Graphics cards and CPUs

[Xerxes8933]

First of all i've got a fairly old pc with an Athlon 900mhz, 384MB SDRAM and a poor old Kyro II 64MB.
I'm currently looking into buying a new graphics card, specifically the Radeon 8500 64MB or the GeFrorce 4 Ti4400.
I've read in these forums that the CPU speed can drag down the cards overall performance. i was wondering which card is better using my dated CPU speed and how drastic the effects on the card will be if it is being used with a poor CPU speed. all this is taking into consideration that i'll be wanting the card for new games like Morrowind and Unreal 2.

 

[bonesdad1]

I asked the same question, about 3 posts ago...check the answers under that post. I'm thinking of going a little cheaper (but with a great card - GF4 4200) and upgrading CPU also. I can do both for about 250-300 dollars. Then in a year or two, upgrade to the next best video card (whatever that may be). I too am using a Duron 900 with Kyro II (which is a pretty nice card, but is quite dated). I can upgrade my ECS K7S5A to a AXP 2100+ as well. I'll probably get the video card 1st as that will make the biggest diff. The games I play are all at least a year old (I wait until they go 2nd market to buy), so I really dont have to worry too much about really CPU dependent games. Let me know what u decide to do....

goldarn the pusherman

 

[Xerxes8933]

thanks, and i did read your thread, but i'm still not too sure about the effect the lower CPU speed will have on the card. will it limit the card to such an extent that it would'nt be worth buying the card and getting a cheaper, lower range card, or would it still be worth the price?

My system now has the new Windows XP 'Double Glazing' Edition.

 

[bonesdad1]

From what I've read, it will be a pretty nice improvement. Others have said that few games are very CPU dependent, so an upgrade to the GPU will benefit greatly on all other games. I'm going to start with GPU upgrade and see how it works. I can get a CPU a couple months later (price drop!). Even right now I can get an AMD athlon XP 1800+ retail for $110. in a couple months it should be closer to $90. I'm also leaning toward an Abit GF4 4200, cuz Toms review sez Abit has the quietest fan...important to me...

goldarn the pusherman

 

[chuck232]

Do you plan on overclocking? Cause if you do you should look at Gainward's cards. A GPU upgrade when yuo have a low-end card is the best way to go, but it may not be worth the money. A lower class card like a GF2 Ti or GTS may be the best for a certain system for example, unless you intend to upgrade soon your CPU.

My firewall tastes like burning.

 

[cakecake]

A new video card may help equally as well as a CPU would, but you probably can't upgrade the CPU much. Unless you can upgrade the mobo too I would just go with a nice graphics card. One that's better than your system, because then when you do finally upgrade your computer the graphics card can just be ported over. Don't get the Ti4200 if you live in the US, that thing is $170. Get the $99 ATi at newegg (heh I've said this to like 6 people already). This ATi card can <i>consistently</i> clock at 300/300 because it uses 3.3ns memory. That's as fast as a GF4 Ti4400 and it has better anisotropic filtering too (less performance impact when turned on). Seriously I don't see any reason why you should get the Ti4200 when the 64MB OEM card at newegg comes with 3.3ns RAM. You can OC that sucka to be better than a Ti4200 and it's $70 cheaper.

Course if you don't care about price at all, get the Ti4600. But don't get the Ti4400, because it doesn't fit into any buying plan.

Unreal 2 is supposed to be CPU dependent, as are most D3D games, so a new Gfx card won't allow you to do much with just a 900Mhz Athlon. Morrowind just runs slow on practically any system, so the best you can hope for on your system even using the best video card out there is just running the game on low low low detail settings (not at the lowest but pretty close) and 640x480.

Like I was saying earlier, your best bet is to upgrade to the $99 OEM ATi 8500 for $99 with the 3.3ns memory (read the user comments to make sure it's the right one) right now or to get the top of the line one (either the Ti 4600 right now or wait for the Parhelia, R300, NV30, P10) and then re-use that card with the next CPU/mobo upgrade you do. If you do that, your buying pattern will be like this.

Buy CPU/mobo/memory

-wait one year

Buy high quality gfx card

-wait one year

Buy cpu/mobo/memory

-wait one year

Buy high quality gfx card

and the cycle repeats. This is currently what I do, and it works fine. There's at most a 6 month window when I can't run the newest games at the highest detail settings.

Censorship makes us so much more creative.