Author Topic: Want to upgrade vid cards but... (Read 447 times)

WhiteHawk · « **on:** December 23, 2002, 12:48:24 PM »

Getting ready to by a better vid card as my GF4 440 mx cant
handle smokey situations.

I have sdram 133 though and am not sure if a better vid
card is gonna make a difference. any suggestions swill be helpful.

System
p4 1.7
768 sdram 133
gf4 440 mx

qts · « **Reply #1 on:** December 23, 2002, 04:04:33 PM »

A proper GeForce 4 4200 or 4600 should be a drop-in replacement. I've got a Gf4 4200 and am very pleased with it. I'm waiting for Doom 3 to come out before upgrading - likely I'll have to upgrade my CPU at the same time, so I'll just buy a new carcass.

bloom25 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 23, 2002, 07:42:36 PM »

A GeForce 4 Ti 4200 (or 4400 / 4600) *should* increase your framerate quite a bit. A GeForce 4 MX is little better than a GeForce 2 GTS.

WhiteHawk · « **Reply #3 on:** December 23, 2002, 08:16:57 PM »

tnx guys. 200 more bucks.

eagl · « **Reply #4 on:** December 23, 2002, 11:06:06 PM »

Some hardware sites are claiming that the ATI 9500 Pro is the way to go now. $200 and it shares the 9700's ability to give you antialiasing and ansiotropic filtering with very little reduction in framerate.

They're all griping because all samples of the 9500 Pro shipped to date are clock-locked and cannot be overclocked without hacking the BIOS, but even at stock speeds the ATI 9500 Pro is equal to a GF4-4600 without antialiasing or ansiotropic filtering, and with AA and Ansio turned on the 9500 Pro is faster. For $200, it may be the current best price/performance card.

YMMV... The GF4-4200 is still a great bargain and most can be overclocked to within a hair of a GF4-4600.

Magic · « **Reply #5 on:** December 24, 2002, 10:33:42 AM »

Eagl,

I think you may have meant "Radeon 9500 Pro" and "Radeon 9700". Although for 80-90$ the older Radeon 8500 (non-LE version) is still a good bit of bang for buck.

eagl · « **Reply #6 on:** December 24, 2002, 08:18:58 PM »

You are correct magic. I've gone back and edited my post. I'll claim fatigue and influence from prescription narcotics caused the errors of course...