Budget Graphics - Opinions

tals · Post by **tals** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 4:59 pm

I'm on a reasonably tight budget. Currently I have a Geforce 4 ti 4400 and I need a graphics card capable of playing games on my Son's new machine. My plan is that I buy a card and my son gets mine.

So here are the cards i'm looking at

ATI 9200SE £30
Geforce 5700 LE 128/256MB £55/£70
ATI 9550 £55
ATI 9600 PRO 128/256MB £80/£100

So anyone get any ideas on performance gains between these cards - any other cards they want to lump into the equation. My thoughts are the 4 first above the 9200 but below the 5700 in terms of power. So if I got that one it would just go straight into my sons machine. But if someone reckons I may get say a 50% fps increase by going to the 9600 it becomes a more tempting proposition.

I welcome any thoughts

Tals

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:28 pm

The Ti4400 was a very good card in its day, and even holds up pretty well against those others you listed. I doubt you'll see a 50% gain...

tals · Post by **tals** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:34 pm

So possibly go for the 9200se for my Son's machine and upgrade to PCI express later in year?

5700SE is my biggest temptation - just not sure what type of gain I would see in a Directx 9 game?

Tals

Zekester · Post by **Zekester** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:43 pm

Like Mark(Giles) said, you won't see much of a gain in performance with those cards listed, over your 4400.
Especially at 1024X768 resolution and under.

Maybe the 5700......maybe.

tals · Post by **tals** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:49 pm

Appretiate those comments

So is the 9200SE for my son is that a solid enough card. i.e worth the £30 or splash out the extra £20 for the 5700?

Tals

Zekester · Post by **Zekester** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:54 pm

Well I don't know the current US/UK exchange rates, so that's kinda tough to answer

I would think that the 5700 is the much better card.

tals · Post by **tals** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:19 pm

hehe you'd be shocked at the exchange rates. Currently £1 to $1.92!

So £30 = $57

£55 = $105

Tals

Quaro · Post by **Quaro** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:56 am

Don't get the 5700. Not fast enough in DX9 to use the features. The whole 5xxx series of Nvidia cards is to be avoided generally.

The only one there that would give you a significant upgrade is the 9600Pro -- ne need for 256 on that either, 128 ram is fine.

Otherwise, I'd just get another TiX000 card -- those are pretty much the best bang in their price range still (can be found for ~45 US dollars if you look around).

ChrisGwinn · Post by **ChrisGwinn** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:37 am

The 9600 Pro is the only card on that list that would be a worthwhile upgrade from the GF4 (which is a pretty decent card). If I were you, I'd wait until the AGP GF 6600 / Radeon x700s come down in price a bit, or until you go to PC Express. If you need to upgrade earlier, the Radeon 9800s are starting to get cheap, and those are darn good cards.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:47 am

The Geforce 5900 cards are pretty good, but I wouldn't bother with any of the other 5X00 cards.

Out of your list, if I had to buy one I would pick the 9600 Pro. However, the 9600 pro is not that much better than the ti4400 overall. Not enough to justify the purchase IMHO unless you really need a card now and have no other options.

If possible, it would really be worth your while to save up a little bit longer and get yourself a 9800 Pro (better) or a new Nvidia 6600GT (even better!).

tals · Post by **tals** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 12:25 pm

Appretiate the comments.

In the end I decided to plonk for the 9600 XT 256MB, was double the price of the 5700LE which was the other option for my son. So my PC now has the 9600 and his has the Geforce 4. I needed a card for my son at least the debate was which one

Bearing in mind my MB only supports up to AGP4:

The 9600 has improved the performance, however i've been quite interested in what ways. Half Life 2 it went from an FPS of around 30 to one of around 50 which is an amazing leap. Still need to play to confirm but that is a good improvement.

EQ2 on the other hand which I thought i'd see a big improvement because of the textures etc the change has not been so dramatic. From around 15FPS to around 20FPS, still need to tweak a bit and if I reduce the graphics down the fps goes way higher than previously. Just depends how much I want to sacrifice. I'll report on the effect of Soldiers and UT2K4 later

Tals

Zekester · Post by **Zekester** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:23 pm

A little late now, but I totally disagree about the 9600pro being better than a 5700.

Especially at 1024X768 and under.

I would not be surprised to find that in some games, that 9600xt won't show much improvement over the old 4400.

tals · Post by **tals** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:04 pm

I tend to play at 1280x1024 as I have a flat screen. From my own understanding the ATI handle Directx9 much better - now HL2 is a very marked improvement on my old card. Soldiers not really enough to warrant, still need to try UT2K4.

Certainly a nice card regardless though - I like gizmos and its temperature monitor is nice

Tals

*update UT2K4, appears to look crisper, varying between 30-70fps which again is an improvement. Not sure what the fps was before I think more 25-45fps.

tals · Post by **tals** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 2:33 am

Just an update, started overclocking the card and those with ATI cards I would suggest the atitool, nice tool for overclocking and has a scan for errors. I don't find the detect highest overclock very useful but manually doing it (increments of 5 and then take away 10) appears to work very nicely. Managed to increase my memory to 320 (from 300) and Core to 540 from 500. It also has the temperature monitor hidden away in its settings - which ati appear to have neglected in their last update

Anyway given me a nice boost and certainly now a worthy purchase on my geforce 4 - if I had the choice again, I may have waited but with 3 pcs in all needing cards this one won't go to waste

Tals