Your advice needed!

[khuas]

My system:

AMD Athlon 2000+ xp
512 MB RAM
GeForce2-MX 400

I would like to upgrade my video card but I am on a pretty tight budget. I guess I would be looking to get either an nVidia FX-5200 or a Radeon 9200.

Which of the two would be the most recommended? I'll probably have this card for at least six months.

Do I need 128 MB of RAM on it? Would 64 MB do? Are there any other cards I'm overlooking?

The games I mostly play are Everquest and Battlefield 1942. It would be nice to actually turn some of the eye candy on once in a while.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Um, neither?

Your two best bets in order of best to worst.

A Geforce 4 ti 4200 (64mb or 128 mb whichever you can afford)

and

an R9600SE if it's in your price range too.

The GF4ti is a great card for those games (no DX9). The R9600SE offers some newer features but at a bit of performance hit in the games you mentioned.

I don't believe you'll get much eye candy with either. But the R9600SE will let you see some DX9 features, but likely at a very low FPS that it would be slideshow-esque. Demos will look cool though

That's my view on it. The GF4ti will give you very good FPS in most games (and play DX9 titles with the DX8 path [can't play DX8.1 either] pretty fast). The R9600SE will give you some additional features, but will rarely beat the GF4ti in performance, and even then it will be like 23FPS versus 21FPS so that's nothing to brag about.

The FX5200non-ultra is a pretty slow card, and the FX5200Ulra is usually more expensive than the two above. However if you can get an FX5200ULTRA for the same price, then that would slot in there too (but kinda tied for second with the R9600SE IMO).

As always, that's just my two frames worth.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

<b>-NEW PIC IN THGC ALBUM-</b>

 

[HardWareBoss]

Buy TI4200. Unless you want to spend more than move to 9600Pro.

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Radeon 9600SE!?! Radeon 9600 (non-PRO) is considerably slower than Ti4200 in many cases, SE should be much worse. Surely it's better than FX5200, but I don't think it will beat Radeon 9100 (neither it's cheaper).

Ti4200 is the card to buy. If he doesn't have money, he can look for R9100

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[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Actually the R9600SE does much better than an R9100/R9200. And in some cases even beats the GF4ti in newer titles. But it's the $30US price difference that is so attractive about it. It's not on par but it is cheaper. And that's basically what I said. GF4ti still tops , and then the R9600SE. Heck if he can afford it sure and R9600, but it depends all depends on price.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

<b>-NEW PIC IN THGC ALBUM-</b>

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Can you give some link to Radeon 9600SE benchmarks?

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[addiarmadar]

Screw the fx5200. The Ti4200 is better.

For the tight budget, Get the ti4200
If you are willing to losen it a bit, get the 9600 pro for a exponetial jump in performance.

F-DISK-Format-Reinstal DO DA!! DO DA!!

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Here's the most recent benchie that I posted a while ago (few days ago) HardAvenue puts it up against the FX5600EQ.

<A HREF="http://www.hardavenue.com/reviews/his9600se1.shtml" target="_new">http://www.hardavenue.com/reviews/his9600se1.shtml</A>

Then an 'old' Digit-Life review for the R9600XT and R9800XT. The R9600SE as I said isn't that great for older titles but does even better than the FX5600ULTRA in Tomb Raider and HALO, and outperforms the FX5200 in UT2K3 in all but 16x12 resolution;

<A HREF="http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/radeon/asus-ati.html" target="_new">http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/radeon/asus-ati.html</A>

It's far from stellar, but they are much cheaper than even a GF4ti4200.

I'm not saying it's better, but just like that other post it's a choice for those who can't afford the next level. I still think that the GF4ti is the BEST choice, this is just a different choice for different needs. Newer titles you will get better performance than alot of the older cards. The R9000Pro/R9100/R9200 offer very little over an FX5200.

BTW, why don't you provide some benchies for a change. You wanna suggest something else, fine; but you have a habit of criticizing my suggestions without backing up your own. To say it's getting annoying would be an understatement. Especially considering that it appears you aren't even reading what I'm saying and just knee-jerk posting.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

<b>-NEW PIC IN THGC ALBUM-</b>

 

[Koopa]

Just to add my voice to this thread, go for a Geforce 4 ti 4200, I know from personal experience that they are worth the cash if you love BF1942.

As long as it's for six months and HL2 doesn't come till 2004 you should survive for the time being on DirectX 8.1.