Need advice

[Guest]

I know this is the most dreaded thing I could do on a message board, but I'll do it anyway. I'm upgrading my machine and am looking for a specific recommendation for a specific video card to buy for my new system. I am not a hardcore gamer, just someone who wants his Flight Simulation and Driving Simulation games to be as fast and fluid as possible. I'd like to keep the price under $250-$300.

The machine I'll be putting the card in will be either a PIII ~800Mhz or an equivalent AMD processor. It'll have 256 MB RAM and the fastest HD I can get my hands on.

I really like ASUS motherboards so please keep that in mind. The whole system is being researched right now so if you have specific MB/Graphics Card/Processor recommendations they're welcome.

Thanks!

 

[SirWalker]

Hi
The new GeForce 2 MX cards are good for most purposes, and they aren't too expensive either. I don't know about brands, though... guess most of them are pretty identical since they use the same chipset. So, my advice is to get one of the GeForce 2 MX's, they are great value for money.

And by the way, most flight simulators (at least Microsoft's) is more CPU demanding than graphic cards demanding. I just bought a second-hand GeForce-based card with DDR RAM, and the frame rate isn't that different from the old TNT2 M64 card I had. Other games show huge difference though!

If you're not gaming at all, I've heard the Matrox cards are great (have no experience). And for the ATI versus nVidia thing, I don't know more than you read on other threads. Check out Tom's tests, that's probably the best advice I can give you.

Good luck!

***************************
The pure and simple truth
is rarely pure and never simple.

 

[Guest]

You could get a first generation GeForce 256 with DDR (Asus, Creative, Guillemot, etc.).

- Better go Green than Blue!

 

[Guest]

I just picked up a asus a7v mb, amd 750 and a leadtech geforce 2 gts 32mb card. It rules. The geforce 2 mx is not any better than the 256 ddr. so I would suggest the gts. Its worth the extra $30 bucks. AMD is the way to go for your CPU.

 

[rcf84]

Well try this system:

Athlon 1.0 GHz
Abit kt7-raid
256mb Pc133 Cl2
IBM 75gxp hard disk - get 2 of them for RAID 0
ATi Radeon 64mb DDR

Sounds good with me raid the hard disks.

Cel 533 - 256mb sdram
15gb HD - ati radeon 32mb ddr (200/200)
SB live! mp3+ - win98 Beos