Best Video Card for $200

[ladic]

ok, I got $200 to buy a new Video Card, which is the best posible for that price?
oh, and when I buy the New VC, I'll also buy a new MB:Asus Motherboard for AMD Athlon/XP/Duron Processors, Model# A7N8X (New Version, now support AMD Barton 400Mhz) .

So far, this 2 VC's Intrigue me:

Video Card 1: $193

ATI RADEON 9500 PRO 128MB DDR DVI AGP RETAIL
Specifications:
Chipset:9500 PRO Visual Processing Unit
Engine clock: 275 MHz
Memory:128MB of double data rate SDRAM
Memory speed: 540 MHz
Eight parallel rendering pipelines
Four parallel geometry engines
128-bit DDR memory interface
BUS: AGP 8X support
OS Support: Windows® XP, Windows® 2000, Windows® Me
Ports; VGA + DVI + S-Video
Retail box (see pics for details) Model#: RADEON 9500 PRO 128M


Video Card 2: $168

Asus V9480TVD 128MB Geforce 4 TI4800SE DDR w/ Video In Video Out **AGP8X**
Specifications:
VIVO
Graphics Engine GeForce4 Ti 4800SE - 8X
Video Memory 128MB DDR
Memory Clock 550MHz(275MHz DDR)
Engine Clock 275MHz
Max. Resolution 2048 X 1536 X 85Hz
Ports:VGA + DVI + S-Video
Retail box (see pics for details) Model#: V9480TVD


Which you guys recommend? or you recommend something better? I have $200 tops to spend.

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Go for the R9500 Pro. If you can spend a bit more, then buy a R9700 non-Pro.

BTW, graphics card forum was the appropiate place for this question

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[VelocityPimp]

you should be able to get an nVidia fx 5600 for under $200

but i'm a fanboy

 

[Geph]

Like one of the posters above recommended, I'd say scrap together 20$ and push to get the 9700 non-pro. Failing that, I'm not sure which card would be better... but check this link for a comparison between cards done by Tom's Hardware. Granted it's not the 4800SE, but it's close. I personally favor nVidia over ATI in the GeForce4 card range.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030311/index.html

Good luck!

 

[dhlucke]

The 9500 Pro is going to impress you more in my opinion. When you turn the graphics quality up that card will shine and the other one will fall behind. It also supports DirectX 9

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<font color=blue>GOD</font color=blue> <font color=red>BLESS</font color=red> <font color=blue>AMERICA</font color=blue>

 

[shadus]

Two good cards are the ATI 9700 NonPro $205 and the 5600 Ultra at $142 both of those are better than the 9500/4800SE.

Shadus

 

[xeenrecoil]

Heya Ladic;

The answer to your question is neither.

The Asus v9280S is faster then its cousin the v9480-tvd, and has the same features.

Also its is for damn sure faster then a Radeon 9500 Pro.

I do however commend your choice of brand, Asus is the best.

I hope i have Helped.

XeeN

 

[Ganache]

Push a BIT more and get a RADEON 9700 NON-PRO, best bang for the buck

 

[jmecor]

a cheap 8x-agp card will do the job and supports directx 9.0. Just avoid that crappy geforcefx5800. Ati radeon 9500 is the best choice.

 

[GreenOni]

Under $200.00, I would go with the Radeon 9600 Pro. Only $179.89 w/ free shipping at essencompu.com. This will leave you w/ an extra $20.00 in your pocket...=)

 

[Laxman12786]

The R9500 Pro is far better than the 9600 Pro. ATI was losing money on the 9500 Pro's, so they scrapped them in favor of the cheaper to build 9600 Pro's. The 9600 gets the higher model number only because ATI is pushing them over the 9500's

 

[Master_Yoda]

I would go for the Radeon 9500 because its significantly faster but if you decide to get a GeForce 4 Ti4800, i suggest that you get the GeForce 4 Ti4200 instead because the Ti4800 is a Ti4200 with AGP 8x support which makes little difference in most cases.