Video card recommendation

[Jest]

Well its time for the post Christmas shopping. Nothing like the holiday season to make you realize what you dont have. So today I think Im gonna upgrade my video card.

I currently have an Nvidia GForce4 MX. And despite being a computer programmer I am horribly inept at hardware. Can I get some recommendations? What could I upgrade to that would give me smokin hot graphics?

[shodanjr_gr]

I just got my X-Mas present. Ati Radeon 9800 SE All-in-Wonder made by Hercules.

Its a lite version of the ATI radeon 9800 with onboard TV-Tuner and video editing capabilities.

I payed 270 euros for it which is not bad imho.

Downloading the latest Ati Drivers atm since the fucker crashed on Aquamark and the vegitation test :-)

[sanityislost]

i just got a radeon 9200 256ddr AND ITS FUCKING GAY lol dont get one

[Jest]

Hmmmm Ive never had a Radeon gfx card so Im a little hesitant to get one. What makes it better than the others?

[Argent]

Originally posted by Jest
Hmmmm Ive never had a Radeon gfx card so Im a little hesitant to get one. What makes it better than the others?

They might not be better or faster than nVidias products (there are small variations of course, but right now with 5900-series nVidia is at par with ATI's 9800-series) but generally we can say that they give better value per buck.

And I know that somebody is gonna come and complain about ATI's drivers so I'll just say this now : It's BULLSHIT! ATI's drivers has been at least as good as nVidias as long as I've used ATI-card (which would be 1½ years).

[Beanie McChimp]

I have a geforce fx 5200 and I have to say WOW it is amazing for £95 I may go as far as to say stuff buying one of those radeon 9800xt's or whatever the fuck the new one is.

[Spectra260]

i dunno why people complaning about ATI drivers...they dont gimp your cards just so you get better performance like the newer nvidia drivers...


i love my radeon 9700 pro...if only neocron had better coding...or somthing...that made me get better fps...

i got like 3-4 times higher specs than the box says is recomended...:rolleyes:

[Scikar]

Radeon 9800 XT 256MB DDR. Currently the fastest card on the market. Have yet to see it stutter on anything, using the drivers straight out of the box, with Overdrive disabled (dynamic overclocking, idea is to overclock your card and automatically slow it down if it heats up, all built into the ATi drivers so it's fully supported). Also haven't had anything crash on me at all, system has been pretty much running 24/7 since Christmas day without a single crash. Only 2 downsides are, £300 price tag and needs at least a 350W power supply to leach from (comes with a cable to put it in series with the HDD power supply.

If you are willing to fork out for it, then I heartily recommend it. I think you can also take a couple of steps down to the 128MB version and the price goes as low as £240, not sure. I haven't really had much experience with the GeForce FX cards so I can't really comment, but after hearing that NVidia would rather hack their drivers to report faster speeds in benchmarks rather than actually make them faster in the first place, and the general image I have of them which is a complacent company thinking they are leading the market, whereas ATi know they are not considered top dog yet and are actually workingo on improving that.

Oh almost forgot - 9800 XT also has options to make your screen cycle between red, green and blue, display in black and white, etc, in games just for laughs. ;)