Best card for $75 or less?

[dpritcht]

I'm looking to upgrade my current system to a Athlon 64 3000+ (Venice) with an nVidia nForce 4 board (still undetermined...any suggestions?), but don't know what video card to buy. I'd like to spend $75 or even less, but still get a decent card. I plan on playing a few games like Battlefield 1942 and then move up to Battlefield 2 (I know...it's graphics intensive, other games I play aren't neither so intensive). I'm not one that needs the best graphics setting, but would like the game to be smooth on relatively high graphics setting. What would you recommend?

 

[TC10284]

Probably one of the Radeon 9600's or Geforce FX 5500's near the top of the list (I know some aren't video cards, that's just what the Newegg product search engine returned)



Tavis

Tavis Curry

 

[tenaciousleydead]

Dont go nvidia, get a Radeon 9600 PRO or any other models in the 9600 area, just dont get an LE version.

Asus A7N8X-Deluxe (Nvidia Nforce 2)
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Coming soon: Nvidia 6800 vannilla
Antec TruePower 400 watt ps
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[the_Prisoner]

A 98000pro would be nice if you can get it around 75 bucks. If you are in a hurry for a new card, then that maynot be the best option.

the Prisoner

I'm not a number, I'm a free man!

 

[RichPLS]

<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-409&depa=1" target="_new"> ATI 9600 Pro $75 </A>

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

 

[pauldh]

That 9600 pro has slow 446 MHz memory. Real 9600 pros are clocked 400(core)/600(effective mem speed).

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>

 

[pauldh]

New a 400/600 clocked 9600 pro is about as good as you'll find. For that price, I'd snatch up a used or refurb 9700 pro or 9800 pro 128MB (256-bit) instead.


<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>

 

[RichPLS]

<A HREF="http://search.ebay.com/video-card-agp-9800-ati_W0QQsofocusZbsQQsacatZ-1QQcatrefZC5QQfbdZ1QQsorefinesearchZ1QQfromZR14QQnojsprZyQQfsclZ1QQpfidZ0QQfswcZ1QQfewZnvidiaQQsaprcloZ0QQsaprchiZ80QQsaslopZ1QQflsZ4QQflocZ1QQsargnZ-1QQsaslcZ0QQsalicZ1QQsaatcZ1QQsadisZ200QQsacurZ0QQsacqyopZgeQQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQfsopZ1QQfsooZ1QQfclZ3QQfrppZ50" target="_new"> Ebay - ATI 9800 </A>

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

 

[Ned_Flanders]

Word.

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[lonelypauly]

get whatever you want man, Nvidia and ATI both make a solid product.

<b><font color=blue>Athlon64 3200+ Winchester/MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI/MSI 6800 Ultra/1 GB Kingston HyperX (Dual Channel)/74GB WD Raptor/600Watt Enermax Noisetaker/ Dual Mitsubishi 21 Inch Monitors</b></font color=blue>

 

[davemar14]

Well, if you are going NF4, then go PCI-Express. All the cards listed so far are AGP cards. This may be a bit over the budget, but you are going to be hard pressed to find a decent PCI-Express card for under $75. The 6600 card should provide decent performance for all of today's games. If you need to spend less than $75 get a Nvidia 6200. But those only have 64 bit memory bus, compared to the 6600 listed on the link below. This one has a 128bit bus.

<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-127-185&depa=1" target="_new">http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-127-185&depa=1</A>

My System:
<A HREF="http://amdgamingrig.dyndns.org" target="_new">http://amdgamingrig.dyndns.org</A>

 

[pauldh]

NF4, DOH!, wipe out all previous responses. :redface:

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>

 

[dpritcht]

If I do go with a 9600 pro, what board would you recommend to go with a Athlon 64 3000+ (Venice). Looking at the new boards, I don't think I would need the latest greatest (i.e. Nforce4) if I'm just using AGP.

 

[pauldh]

NF4 is PCI-e only. NF3 Ultra is AGP. There is a S939 ULI based board coming out that has both native PCI-e and AGP.



<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>

 

[dhlucke]

With your budget you will not be able to play BF2 in any reasonable fashion. A 9800 Pro will barely run that game. Quite frankly, based on the games you want to play, the only honest advice to give you is to save up a bit more money. People suggesting 9600's and 9800's didn't read your post until the end.

<pre><font color=red>A64 3200+ Winchester
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[dhlucke]

Popular video cards like the Radeon 9800 Pro and the King Kong-esque GeForce FX 5950 Ultra produced mixed results. In what looks to be the only redeeming feature of the GeForce FX with modern games, the FX can run BF2 at high quality... but the frame rates are still a lacking. This is more than we can say for the Radeon 9800 Pro, as it put up a marvelous one-frame-per-second score in our demo at high quality. To make Battlefield 2 playable, we had to turn down the resolution and quality by quite a few notches. In-game, both cards faired well at 1024x768 with medium settings, but you'll probably want to drop the quality a bit more if you want to maintain higher frame rates.

<A HREF="http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-x-2147-x-x-x&body_pagenum=3" target="_new">Source</A>

I can tell you from experience that playing with a 9800 Pro straight up sucks. My buddy stopped playing BF2 and I'm struggling to get him to play it anymore. In my opinion the game is difficult to play at under 60fps.

<pre><font color=red>A64 3200+ Winchester
DFI Lan Party NF4 Ultra-D
1GB Corsair 4400C25PT
WD740GD, WD2000JB, WD1200JB
ATI X800XL
Dell 2405FPW</pre><p>

 

[HardWareBoss]

When I read his post. $75 or less for vid card. Plus he wants to play BF2 No way no how. He's upgrading his Cpu. But does not want to spend the money on a better vid card.

 

[dpritcht]

After my initial post and having looked at the price of vid cards, I realize $75 is not going to get me much. At this point based on your feedback, I'm thinking of just upgrading my CPU to Athlon 64 3000+ (Venice) and buying a mediocre graphics card to play the first Battlefield and it's expansion packs and other modern, but not so intensive as BF2. Once good vid cards come down in price, I'd like to buy one that I can actually play BF2. Is there even a good, cheap PCI-Express card available or should I just resort to buying an older AGP board and an AGP vid card? I have to get something soon as my mobo is currently fried, so I can't wait too long on the mobo at least. I currently have an Athlon XP 2500+.

 

[HardWareBoss]

Since your Mobo is toast. Yum. Why not buy a PCIe mobo? With the AMD 64 3000+. Are you going to OC your Cpu?

 

[HardWareBoss]

Don't forget to get new ram with that upgrade.

 

[dpritcht]

I may dabble in a little OC'ing, but I'm not overly serious about it. If it's really easy and not very risky, I'll do it.

 

[pauldh]

What motherboard do you have? If you have an NF2 and PC3200 ram, you may find your XP2500+ can hit 2.2GHz(XP3200 speeds). Then you'd be better off doing that and putting money into a video card. I'd rather game on a X800XL or GF6800GT paired with a XP3200+ any day over an A64 3000+ with a $75 video card. You just have to decide. I'd say forget NF3. Either go NF4 and a temporary PCI-e, or OC the XP2500+ and get a nice $250 AGP card. The best solution would depend on how long it would be before you could upgrade to a better pci-e video card.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

NF4 is PCI-e only. NF3 Ultra is AGP.

MSI makes an NF4 + AGP board, but it uses a bridge similar to that of Gigabyte's G.E.A.R. so risk of fried silicon.

I'd recommend an NF3+AGP for now, as it would provide the best price/performance IMO, and then move to PCI+ a new card when the time comes. I only recommend this now, because if he's asking for $75 recommendation now, the card he'll move to next won't be much sexier than a GF6800GT/U or X850XT anyways, so why bother worrying about PCIe short term, when at this point he'll probably be upgrading his mobo to some new socket+DDR2/3/XDR by the time the next total overhaul/upgrade comes around.

Just a thought.

Otherwise NF4+GF6200 128bit, and then mod it to GF6600 using Rivatuner.


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[HardWareBoss]

HAAAA I thought I smelled something. Fried Silcon Yummy.

 

[RichPLS]

Does anyone else find it humorous you get an option to run your AGP card until you choose to upgrade to PCI-e, but then it fries your AGP card forceing your hand and screwing you out of a previously good AGP card!

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>