An excellent in depth review of video cards

Anyone wishing to upgrade their video card in the new year should read this well done review by Tom's Hardware site on 12/29/03:

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html

Another nice review of "budget video cards" was done by the Anandtech site on 12/15/03:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1933

I am contemplating an upgrade here on my homebuilt machine, an NVidia GF4 440 with only 64 Megs of memory just can't cut it any longer for I want to do.

After about two weeks of intensive research here, the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro appears (to me) to have the greatest bang for the US$

It's interesting to note that going from 128 Megs of memory to 256 Megs on a video card doesn't seem to yield much if any advantage.

I consider Tom's and Anand's sites to be at the top of the heap for hardware reviews.

Daddad

 

Through the ATI trade-up program, you currently can get a 9800 Pro 128MB for only $249US! I'm considering it as I speak. You can send in any crappy 1MB video card as a trade-in and get $50 off of the 9800Pro's $300 price tag.

Yes, I've heard that currently, 256MB does absolutely nothing for you.

Gary

 

Nice price Gary, go for it

Best price I see in Pricewatch today is $279.00

Happy fps(ing)

Daddad

 

There is only one thing wrong with those reviews.

They do not tell you if it will work in YOUR system.

I have a GeForce FX5200 that was USELESS on this machine with 98SE. But is absolutley great with XP Pro.

And they do not tell you that ( I guess they just surmise ) that you need drivers for YOUR system.

And they also do not tell you that you may need to use OLDER drivers that WORK. I found that out a LONG time ago. That I needed to use drivers that work which may not be the latest and supposedly greatest.

There are other things that come into play other than just the card itself.

BillyBob

 

Well, Mr. BillyBob, I can't possibly know what you mean by the word "useless" when you refer to your GeForce FX5200.
You might want to elaborate on that issue.
In reference to your comments about Win 98SE and XP and your video card, I took the same stance that Arie took.
When XP became available, I embraced it and never looked back at any earlier versions of Windows for my personal machine.

I'm sure you noticed, in both reviews, both sites posted their test set up in detail:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-02.html

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1933&p=2

Both sites used high end, state of the art machines to conduct their tests most probably because they wanted to insure the test beds would not limit or "color" the results.

Admittidly, when we talk about video cards, it usually turns into a Ford and Chevy debate.

My thrust in posting this thread was to provide some means for those of us searching for an upgrade to their system video.
The man/woman hours spent in testing those video cards must have been enormous, especially on Dr. Tom's site.

Although not being an avid gamer myself, there are many out there who embrace the gaming world and all it has to offer.

Those of us who have been down in the trenches hardware wise know that games can and will bring down a system to it's knees more so than almost any other computer task.
Especially, the newer games that rely on directx-9.

And, yes, like you I have walked down the same road as you have when it came to drivers.
Drivers can drive one up the wall, been there, done that

Daddad

 

That is one of the problems. We don't all have High end state of the art systems.

I should not have really said " useless " but just that it was no where near as good as in XP. But it WAS NOT the fault of the card.

For one thing 98SE itself does not have the power of XP.

Another thing SE would not handle DX9 very well. The only one game that I have that really taxes the Video is Links 2003 Golf.

But my real point to bring out is the we may not be able to go buy the reviews such as the one in question. They only point out that the card has the capability to do such and such.

I tried the GeForce FX5200 in a much lower powered 98SE machine and it was bettter than on this one. You figure it out as to why. I can't.

So that tells me that the overall system plays a bigger part than just the card itself.

And if we put one of those fancy cards and it does not work just right, don't put all the blame on the card.

And the bottom line is still that there is no gaurrentee that it will work as designed in your system.

BillyBob

 

I will agree to that idea. But as a reference only. Not a qaurentee.

Another thing SE would not handle DX9 very well

Correction. Until I changed the video card back to a GeForce3xx.

So that brings us right back to the combination of things again.

And how well any hardware works depends sometimes as much on the Microsoft side as it does the specific hardware side.

BB

 

Hi. Daddad.

Interesting read. Thanks for the pointers.

I think, in general, most of these high end gaming cards have a small portion of their capability specifically directed towards Windows. Most of their capability is for gaming.

In order for Windows to work with a full cross-section of video cards it must by necessity limit the instructions it can execute re driving the screen. That way a 2Meg older PCI card will work as well as a new 8X card althoughbeit much slower.

The drivers for these many cards do not generate the instructions by which Windows displays images on the screen. They just interpret the instructions sent by Windows. Thusly Windows has to limit the array of instructions it can send to the drivers so all cards will display what Windows wants to see on the screen. Driving the high-end gaming cards in their full capacity is generally left up to the individual gaming programs.

These high end cards really come into their own when being driven by a game designed to use the high speed drawing capabilities in order to generate landscape and movement across that landscape, etc. Frames-per-second speed becomes important in gaming but, with the exception of a couple of programs, is generally useless when not gaming. A good 2X or 4X card will display faster than the eye can see just fine in all Windows versions.

I think it's important to get a video card with 16, 32, or 64Megs at least. That seems to make quite a difference in daily display.

I've always wondered why nobody came up with a 3D program on PCs. PCs today have the ability to display the separate colors so the 3D glasses would work. It would be a whole new industry for computers, particularly in gaming. Wouldn't that be a kick. A fighter plane could fly directly at you and make you duck. Wouldn't have to design any hardware, just software.

I wonder if anybody has ever figured out at what frames-per-second speed the eye can no longer distinguish a change in the screen. That number would be the fps card speed to go for. Anything above that would be useless for humans.

Giles

 

System Requirements for my GeForce FX5200
1--Windows 98/ME/2000/XP or Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 5 or 6)
2--Intel Pentium III, AMD Duron or Athlon-class processor or higher
3--128 MB system RAM
4--250-watt system power supply
5--Motherboard with an available AGP 2.0 slot
6--17 MB of available hard disk space (50 MB for full installation)
7--CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
8--VGA-compatible monitor

The first 4 items in the above list are ALL Windows/System requiremensts. If any of them is not met the card will/may not work properly.

Note the requirements for NT4.

My 98SE system met all of the listed requirements. But the GeForce FX5200 did not preform properly.

Using the same system and putting XP Pro overtop of 98SE it now preforms very well. We play Golf with a Friend in Canada. And if there are no Internet hangups ( and/or Windows handles the instructions properly ) the screens change faster than my eyeballs can see it. And I am running it at 800x600 32bit color.

Many users do not realize that the power supply itself has a great affect on how things work.

This is the stuff that the reviews pointed to in this thread do not tell you. This info has to be gotten from the info for the card itself

Another item that must be adequet is the Monitor. An El Cleapo monitor may not be capable of handling the output of a high end card. But the card may get the blame.

If Windows does not handle the instructions properly then the card may not either. No matter how good it is supposed to be.

If Windows iteself does not behave then very likely nothing else will either.

Also your Internet connection/ISP has a lot to do with things when on the Internet. Especially gaming. Good connection = good results. Bad connection = bad results.

I believe that is what Links LS 2003 does. Also I believe Monster Truck drives the card. But I will say one thing. If Windows itself is not behaving in the background neither game runs properly.

BillyBob

 

Mr. Daddad.

I wonder if the 2X, 4X, and 8X speeds of the AGP ports are tied to the FSB in the 200, 400, and 800MHz speeds. It seems to me that there were 8X AGP cards before there was 800MHz boards but I'm not sure of that. Still, they may have had 800MHz running for the AGP but not for the FSB yet.

Probably nothing to do with it but an interesting thought.

Giles