Suggestions for a new GFX card

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SAS_Trig
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Suggestions for a new GFX card

Hello to the elderly among you who remember me- and to the newer members I'm Trig.

I'm looking to upgrade my GFX card and as this is a forum full of gamers- it's probably one of the best places to ask.

Budget - don't really want to spend over £100.

PC Spec:
3Ghz P4 with 8mb FSB with HT
1GB DDR400 RAM
Dell Dimension 8300
250w PSU (may need upgraded aswel).
GFX: Nvideo Geforce FX 5200

Requirements:
Quieter the better (my system is near silent at the moment).
VGA
256mb +

I'd like it to be able to run all the games pretty well. I don't game very often, but I want good quality graphics for Battlefield 2, SWAT etc.

Cheers for the advice Smile

Booooooooooom!

SAS_Dave
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Hi Trig, well no advice from me but good to see you again.

Hope to see you ingame soon oldie Smile

'When I want your opinion, I'll beat it out of you.' --- 37% of Americans agree that while they would hate being British, they wouldn't mind having a British accent. --- Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

SAS_Trig
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Hi Trig, well no advice from me but good to see you again.

Hope to see you ingame soon oldie Smile

Looking forward to it. Well as soon as I get round to ordering a new mouse. My Logitech LX700 lags horribly!

Booooooooooom!

SAS_WIZ
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Depends Trig, on whether you want it to run via AGP or PCI-E.

Good to see you come back to us.

Lt_Col WIZ,  VC, MiD (Ret)

SAS_Leon
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Hi Trig

May I suggest ASUS (gotta be ASUS Lol GeForce 6600 or 6800.

http://no.asus.com/products1.aspx?l1=2

SAS_Adze
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I have what Leon said - ASUS 6600GT. I think it's brilliant. I think it cost me about £130, but that was a few months before Crimbo and from a real shop. I'm guessing if you were to order it off internet it'd be a bit less. It's only 128Mb though, which isn't what you're looking for.

I know Rand has that same card too.

SAS_Trig
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Cheers leon & adze I will take a look.

Wiz I noticed half the cards on sale were PCI-e, but I don't understand why you would buy a PCI card which is slower, when there is a VGA slot designed for the graphics card.

If you could fill in the gaps then that wld b awesome.

Ta.

Booooooooooom!

SAS_WIZ
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PCI-E is the latest technology and is currently probably the fastest, do not confuse it with PCI. But you must have a motherboard that can accomodate a similar card.
Most motherboards these days have an AGP slot which is also quite good.

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Rand
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If your motherboard supported AGP, that is what needs to go back in.

PCI-E is 4x faster than AGP 8x.

Trying to look up some cards.

I can't get the currency converter page to come up. What is 100 lbs in US?

only those who will IMAGE(http://miniprofile.xfire.com/bg/co/type/2/sasrand.png)

SAS_WIZ
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about $174

Free converter

Lt_Col WIZ,  VC, MiD (Ret)

SAS_Trig
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PCI-E is the latest technology and is currently probably the fastest, do not confuse it with PCI. But you must have a motherboard that can accomodate a similar card.
Most motherboards these days have an AGP slot which is also quite good.

Ahh makes sense.

So as you say, with a VGA board I'd want a VGA card. I presume that PCI-E cards require a specific slot?

And yeh that's a guide price, laughed at your "100 lbs" Wink pounds sterling ££!

Booooooooooom!

SAS_WIZ
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thats right Trig, u need to find out exactly what your M/board is capable of accepting, as yes, they are differant types of slot. Once you know then you can shop.

try http://www.overclockers.co.uk

Lt_Col WIZ,  VC, MiD (Ret)

SAS_Shield
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from what I read at the top of what trig has and what ive seen out there you do not have a pci-e slot only a agp. most of the stuff out there is now pci e only and only a handfull of places carry agp stuff. your best bet since you have the 5200 is save up for a new computer as you will only be upgrading to like a 5700, i bebelieve that all the 6 series and up are pci e only.

"Game over man." Pvt. Hudson. SAS 22nd E.V.R.

Rand
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No Shield, he can get a 6800 AGP, but I am having a hard time getting site to pull up, I think a 6800 with 512 MBytes of mem is around $200, but it may not have as fast a core clock or memory clock as a 6800 GT with 256 MBytes of mem for a little over $300.
7800 AGP are still a little pricey- $350

I have been trying to fond out why the prices differ, but the sites lock up at 38% and won't move on.

I would wait a couple of days, Trig, and see what everyone comes up with.

James and Noah are good with these kind of things, and they aren't on the forum, yet.

I am having to concentrate on another task, and can't give the attention I want to, because the sites aren't loading/fast/at all.

Give us a couple of days.

This is the one I am seeing for your price range, don't know about quite tho, and am only looking at Asus.
With it being DDR2 mem, the mem core clock will run at 1080.

ASUS N6800/TD/512M Geforce 6800 512MB GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail

Core clock: 350MHz
D-SUB: 1
DirectX: DirectX 9
DVI: 1
Memory Clock: 540MHz
Memory Interface: 128-bit
OpenGL: OpenGL 1.5
PixelPipelines: 12
TV-Out: S-Video/Composite Out
VIVO: No

Model #: N6800/TD/512M
Item #: N82E16814121216
In Stock
$4.65 Three Day Shipping
[3 reviews]
Move To Wish List
$185.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?maxPrice=300&N=2000380048&srchInDesc=Asus&Submit=ENE&Subcategory=48&minPrice=50

Having trouble getting Asus site to load for United Kingdom, to see what the cost is over there.

only those who will IMAGE(http://miniprofile.xfire.com/bg/co/type/2/sasrand.png)

Spidey01
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You might try some of the high end ATI Raedons (I'm not an ATI Person), or a mid-upper Geforce 6-7. If you can get a GF7800, it's so big I think it takes up 2 slots but it'd keep you maxed out for a while (And broke at like $500 US). I've heard good stuff about GF 6800, the mid line 6600 is cheaper and seems to work well. Other wise I'd go with the Geforce 6800 from nvidia

I have a ATI Raedon AGP 8x 256mb card in 1 PC, it's ok for those games if you don't mind low settings. And I have a Geforce 6200 (Econmy class GF6600) with intregrated TV Tuner support crap for my TV Card do hicky (Not up watching TV off the PC=S ).

My GF 6200 /w turbo cache (PCI-Express) can run RvS maxed out and get near steady 60 Frames Per Sec at 1600x1200x32. Yet in SWAT4 it's not so good at doing it at Very High / 1600x1200x32, but no vcard can run that dang game good (much like BF2:SF I believe). Haven't tried BF2 yet.

Geforce 6/7 = Good plan inless your an ATI hound.

SAS_Trig
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I've found this and like the reviews of it:
Sapphire Radeon 9550 256MB DDR AGP8x

which is way below my budget.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=16136921084&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X3Jldmlld3M=&product_uid=62209

Judging from the reviews, I can upclock it to the 9600 spec.

"This card is essentially a clocked-down and locked version of the 9600 PRO. Its GPU is locked at 250MHz. By flashing the BIOS you can remove this lock and turn it into a 9600 PRO which runs at 400Mhz"

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=81747

Look any good?

Booooooooooom!

Rand
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Trig, did you find what the core clock and core memory are?

6600 GT core clock: 500
mem clock: 900
Which can be overclocked 550- 1000, respectively

The core and mem clock are what you look for.
I haven't been able to find the clock frequency and where did you read that you could unlock it to a 9600, the page under the 9550 is the 9800 SE.
I have heard you could unlock them, just wanting to see what the frequencies are.

only those who will IMAGE(http://miniprofile.xfire.com/bg/co/type/2/sasrand.png)

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Yeah looks good. (I haven't checked the details for the overclock, re speeds etc) To get the juice out of it, your motherboard should support AGP 8x. Also note its output is DVI, not the 15-pin you get on most CRTs. You may need an adapter if you have a CRT. Most flatscreens have DVI connectors.

With overclocking things, it's always a risk. With CPUs what they do is make em all the same, test em, and the ones that can't handle the higher speeds because of manufacturing defect or whatever get clocked down and locked. Those are then sold for use at lower speeds. Presumably it is the same with the chips on GFX cards. So, you might be just fine, you might get unstable errors like reboots or crashes, or the card *might* die. In any case, it will void the warranty so run it at normal speed for a few weeks first to make sure it's not broken to begin with. Also watch for it getting too hot if you overclock it.

SAS_Trig
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Trig, did you find what the core clock and core memory are?

6600 GT core clock: 500
mem clock: 900
Which can be overclocked 550- 1000, respectively

The core and mem clock are what you look for.
I haven't been able to find the clock frequency and where did you read that you could unlock it to a 9600, the page under the 9550 is the 9800 SE.
I have heard you could unlock them, just wanting to see what the frequencies are.

These guides are posted in the comments/reviews area on that particular site.

See here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/107
and
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/34

Also cheers for the info James. I wonder if they've locked the card down so that they can sell it as a lesser card- without the costs of producing two different chips for similar cards. Just a thought.

Cheers for the help Smile

Booooooooooom!

Rand
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Also, you want to look at the memory bandwidth

this is the fx 5200
Memory bandwidth: 10.4GB/sec.
Fill Rate: 1.3 billion texels/sec.
Vertices per Second: 81 million

I can't re-find where I saw the 9550, but it said 8GB/sec for mem bandwidth.
The 6600 is 16 GB

This is all the 9550 card will do
Core = 250 MHZ
Mem = 200 MHZ, unfortunately its protected from overclocking, but with the hacked catalyst drivers available, you can soft mod it quite nicely with tools like atitool., Ive clocked mine to :
Core : 425 MHZ
Mem = 300 MHZ, without any other cooling.
I couldn't find the frequencies for the 5200, but I bet its faster than the 9550. All you would be getting is 128 Mb of extra mem, which will not compensate for the loss of core mem speed and mem bandwidth.

I would get a 6600 or a 6800 or a higher ATI

Here is another UK graphics place

http://uk.bizrate.com/buy/refine__att--259818,att259818--more,cat_id--405.html

For quality, you may have to go with 128 MB of memory, that will run games for a while, especially with your computer.( I hope) Biggrin

only those who will IMAGE(http://miniprofile.xfire.com/bg/co/type/2/sasrand.png)

SAS_Adze
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Don't know if you've had anything to do with them before, but watch out with ebuyer. I've bought quite a bit from them, because they're cheap, but they're a bunch of shits. It all goes well until you need to send something back to them if it's broken or faulty under warranty.

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If you're looking for a quality online seller, you need www.scan.co.uk can't beat their customer service, before or after purchase. You can phone them when you need them.

SAS_Trig
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Ta all, I'll have a look tomorrow.

Booooooooooom!