requirement is also a concern

Here are the cards that I am looking at.
Radeon 9800XT
Radeon 9800 PRO
Radeon 9600XT
Radeon 9800SE (with the pipeline unlock patch gamble)

Also
Geforce 6600GT
Geforce 6600


Any suggestion or warning?

Charles

I'm running that motherboard with a Radeon 9600 PRO 256MB and playing Doom 3 and HL2 works pretty well even with all graphical settings cranked up. Then again I also have 1GB of DDR 266 RAM and Athlon XP 2000+ (which is the maximum RAM and processor respectively that this motherboard will allow, and since you have pretty much maxed out the motherboard you are already in good stead). I haven't touched the Honey-X Bios - ive left the one I have, hence the reason many of you will see my rig and think "Mug, you can add so much more to your PC! Change the goddamn BIOS you lazy shit!" Well...better safe then sorry eh

Go for the most you can afford - the ATi Radeons you selected are pretty good for Doom 3 and if I get great performance at 1024x768 with the details on with a ATi Radeon 9600 PRO, imagine the improvement you'll get on an XT. Oh stay away from any SE flavour of graphics cards - they will give substandard performance when compared with the "normal flavour" of the Radeon series. However the 6600GT is also a good bet - with support for pixel shader 3.0 technology that card will last that extra bit longer and the games which support PS3.0 will also look that slightly bit better.