Price Guides July 2004: Video Cards and Memory
by Kristopher Kubicki and Howard Johnson on July 9, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Video Cards: ATI
Since the release of ATI's new flagship card (or cards, depending on your personal opinion), the X800 Pro has dominated print and internet ads and specials. Nontheless, the price is still much too high to consider for a price-oriented purchase.For those of us on a decent budget, the Radeon 9800 Pro still takes the cake for its price:performance ratio. Most vendors are handing out these GPUs for around $200, depending on where you look, and they are able to handle pretty much every game currently available on the market.
If you're not looking to create a gaming beast, then the Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro is still a very good card for its price. Capable of doing some light-to-medium gaming and more than ready to tackle 2D graphics, the 9600 is a reliable choice.
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PrinceGaz - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
If you're an overclocker on a budget (and which overclocker isn't, else they'd buy the more expensive higher-rated parts with less headroom), the memory recommendation would have to be that 512MB Corsair XMS4000 stick for $127 I mentioned.Or maybe the OCZ PC4000 from the same store as I see that is now listed at the same price, though AT haven't tested it so I don't know how its timings compare and definitely not how high it might go beyond 250FSB. Though every stick is different anyway so its always luck of the draw to some extent.
Video-card overclocking recommendations are not too difficult to deal with. They'll all overclock to a certain degree which depends on the cooling and memory chips used, but its unlikely you'd get 10% extra performance out of a different manufacturers card by overclocking it further to justify a 10% cost increase. Thats for cards in the sub-$200 region like the Radeon 9800 Pro or FX5900 (NON-Ultra). So just get the cheapest you can find provided it has a 256-bit memory bus and you'll have got best value for money. 9800 Pro's and FX5900's offer the best bang for the buck at present.
gimper48 - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
How about a recommendation for overclockers. Maybe an ATI recommendation, a nvidia one and a memory one just to spice it up. Granted most overclockers already know their stuff when it comes to this kind of thing but opinions are always welcome.PrinceGaz - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
That 512MB Corsair XMS4000 for $127 seems like great value if you're overclocking a Pentium 4. Also should be ideal for lowering the multiplier and raising the FSB of an Athlon 64 with a mobo with a working PCI lock.