Basically, it looks like my video card is shot. As much as I would love to get a brand-new one with all the trimmin’s, I also want to preserve my vast (well, not that vast) piles of cash. It seems as if I just cannot fix this, and I now suspect my card (ATI radeon 8500) has some bad memory. I bought it last year, so it won’t be covered under any warranty, which I didn’t get anyway.
I need some solid advice on a new card. I need something fairly cheap, something I can get fast, and ideally something that can run Final Fantasy XI (11).
These ones take my interest in particular (in the 128 MB version):
Geforce 3
Radeon 9000
GeForce4 MX 440 (128MB)
These seem to be reasonably good deal on Pricewatch.
My big concern is the last one I mentioned. I recall that some of the Geforce 4’s were actually sped-up Geforce 2’s, and they basically ripped people off with those. The Geforce 3 may be the slowest in the pack, but it is a solid and repectable card. My real concern is the Radeon 9000. It seems to offer the best bang, but how does it really work?
Your best bet is a Radeon 9100, which is a Radeon 8500LE (what you probably have now) repackaged. It retails for around $50. The Radeon 9000 and 9200 are essentially cut down Radeon 8500s. Another option is a Radeon 9000 Pro, which should only be slightly slower than what you have now. The Radeon 9200SE will be a SIGNIFICANT downgrade, the 9000 non-Pro and 9200 non-SE less so, but still noticeably slower.
A Geforce3 will be somewhat slower than your current card, but also has many fewer features, most notably that it only supports DirectX8.0, not DirectX8.1, which FF11 seems to require. The Geforce4 MX is right out, as it will be MUCH slower than your current card and doesn’t even support DirectX8.0. Support for modern DirectX feature sets is very important if you plan to play newer games.
NVIDIA® GeForce™ series graphics processing unit with 32MB or ATI® RADEON™ 9000 series graphics card
Recommended System
NVIDIA® GeForce3™ or GeForce4™ Ti series graphics processing unit (AGP) with 64MB of VRAM
Having neaither of the cards mentioned I can’t really help you but the 9000 is supposed to be reliable enough I guess and I think that you should be comparing it to a GeForce4 4200Ti which is in the same price range rather than the older GeForce models.
[hijack]
I was about to post my ‘which should I buy’ thread too but you got there before me ! I’ll see what the others have to say and maybe will come back to hijack it again with my selection…
I should also note that the Radeon 9500 non-Pro, which offers full DirectX9.0 support, is now under $100. A good bit more expensive than the rest, but might be a good option to tide you over with good performance and features until you’re willing to REALLY upgrade. A Radeon 9600 Pro can also be had for about $130, which is the best overall value at the moment. It’s a FAST card with the same features as the top-end ones, with a quite respectable price.
A final note: Stay away from the Geforce FX 5200 series. They’re in your price range, but SUCK. They will be significantly slower than what you have now.
Ponster: Fear the simulposting. Anyway, you’ll want the Radeon 9600 Pro. The problem with the Geforce FX series of cards is that their pixel shader performance is simply abysmal. They’ll turn in performance roughly half what competing ATI cards will on new games such as Doom III or Half-Life 2. Basically, anything that uses DirectX9 features grinds to a halt. If you’re an FPS fan, you might consider the Radeon 9600 XT, as the retail version comes with a CD key good for a free download of Half-Life 2 when the game is released, a $50 value. Until then, you get access to the entire collection of original Half-Life content, including Counter-Strike. Thus, the $200 retail price actually becomes a good value, given the better performance you get as well.
Ahhh, that sounds pretty good. Playing Soldier of Fortune II atm but looking forward to Half Life and while it’ll always be possible to download warez versions of these games having a valid; working code for online gaming is a must.
Too much depends on what kind of computer & operating system it’s for & I don’t have this information. Some computers have an AGP slot some a AGP2 slot. Would have to know these things first. epinions.com has opinions on cards too.
Yeah thanks all…I got the ATI 9600 Pro 256Mb for €150 whch isn’t so bad. Very nice speed and the TV out options are much more powerful than on other ATI boards.
Smiling Bandit, if you can wait until Friday you might be able to pick up quite a bit more powerful card for the same amount of cash. Usually the sales that day are pretty big if you have some big chain stores near you. I’m hoping for the 9600 pro to be sub $100 (no info if it will yet) so i can grab it.