Price Guides, April 2005: Video Cards
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 23, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
The Low End
We are still waiting for ATI’s HyperMemory video cards, unfortunately. While we do have samples in the lab, it seems that a ship date for these cards is still several weeks (months?) away – longer than what we expected. We are also very confused by the message sent by NVIDIA regarding their TurboCache video cards. We saw very good availability on TurboCache video cards in March, but now it seems that those same video cards are much drier. We still recommend the $60 TurboCache cards over the ATI offerings right now, but that could all change if HyperMemory turns out to hold its own.You’ll notice that we don’t have many recommendations for low end AGP video cards. To be honest, there really aren’t any. At this point, a low end AMD VIA motherboard with rudimentary integrated graphics are probably best if you decide to go the Sempron route. As most AGP video cards have increased in price over the last few weeks, it would be cheaper to get a low end nForce4 Socket 754 [RTPE: nForce4 754] motherboard and a TurboCache video card instead of an nForce3 motherboard and a Radeon 9550.
Let’s hope by this time next month, we will have more options to go with on the low end spectrum (particularly from ATI)!
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semo - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link
it certainly does Kristopherthanks
the issue with x300se running doom3:
had no time to check the settings and i just played the firts 10mins of the game (just shot one worker) and it wasn't choppy. that impressed me because on my 7500 even the main menu was choppy (not talking about walking and jumping just changing control settings). while playing i saw some smoke and it did not look good so there was no eye candy but at least it run ok.
anyway, my friend is now playing painkiller (ragdolls and particles flying all over the screen) and he says there's no slowdown. my 7500 gave up on the 3rd level :( . (see why i'm looking for a radeon 9800)
dripgoss - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link
LOL on the Newegg reviews.. yeah I posted up a very thorough and honest 2/5 "egg testimonial" on an MSI 6600GT and they wouldn't post it. I bumped it up to 5/5 and it went through but when it finally goy posted to the site it came out as "Nice card" verbatim!! And then they turn around and post testimonials from people who either don't own the product or bought it elsewhere! If they hae to approve the reviews before posting, that's funny..spittledip - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
My apologies! I am used to scoping out all the prices almost daily through pricewatch, and they always have 9800 SEs listed as pros. That is one sweet sweet deal!LoneWolf15 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
I think there's an important thing to mention regarding the ASUS X800XL video card. The price is far higher than competitors, and yet some models of their X800XL cards use DDR RAM instead of GDDR3 like the others, and the RAM is clocked far lower. This makes it really hard to tell if you're getting a good card for your money. Should you get the lower clocked DDR-based card, you'll be paying a lot more for less performance. I'd recommend Built By ATI, Powercolor, or other brands of cards for this reason.ASUS card specs (for comparison)
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=Extreme%20AX80...
Powercolor card specs:
http://www.tul.com.tw/global/productlist.aspx?fold...
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
semo: The first 2 and the last one are definitely 256-bit, Radeon 9800 Pros. The 3rd one did not mention whether or not it was 128-bit or 256-bit, but I am pretty sure that particular SKU is 256-bit.Hope that helps,
Kristopher
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Vol2005: It's a borderline situation with that rig. I would say you would be OK, but anything less and you would be better off getting a PCIe motherboard and video card.Kristopher
toyota - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
#20 what are you talking about an x300se gets 10 fps in doom3 at 1024x768. even in 800x600 its only 14 fps. you must be playing the game while you are stoned if you call that smooth gameplay.Vol2005 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Vol2005 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Anybody could tell me, please...if I will upgrade my graphics to AGP X800XL,
would the power of my AXP2500@3200 be enough for it or am i gonna upgrade cpu/mb too
Vol2005 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link