Author Topic: What card... (Read 676 times)

Joc · « **on:** November 07, 2004, 06:25:12 PM »

Upgrading my croaking pc this week,got my new Motherboard,and ordering a P4 3.2,and a funky new case,but what card is best for AHII? always had Nvidia cards to be honest, I can go to about £230/$426 on a card, I saw a Sapphire RADEON 9800 Atlantis Pro AGP 8x - 256 MB DDR - TV,this a good one? never new much about these things,any advice appreciated!

United · « **Reply #1 on:** November 07, 2004, 07:15:34 PM »

If you're willing to put out 450 bucks or so, Id go with an ATI X800 or Geforce 6800.

You may find some for cheaper.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-121-519&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-133-116&depa=1

Darkish · « **Reply #2 on:** November 07, 2004, 07:24:17 PM »

If you could go the extra mile (about another £50) you're into x800pro and 6800GT territory.

The card you quoted was top of the line..... last year. The two above are the sharp end as of now and to be fair there's not that much between them.

I've just upgraded my gfx card, but had half your budget. For me it was a toss up between 5700ultra and 9800pro (256bit). Went with the radeon in the end for its greater power, and because my 1st card was a voodoo and it made a lasting impression on me

SilverFox · « **Reply #3 on:** November 07, 2004, 08:00:43 PM »

I just switched from nvidia to ATI and this x800 Pro rocks

I've been staunch nVidea fan for years, but the FX5900 stuttered over a smoke filled base. NV30 chip had a bug or sumpthin.

If its within your budget, I can recommend the x800 Pro.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #4 on:** November 07, 2004, 09:19:35 PM »

I saw 6800s and x800s on sale at CompUSA the other day for 350 bucks. With everyone buzzing about PCI-X stuff coming up, retailers may be hoping to move the high price stuff this year at Christmas, trying to lure people in who would have waited.

I dont know about the 5900 bug, I've heard people mention one but I have a 5900 and it works great. I got mine on sale for 150 bucks just before the 6800 came out. You can also get the 9800 ATIs for under 200 bucks now.

OOZ662 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 07, 2004, 10:50:46 PM »

I've noticed that ATI cards seem to not like AH2 as much. They will play the game, but they were the root of dumb bugs like the "all radar dots black" problem.

Fauxbra · « **Reply #6 on:** November 08, 2004, 12:15:57 AM »

Best Buy sells the 6800 OC with FarCry for $305

214thCavalier · « **Reply #7 on:** November 08, 2004, 05:33:41 AM »

The all radar dots black problem was not a bug.
It was only suffered by people who were using outdated drivers for the Radeons.

Joc how much was that Radeon 9800 you saw ?

I know its easy to say since its not me having to pull the money together, but as Darkish already said for £275 in the UK you can get an X800 Pro or for £279 a Gforce 6800 GT.
Both these cards will absolutely wipe the floor with any 9800 Pro.

However if your gaming concerns are purely for AH then a 9800 Pro will do fine, just will not be the best bang for the buck.

Btw i just swapped from a 3.2 P4 running a 9800 Pro.

Changed to a 3500 AMD 64 using the 9800 Pro gained about 12 fps in AH on the runway. Swapped to the X800 Pro and gained NOTHING in AH.

My advice still has to be try and scrape the cash to afford either the X800 Pro or the 6800Gt, as in virtually all other games they would be far better than the 9800 Pro.

Joc · « **Reply #8 on:** November 08, 2004, 06:07:14 AM »

Saw it for sale at the Pc world componant centre,for £222,they do a Sapphire X800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AGP VGA/VIVO/DVI-I for £335,I have at the most about £500 to spend,but out of that comes a P4 3.2 cpu and a new pc case,so whats left goes to the card,and as this will be my last upgrade for a while,I need to be sure I get the right card lol:p

Darkish · « **Reply #9 on:** November 08, 2004, 06:25:10 AM »

umm.. what did you used to have? If your power supply is an old stock one of around 250W you will have to consider a new one of these too - modern cards demand more juice.

Online shops will flog you an x800pro for cheaper, I've seen them listed around £275 or so - unfortunately I don't have a good word for PC World.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #10 on:** November 08, 2004, 06:37:11 AM »

As Cav said, the ATI 'block dot' issue was due to older video card drivers. Use the driver of the same age on an NVidia card, and the game will crash to the desktop.

Darkish, the X800Pro actually uses less power than the 9800Pro does and runs cooler, but power is an issue for any modern day video card. Still, a modern day system with these video cards will need a good 480W, or better, power supply.

Once you get into the X800/6800 territory of performance, you can consider it a nice long term investment as there is not a CPU available today, which will push those cards to thier limits.

214thCavalier · « **Reply #11 on:** November 08, 2004, 06:47:35 AM »

Joc what are you paying for the 3.2 cpu ?

Uk you can get the 3.2 P4 for £154 and an X800Xt for £320.
So thats umm £474, depends how much your case is gonna be.

SilverFox · « **Reply #12 on:** November 08, 2004, 07:16:45 AM »

I had a BFG FX5900 retail version installed and for 90% of AH flying it was superb!

But then there was this thing every time I flew into a contested base with smoke ( there's sumpthing wonderful about a smoking bish base

) the Frame rates would drop to single digits which I found somewhat nostalgic of the days when we flew MSFS1 on Comodore 64s. Wrote my first code in 1973 .

I tune my system constantly. I'm extremely concious of settings. Maybe it was something wrong with the card, maybe I goofed a driver update. But the fact remains, the real banchmark for us AH pilots flying through the smoke and icons of a contested base is where it counts. Maybe the nVidia 6800 (NV4x) series functions well in this environment, but I can tell you this: this x800 Pro with minor notches of AA, AF, Catalist AI and Mip Mapping to add some quality cuts the aboved mentioned benchmark at a steady 60 FPS. Its a beautiful world

Joc · « **Reply #13 on:** November 09, 2004, 07:17:04 AM »

One question,if I buy my cpu,case and vid card from the US,will it work on my pc in the UK??? prolly a silly question,but thought Id ask....

and can anyone recommend a good US dealer that ships internationally?

Kev367th · « **Reply #14 on:** November 09, 2004, 07:27:52 AM »

Hi Joc, yup cpu, vid card should work fine.
Case power supply should work also as long as it has a 110/240 volt slider on it.