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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JarredWalton - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
20 - Doom 3 running smooth on a X300SE!? I'd like to see that, as I've tried Doom 3 on an ATI Xpress 200 chipset (roughly the equivalent of the X300SE) and it ran like a slug. Even at low details and 640x480 resolution Doom 3 couldn't pull more than 15 FPS on that setup.400 MHz RAM with a 64-bit bus only gives 3.2 GBps of bandwidth, which is simply not enough for Doom 3's shadowing engine. Maybe if you disable the shadows and specular highlights it would get 30+ FPS, but then what's the point?
semo - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
does somebody know if these are real radeon 9800pro cardshttp://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html...
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html...
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html...
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html...
(sorry to firefox users if the links are too long)
#13, i don't know what you mean by benefit. i have a friend who has a dell system (quit booing/laughing, there was a good reason) with x300se and p4 530 (3.0ghz) and doom3 and painkiller run very smoothly on it.
if you want eye candy upgrade your vid card
Zebo - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
DrMrLordX read between the lines what I quoted above: especially the part about "in a million years."AT don't recommend garbage or stuff that fails some basic price/performance standard. They keep it lean and mean.:)
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
spittledip: The cards we list as 9800 Pros are in fact 9800 Pros; these are the 256-bit cards. The 128-bit Radeon 9800 SE cards that you are refering to retail for about $110.Kristopher
zemane - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Nice timing, I'm just buying a new video card!On page 5 "Low-End cards", second table, first row, the Newegg link for the Sapphire Radeon X300SE 128MB AGP opens the PCIe version page. And the corresponding "Check Prices" link is broken.
And the link that opens the comments popup says there is one more comment than reality.
DrMrLordX - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
Woops! Looks like you failed to mention the AGP 6200 cards as well.DrMrLordX - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
Interestingly, the 6800NU doesn't seem to be featured anywhere on your price list. Or, at least, I didn't see it.spittledip - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
I think someone needs to tell anandtech that those 9800 "pros" for 140$ are really SE models... and 9800 SE are really poor cards-- 9500 pro and 9600 pro beat those out!l3ored - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
nevermind... didnt read the second page yet. i have an athlon 64 3000 (754) and a 9800 pro. i think i'd benefit more from upgrading the graphics card first, am i right?l3ored - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
am i reading this right? "like so many things AGP, our disappointment can hardly be contained." you guys dont approve of agp anymore? i was under the impression that today's video cards dont require the bandwidth that pci-e gives and so the same card on either platform performs the same. or has that all changed?