Author Topic: New Video Card...? (Read 1349 times)

Brooke · « **Reply #15 on:** June 14, 2007, 12:35:20 AM »

Yep -- check the power requirements if it's listed. Newegg.com usually lists it.

I run nVidia cards (6800 GS and 7950 GT) with 350 W power supplies in my Dell just fine. However, when I was shopping for a new card and checked the Radeon x1950 pro, it said it needed a much larger power supply, and the user comments talked about it needed something more than a skimpy power supply. I ended up picking the 7950 GT as much for that reason as performance reasons.

I've been very happy with my current nVidia 7950 GT and my previous nVidia 6800 GS. However, I have also previously been happy with Radeon's as well (had a Radeon 9600 Pro before that and several other 7xxx and 9xxx Radeons).

Basically, I go with best performance/price unless there is a mitigating factor (like power-supply requirements).

As for range of nVidia cards in the game, I'm running an nVidia card, and I seemed to see dots at the usual range, so whatever weirdness people were having, I'm not sure I'd attribute it to nVidia.

For nVidia cards, I've had very good luck with BFG and XFX brands, and bad luck with eVGA brand. For Radeon cards, I've had good luck with Sapphire and some other brands I don't remember.

Krusty · « **Reply #16 on:** June 14, 2007, 06:14:43 AM »

Fulmar, even my 7600GTS doesn't require more than a 350W PSU. The 7600 line doesn't even require an extra power plug. They draw juice from the AGP/PCIe slot. He should be set on power for this particular card.

Fulmar · « **Reply #17 on:** June 14, 2007, 11:12:14 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Krusty
Fulmar, even my 7600GTS doesn't require more than a 350W PSU. The 7600 line doesn't even require an extra power plug. They draw juice from the AGP/PCIe slot. He should be set on power for this particular card.

I assumed that if he's in the market for a FX5200, it has to be a pretty low end computer, like 250W PSU

My old card before I built my new rig was a 5900XT (AGP). This required an extra molex connector. However, I doubt the 5200, the base base base model of the 5xxx series requires one.

Denholm · « **Reply #18 on:** June 14, 2007, 11:16:31 AM »

Okay, I understand the majority of what you guys are saying, what is preventing me from trying to buy one of these cards is what my friend told me about my system. I have a low-end motherboard along with a small amount of memory, perhaps you guys can tell me if my system can support one of these cards that you are telling me is better than my decision:

66 MHZ Motherboard
1.33 GHZ AMD Athlon XP Processor
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
1024 MB Installed DDR Memory

EDIT: Forgot voltage, It says it's got a capacity of 350W max.

Krusty · « **Reply #19 on:** June 14, 2007, 11:25:06 AM »

You should be able to run this. The thing is: If you upgrade in the future you can take the card with to the upgrade.

Do you know the brand and model # of the motherboard?

For example: "ASUS P5P800," or "ASrock Dual775-Vista," or whatever?

Denholm · « **Reply #20 on:** June 15, 2007, 09:22:09 AM »

Here it is:

Board: ECS K7S5A 1.0
Bus Clock: 66 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 07.00T 04/02/01

hubsonfire · « **Reply #21 on:** June 15, 2007, 10:33:23 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Krusty
Fulmar, even my 7600GTS doesn't require more than a 350W PSU. The 7600 line doesn't even require an extra power plug. They draw juice from the AGP/PCIe slot. He should be set on power for this particular card.

Incorrect. The 7600GS does need an additional power connection. The 5200 and 6200 do not.

That being said, I highly recommend the 7600, after using both a 5200, and 6200. I picked up my 7600GS 256MB from Newegg for $109 (not including the $15 rebate), and am very pleased with it.

Krusty · « **Reply #22 on:** June 15, 2007, 02:10:15 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by hubsonfire
Incorrect. The 7600GS does need an additional power connection. The 5200 and 6200 do not.

I know mine doesn't, so I did a quick check on the pictures on newegg... We're both right!

AGP requires a 4-pin molex plug. PCIe draws directly from the PCI-Express slot.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #23 on:** June 15, 2007, 02:56:40 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Denholm
Okay, I understand the majority of what you guys are saying, what is preventing me from trying to buy one of these cards is what my friend told me about my system. I have a low-end motherboard along with a small amount of memory, perhaps you guys can tell me if my system can support one of these cards that you are telling me is better than my decision:

Board: ECS K7S5A 1.0
66 MHZ Motherboard
1.33 GHZ AMD Athlon XP Processor
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
1024 MB Installed DDR Memory

EDIT: Forgot voltage, It says it's got a capacity of 350W max.

put a ati/powercolour 9550 256 card or 9600 /9800 with it .... thats about the best bang for buck your gonna get off that system .

I wouldnt waste $$$ on a higher card then that unless you planning to upgrade to a better agp mainboard . the reason is because thats a 4x agp mainboard . and going with a newer faster card will be bottlenecked by the MB/cpu combo.

you'll see a decient improvement w/ the 9550 card ... (80 bucks)

what ever you do "dont" put a 5200/9200/6200 in it as for its a waste of money and those cards are junk IMRO.

I have that some board /cpu with a 9550 that i passed down to my son ... it plays ah2 nicely ... not totally maxed out .. but distance is maxed and performance slider is above 1/2 ... avg 30 fps in the hugh furballs , 80fps in clear skys on a 85hz refresh rate .

Note: your powersupply may be too weak for a 9600 pro or better card ... unless its a really good one ...

Your really over due for a whole new system as for that Ecs board should be getting close to the end of its life .

Fulmar · « **Reply #24 on:** June 15, 2007, 03:59:29 PM »

K7S5A
Processor Support Socket A
currently 550 MHz - 1.4+ GHz
Compatible with AMD Duron/Thunderbird series
200 - 266 MHz Processor Bus Compatible
Chipset SIS 735S DDR Single Chip Controller
Bus Speeds 100 - 166 MHz in 33 MHz Increments
(200 - 333 MHz effective rate)
112 / 124 MHz Non-Spec Supported
System Memory 2x 184-pin DDR SDRAM PC-1600/2100
2x 168-pin SDRAM PC-100/133
1.0 GB Maximum Memory
Expansion Slots 1x AGP v2.0 4x
5x PCI v2.2
1x AMR
IDE Support Ultra DMA/100 SIS Dedicated EIDE Controller
Maximum 2 Channels, 4 Drives Supported
Sound Support AC '97 Compliant 3D Audio Codec
Microsoft Windows WHQL Compliant
Integrated I/O 2x USB v1.1 Standard, Support for 2 More Via Header
1x Parallel, ECP and EPP supported
2x Serial, max 115,200bps FIFO
2x PS/2 Keyboard + Mouse
Game/Midi/Audio Riser Connectors
10/100 Mbps LAN Controller (Optional)
BIOS 2 MB AMI BIOS (Full ACPI, DMI, PnP, Virus Protect)
PC Monitoring CPU / Motherboard Temperatures
CPU / System Fan Speeds
Multiple Voltage Levels

I recognize this board as a couple of my friends used it a few years back. They all went dead within a year. ECS has always made crap boards and they've pretty much stuck with building OEM boards for companies like eMachines etc.

The computer you're looking to upgrade is pretty old. As in 5 years, give or take. Sticking $100+ in a new video card isn't going to make a big fart of a difference.

SAVE YOU MONEY - BUY A NEW COMPUTER

Denholm · « **Reply #25 on:** June 17, 2007, 11:31:32 AM »

Thanks guys for the replies. Yes, I know it's an old system, and I am looking at buying a new Motherboard and Processor. Just right now I'm not ready to do that and sitting here playing games such as FS2004 at 4 FPS, even 3 frames higher would be a leap of joy for me. That's why I sit here marveling at some of you players thinking it stinks to be playing at 60 FPS when you used to play at 340 FPS. That's something I can't do right now and I am trying to change it.

However at the time being I have to do with what I have and am planning on doing that as you see. Roscoroo, I am going to look into that video card you mentioned, yet if too pricey I might just go with what I mentioned. I know it's "junk" to you guys, yet coming from a player who uses an NVidia GeFore MX 400, it's an improvement.

Thank you all for the replies.

EDIT: I found the video card for a cheaper price at other stores (ATI Radeon 9550), yet I will use this link as the main source to this conversation:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1723243&CatId=935#detailspecs

I could however not find details mentioning the "Fill Rate Per Second" or "Vertices per second". I would like to comapare them alongside the GeForece FX 5200. I already performed a Google search on the ATI card yet I found nothing mentioning any of the things I spoke of.

Roscoroo, you seem to have bought the Video Card, do you perhaps have the specifications I am looking for?

Fulmar · « **Reply #26 on:** June 17, 2007, 11:41:51 AM »

If you bought that FX5200, you wouldn't see much of a performance boost, at all. That card is the MX400 of the 5xxx series.

The difference between 60fps and 340fps is so small its not even funny. The human eye cannot possibly catch all 340fps. If I turned Vsync off I can get 250fps+ at my max res of 1600x1050 with 4x AA and AF. I do not notice a difference in performance (visually) when I turn vsync on and limit my fps to 60fps. I leave vsync on because of 'tearing' that occurs when it is off.

Denholm · « **Reply #27 on:** June 17, 2007, 11:47:01 AM »

Yes, I knew that, since regular life passes you by at about 20 - 30 FPS, yet I was just mentioning my situation that I would greatly appreciate a slight increase in video performance and how it bothers me that others complain about a slight drop in performance when their frame rate is still sky high.

Fulmar · « **Reply #28 on:** June 17, 2007, 11:56:11 AM »

Much to the myth that the human eye can only detect 30 fps is pretty false. Its higher than this. Most people believe its 30fps because thats what your television runs at roughly (I believe this is how the myth got started). Howeverm you'll see a difference in 30 fps watching a tv program and 30 fps on your computer game. Why? TV video and movies have motion blur built it to each fame to allow a smoother playback. Your video game does not (well most do not, I think games like Need for speed and other may). So 30 FPS on your computer game will look choppier than 30 fps on your TV.

Denholm · « **Reply #29 on:** June 18, 2007, 08:32:48 AM »

True, yet I heard the 30 FPS motion, not guessed it. (Blames the person sitting next to him)

I'll go with the ATI Radeon 9550 AGP. Thanks A LOT for the help!:D