Which Vid Card For Gaming Rig?

[gainedchrist]

I recently received a Gigabyte K8 Triton GA-K8NS-939 mobo and an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ CPU as a hand me down, still in the original boxes, not even opened. I want to build a gaming rig. Which graphics card should I get? I plan on getting the following components:

4 gigs of Kingston RAM or PNY
Maxtor 300 gig 256 mb cache 7200 RPM hard drives {x 2}
19" LCD monitor
Win XP PRO

Current games I want to play on new rig are:

Pariah, Serious Sam 1, 2, 3, Armed & Dangerous, Will Rock, Unreal Tournament 2004, BloodRayne 1 and 2.

I'm looking for a card that will work with these new games:

F.E.A.R
Far Cry
Quake 4

I've been reading alot about ATI Radeon 9800 XT and PRO, ATI X800XT PE, and GeForce 7800. Not sure which one to get or should I look into some other vid cards instead of the above mentioned. Budget is from 100-250 USA dollars.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated

 

[pauldh]

I totally agree. 2GB and a 7800GT or better. He could knock down the 600GB of HDD as well as the RAM, and jump up to a X1900XT if he wants to spend more.

 

[gainedchrist]

As far as the 600 gig HD's go, I want to install ALL my games on one, possibly two HD's. This way I don't have to uninstall the games when I'm done playing them.

As far as the 4 gigs RAM, I want to max out the memory. However, I will certainly get 2 gigs now, and if I want, I'll get more later, or should I not even bother with 4 gigs and stick with 2 gigs instead?

 

[gainedchrist]

I will look into the X1900 card. You're helping me big time. Thank you

 

[gainedchrist]

Thanks for the info. Any idea of the average price for a Radeon x1900xt card? Trying to find prices

 

[gainedchrist]

Does the X1900 come in AGP? I was looking through the manual of the mobo. I need a AGP card

 

[gainedchrist]

Thanks. I should be able to find that

 

[MTLink]

X800/X850s are tricky to find in AGP for cheap. But for AGP, try to get an X850 XT, X800 XL, or 7800GS. OR you can always ebay/forum hunt and try to find someone selling a 6800U for cheap.

4GB IS pointless. Get 2, as even the most demanding games won't need more than that. PNY is usally not good. Go for GOOD RAM, like OCZ Golds, Corsair XMS, etc. Check out anandtech.com, they have a whole roundup of fast 2GB kits.

A little overboard on the HDs. Most games only take up 1-3 GB, and maybe around 7-8 for a particularly big game. If you're going to use a 300GB HD for JUST games, that would be a waste. Get 200, tops. Your MAIN HD, the one with all your other crap (videos, pictures, porn, whatever else you do) should be at least 250+. Hell, I'm on a 120GB with a whole crapload of games (BF2, BF2 SF, BFV, C&C Generals, C&C Zero Hour, CS, CS: S, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Starcraft, Star Wars Battlefront, Rise of Nations, UT 2K4, Warcraft III, WoW) AND all my stuff (anime, vids, pics, *cough*pron*cough) and I still have 40GB to spare. I don't know who the hell could use up more than 85% of a 300+ GB HD, that's just crazy.

CRTs are usually better for gaming, but if you MUST have a gaming LCD, be sure to check the response time. Usually anything 8MS or less will do you just fine, even for FPS games.

Hope I was of some help.

 

[dvdpiddy]

wow dude 2 gig should be enuf and an get an x800xt much cheaper than the x850

 

[gainedchrist]

I'm in a toss-up between X850 XT X850 XT PE and X800 XL.

I'm going with 2 gigs of RAM. 4GB is overkill, as many people have told me. I was thinking about Kingston RAM. Newegg has it for $84 and change.

As far as the HD's, I want to install every game I have instead of installing it, playing, and uninstalling it again. Current games I have are: Pariah, Serious Sam Series {1, 2, 3}, Armed & Dangerous, Will Rock, BloodRayne 1, Unreal Tourament 2004.

Other games I plan on getting are: BloodRayne 2, Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R, Far Cry, and Quake 4.

I'm looking at the ViewSonic VX922.

You were a big help. Thanks

 

[corvetteguy]

4 gigs of Kingston RAM or PNY

yes 4 gigs is actually bad for performance and don't get knigston, get ocz, corsair, or maybe mushkin

As far as the 600 gig HD's go, I want to install ALL my games on one, possibly two HD's. This way I don't have to uninstall the games when I'm done playing them.

do you know how much 300gigs IS. you won't use it by filling it with games for sure, maybe if you have lots of videos and music but not games.

Does the X1900 come in AGP? I was looking through the manual of the mobo. I need a AGP card

i would get a mobo with PCIe, that way you won't be upgrading the whole rig in a year

i would get ocz el platinum 2-2-2-5 RAM, western digital se 16 250gig hd, eVGA 7800gt co 470mhz

 

[Dybowski]

check it i have a 250 gb hard drive and i have all my games installed and all ISO images mounted so i dont have to use cds and i still have 150GB left im not even gonna count how many games i have but id say around 20.

 

[gainedchrist]

i would get a mobo with PCIe, that way you won't be upgrading the whole rig in a year

The mobo I got was a hand-me down, not opened, until I took the manual out. I won't be able to afford upgrading the rig in a year. I just want something for my games and other stuff.

 

[gainedchrist]

I'll start looking at the 250GB at tigerdirect and newegg.

Thanks for your input

 

[pauldh]

Dang, we both blew it not googling to see that mobo was an NF3U. I just went with your lead; better not do that again.

 

[crazywheels]

windows xp will see 4gb of ram, xp 64 woill see a lot more

 

[pauldh]

OK, since you were considering 600GB of HDD space and 4GB of RAM, you must have some money to work with for this rig. SO while prozac and I really goofed not discovering it's an NF3U(sorry, that was lame), my real feeling is you should take that money you would have spent on storage and RAM, and buy a new NF4U mobo and a 7800GT or better yet a X1900XT. Sell the unopened NF3U mobo, or give it back if you feel that is the thing to do. But IF you can afford a new mobo and a 7800GT ($350-450), by all means go PCI-e now before you put money into a equally priced but lower performing high end AGP card, as well as invest the time of setting the system up.

Just an example:

$105 on the new NF4U mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123236

$180 AR(after rebate) on a nice 2GB kit of low latency RAM. Mine's runs 2-3-2-5 1T on an NF3U now.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227210

$255 AR on a GF7800GT:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130256

or go nuts on a HIS X1900XT for $509 AR:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161168

and grab a single 250GB or 300GB SATA HDD, which will easily be enough unless you get into video editing.

Anyway, a system like this would be far better than anything currently available for an AGP NF3U based system. Don't let the fact you own the mobo already force you to go AGP. Sell it, and buy an NF4U; you won't be sorry.

 

[MTLink]

He's lucky he even has NF3U, I'm still on NF2U :?