Suggestions for a video card in the $150-200 range

Koz · Post by **Koz** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:49 pm

Title pretty much says it all. I don't follow the graphics card scene too closely, so I have no idea what's considered good these days. I think $150-200 can get me a good mid-range to upper (on the high side) card, no?

I'm not a graphics whore so I don't need anything really high end, just something that will play today's games at reasonable quality. My barrel-scraper GF4 MX440 ain't cutting it anymore, so an upgrade is needed.

Suggestions? And let know if you need more system info or something.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 1:22 pm

AGP or PCI-E?

Radeon 9800 (regular) or Pro EZ, or maybe the older 9700 Pro should fit in that price range.

Koz · Post by **Koz** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 2:48 pm

Not PCI-E as I'm not upgrading my motherboard (yet).

I'll take a look at those suggestions, thanks. I've had some bad experiences with ATI in the (way) past, but I assume they've gotten a lot better over the years.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 3:59 pm

These days, about $200 will get you a good midrange gaming card. For $200, your best choices are to either add a few more bucks and get a real ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (the Sapphire brand is good and a few bucks cheaper than the ATI brand), or wait a few more weeks and go for the AGP version of the Nvidia 6600 GT when they come out (now only available as PCI-express). The 6600 GT looks like it will be the sweet spot for a "budget" card if you can wait a little bit (and will have the newer tech vs. 9800).

Rich in KCK · Post by **Rich in KCK** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:27 pm

I ordered a MSI 9800pro last week, accourding to Newegg reviews and overclockers.com the "green" version of this card is really a 9800XT. A lot of people say it is recognized right away as a 9800XT without the need to flash the bios others needed to flash it. Either way it is one of the better overclockers while the sapphire cards were poor overclockers. The problem is finding one of the MSI boards as Newegg has been out for a few weeks. I got mine from Mypcgoodies for $185 shipped. I just looked and they are out of them right now as well as Newegg but from the reviews if you can find one that is the 9800 to get.

I have a 9700pro right now and it has served me well since January. I'm building a HTPC this week that will be getting my 9700pro so I needed another card for the gaming rig and I didn't feel like waiting on the 6600GT.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 10:35 am

wait for the 6600GT

knob · Post by **knob** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 12:23 pm

Or, if you're impatient, the Geforce FX 5900XT (Or SE) is a good card. Last I checked, it was $180 on Newegg.

It's just about even with the vanilla 5900 in most cases, usually only 1 - 5 frames slower.

Octavious · Post by **Octavious** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 2:06 pm

When's the 6600GT supposed to come out?
I'm looking to upgraded from a 4400 Evercrack 2 is running like ass and HL2 is coming out tomorrow!!!!

Think 200 bucks is around what I would be willing to spend as well since I don't game on the computer as much as I used to.

Koz · Post by **Koz** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 3:48 pm

Octavious230 wrote:When's the 6600GT supposed to come out?
I'm looking to upgraded from a 4400 Evercrack 2 is running like ass and HL2 is coming out tomorrow!!!!

Think 200 bucks is around what I would be willing to spend as well since I don't game on the computer as much as I used to.

The PCI-Express version of the 6600GT is out now, but supposedly the AGP version is coming out in late November. I think that's what I'm going to pick up, but I'm not sure which version to get because I still haven't decided if I'm going to upgrade my mobo soon or not.

Octavious · Post by **Octavious** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 3:57 pm

Late November hmm not very long but long enough to annoy me!!!

There's a computer show in the area this weekend think I might drop by there if I get a chance and see what deals are cooking. I don't want to replace my mobo right now as I did that pretty recently.

Is there a noticable diffrence between using PCI-express and AGP? Haven't read up on it much yet so unless it's a big perfomance increase it wouldn't be worth it for me.

gwartok · Post by **gwartok** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 3:45 pm

Hope you didn't cave yet because NVIDIA just annouced "Immediate Availability of GeForce 6600 GT for AGP-Based PCs". They probably won't be widely available for a little bit but I've been waiting for these a few months myself, I can hold on a few more days.

Coskesh · Post by **Coskesh** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 5:12 pm

Think it's worth upgrading to a 6600 if you have an ATI Radeon 9800 pro?

Running EQ2 at medium resolution, and have my settings so that only 3-4 people around me have high lvl of detail, the rest of the people are like meat blobs or meat popcicles. I'm hoping the release of WoW deters a bunch of folks from my server because I ran it pretty smooth in beta.

Cousin is playing with an X800 and says he runs at highest everything and doesn't lag (framerate wise) at all. The 9800 has eaten up everything I've thrown at it so far, except for EQ2.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 5:35 pm

get the 6600GT shipped from buy.com, $229 AGP, $215 if you are a first time buy.commer

ScaryMike · Post by **ScaryMike** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 3:35 pm

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277

The 6600GT kicks the snot out of the 9800 pro in all newer games (dx9 games).

-SM