Video Cards

[XAGSV8]

Well it time to upgrade my video card (geforce 2mx) and I have $150 to spend on a new one. Can anybody here recommend one that is in this price range and does a reasonable job for games, video etc? Has to be an AGP card as my motherboard is too old for PCI Express. Thanks

[Envious]

You seriously arent gonna get a very good video card for $150, but anyway, this is a good reference point (i know u cant buy one from here, just to get an idea on what u want)
http://www.computeralliance.com.au/p...spx?qryCat=VID

Also, look here www.techbuy.com.au these guys will post purchases to you...

Good Luck
Nick.

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Best AGP video card you can get for that sort of money is anything based on a Radeon 9550 - as long as you get one that has a 128-bit RAM bus, they are available with a 64-bit and 128-bit RAM bus, steer clear of the 64-bit one if at all possible.

You should be able to get a Radeon 9550 with 128Mb of RAM and a 128-bit RAM bus, and get change out of $150.

Before anybody jumps in and says a Radeon 9550 is crap, I'll let you in on a little secret, they are basically an underclocked Radeon 9600, and most of them can be updated to a 9600 with a firmware (video card BIOS) update - http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ng/vidcard/107 or http://www.oc-service.com/articles/a/244.html. For the money, they definately offer the best bang-for-buck, and while not exactly being the fastest thing around, it would make a great upgrade from a geforce 2mx.

I know from experience, I had about the same budget, and was upgrading from the same card (64Mb geforce 2mx), upgraded to a 128Mb Radeon 9550, flashed it to a 9600 (overclocked at the same time by changing the GPU and RAM speeds in the new BIOS before flashing it) and am quite happy with the improvement over the old card.

Some models to look out for:

• SAPPHIRE Radeon 9550 128M DDR AGP VGA / TVO / DVI-I (all SAPPHIRE 9550 cards have the 128-bit RAM bus) - http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9550.asp
• Gigabyte GV-R955128D Radeon 9550 128M AGP (don't touch the Gigabyte GV-R955128T, that's the 64-bit version, which you don't want) http://tw.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products...V-R955128D.htm
• HIS (Hightech Information System Ltd.) R8N-15-B Excalibur 9550 128MB-128bit (all Hightech Information System Ltd. 9550 cards have the 128-bit RAM bus) - http://www.hisdigital.com/html/9550.htm
• PowerColor ATI Radeon 9550 128M R96-LC3 (if buying this, ensure you don't get the "ATI Radeon 9550 SE Low Profile" card by mistake, that is the 64-bit RAM version, which you don't want) http://www.power-color.com/AGP_9550_R96-LC3.htm
  

Of all those listed above, the Sapphire and Gigabyte cards are known to have no problems with being modified via a BIOS flash to a 9600, but the Sapphire card uses better quality RAM and is a better overall card (higher overclocking potential), so if you can get that one, get it.

And finally a review of the Powercolor 9550, to give you an idea of what to expect: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...views/tul9550/

If I had the money, for a little over $300 I'd get myself an AGP nVidia 6600, but I didn't (I'd rather spend my $ on my car) and my guess is that you don't have that sort of money to spend on (or you can think of better things to spend it on) then a video card.

But trust me, a 128M Radeon 9550 will be a HUGE improvement over the geforce 2 mx.

Trust me, steer clear of the nVidia fx5200 based cards, the Radeon 9550 walks all over them. My brother used to have one, until I upgraded and my 9550 was making his fx5200 look like it belonged in a 386 :hihi:

Hope I've been able to help.

[MAD]

I was in this same boat a little while back, and was looking at the 9600pro in the 2nd hand market, but I ended up finding a 9800pro for $250 so I went for that.

I reckon something in the gf4-ti range of cards, or the radeon 9550/9600 would be a good choice of upgrade.

[Casper]

If you can find one, try to get an ATI 8500, old card now but they kick the "bleep" out of the ATI 9600's. Basically the same card but the 9600 got hobbled.

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by Casper

If you can find one, try to get an ATI 8500, old card now but they kick the "bleep" out of the ATI 9600's. Basically the same card but the 9600 got hobbled.

Agreed, good luck finding one for under $150 tho, otherwise I'd have one myself

If I had the money, I'd upgrade to a Leadtek WinFast PX6600 TD (available from MSY for $215)

[XplosiveR6]

Originally Posted by Casper

If you can find one, try to get an ATI 8500, old card now but they kick the "bleep" out of the ATI 9600's. Basically the same card but the 9600 got hobbled.

yea its funny how the number system of video cards work, a higher model number most definately doesnt mean better, eg geforce3's are faster then geforce4 in general, wtf??

you could get a radeon 9600pro, or even XT for under $200 if you shop around

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Or if you can stretch the budget another $5 to $155, you could get a 128M Leadtek-A360LE TD GeForce FX5700LE DVI from MSY Technology

Alternatively, IT Warehouse have

• 256M JETWAY 95LX-AD-256C RADEON 9550XT 256M/128Bit AGP 8X for $138.00, or
• 128M ASUS R9550 for $149.00 or
• 256M Gigabyte HW-MB-GV-R955256D for $150

The ASUS is the better choice out of the ASUS or the JETWAY, because the JETWAY BIOS is known to NOT able to be updated, but out of what I've listed above, the Leadtek A360LE TD from MSY is the best deal, next best is the Gigabyte R955256D from IT Warehouse, and the worst deal (in my opinion) is the Jetway. However, you'd be happy with any of them after using a GeForce 2 MX.

[Casper]

I wouldnt touch anything from Jetway with a barge pole myself.

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by Casper

I wouldnt touch anything from Jetway with a barge pole myself.

Me neither mate, learnt that the hard way, but I thought it was better to mention it then to not mention it and have anybody go to the website and say to themselves "hang on, that looks like a better deal, I'll have that" - this way I have shown that I know about it, but also that it's not as good a deal as it might appear, and that the others I have listed, whilst they might not appear to be any better, I would regard as better options.

[Yagz]

I have a ATI Radeon 8500, and nver had a problem.. Paid $500 a few years back :P

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Yagz

I have a ATI Radeon 8500, and nver had a problem.. Paid $500 a few years back :P

and you'll probably find it will stand up to most of the budget video cards even now... and beat quite a few of them. I had one for years, wasnt till the 9800pro came out I could justify upgrading. They are an excellent card.

[Thornie]

and i wouldnt touch th fx series with a million foot pole they are not worth it a ti for less offers better performance

Due to the fact that you are upgrading from a GF2 , chances are that your motherboard is fairly old and will not handle an 8xAGP card (power wise) , even an older P3V4X board that states it is a 4xAGP board won't handle a 4XAGP card to well. Might be best to check what board you are running and what it will safely handle.
wedgey

[pauljh74]

Originally Posted by wedgey

Due to the fact that you are upgrading from a GF2 , chances are that your motherboard is fairly old and will not handle an 8xAGP card (power wise) , even an older P3V4X board that states it is a 4xAGP board won't handle a 4XAGP card to well. Might be best to check what board you are running and what it will safely handle.
wedgey

If the motherboard is not AGP 4x or higher, it will run the card at 3.0 volts - this is known as AGP version 1.0. AGP version 2.0 does 3.0 volt cards as well as 1.5 volt cards - you will know if they are if it supports up to AGP 4X. AGP version 3.0 (current AGP version) runs cards at only 1.5 volts and are pretty much all running AGP 8X. So if you put an AGP version 3.0 card in an AGP 1.0 motherboard, it will last a matter of a few seconds before it fries as the motherboard will be supplying 3 volts to a card needing only 1.5 volts.

couldnt offer any advise except go the distance and pay more!
or hold off.

I purchased a Nvidia 6800GT which is 2 steps down from there highest model, i play on-line games, and couldnt fault the card yet. there is a catch of $700 bucks at the time, but i wont be needing to upgrading this card for at least 3 years!

[Dez]

ill be saving up for an ASUS AX850XT .....$1000kish :dr_Evil:

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/...ducts_id=13385

1337 :

lol Nvidia and Radeon is like Ford v Holden!!!!!

and will never change.

just that radeon is more like holden u trator!!!!!!!

[Dez]

ive got nvidia at the moment...and am appalled at its in-ability to overclock....so ill switch to ATI as everyone seems to know how to overclock them, and no one seems to know how to overclock my card

wot card do u have?
I had a GF4 Ti 4200 128mb x8 agp and i overclocked it!, but i also had a machine that could take it as well...

[Dez]

Originally Posted by MadManz

wot card do u have?
I had a GF4 Ti 4200 128mb x8 agp and i overclocked it!, but i also had a machine that could take it as well...

Leadtek Geforce FX5600 256mb etc.

PC is a p4 2.6ghz overclocked to 2.81ghz, it was stable at 3.2ghz, but decreased FPS in game, so lowered it to 2.8ghz.

thermal take case, so cooling is all good....and the vid card has a giant 3 cooler on it....so its ready to be oc'd....but as soon as i oc'd it, frames per second dropped to the shit. any overclocking appears to destroy the cards performance rather than increase it.

if anyone knows how, go for it!

[Paris Hilton]

I have a Leadtek Winfast A360TDH (FX5700 GPU)
I can't fault it, it has been a great card. Spend the extra $5 and get the one that was mentioned earlier, unless your board can't handle AGP 8x.

Looking for a new motherboard? Then you'll probobly need a new CPU too. I run a Athlon 2100+ on a Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe with 1GB of DDR400, and it cains the hell out of most other machines when it comes to FPS and gaming, which just proves that just CPU speed alone does not mean fast computer. *slaps intel *

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

To be honest, in my opinion, if the board can't handle a new 8x AGP card (it should be able to run an 8x AGP card at 4x unless it's a really old board, 8x AGP speed is no huge improvement over 4x anyway), you'd be better off upgrading the board and probably the CPU then the video card, having said that, the old board I had (EPOX 8KHAL) was only a 4x AGP board, but handled the Radeon 9550 (an 8x card) without any problem. When I was upgraded the motherboard to an 8x AGP (ASUS A7N8X-X) there was only a slight improvement due to the change to AGP operating at 8x, but that wasn't the reason I upgraded anyway - the 8KHAL couldn't use anything faster then (from memory) a XP2200+ CPU...

If you can tell us what sort of motherboard (aka mainboard) you're using, that will help us work out what the best upgrade path will be. Also what CPU you're using will also help us work out what your best upgrade option will be.

[XAGSV8]

Originally Posted by The MaDDeSTMaN

To be honest, in my opinion, if the board can't handle a new 8x AGP card (it should be able to run an 8x AGP card at 4x unless it's a really old board, 8x AGP speed is no huge improvement over 4x anyway), you'd be better off upgrading the board and probably the CPU then the video card, having said that, the old board I had (EPOX 8KHAL) was only a 4x AGP board, but handled the Radeon 9550 (an 8x card) without any problem. When I was upgraded the motherboard to an 8x AGP (ASUS A7N8X-X) there was only a slight improvement due to the change to AGP operating at 8x, but that wasn't the reason I upgraded anyway - the 8KHAL couldn't use anything faster then (from memory) a XP2200+ CPU...

If you can tell us what sort of motherboard (aka mainboard) you're using, that will help us work out what the best upgrade path will be. Also what CPU you're using will also help us work out what your best upgrade option will be.

Thanks for all your help, my budget of $150ish is because I would rather put the money into a mini I am restoring for my other half (as well as our wedding) and I plan on doing a proper upgrade in about a year and a half. This card is just to give my current computer a bit more life until I can get a motherboard with PCI Express. My mother board is an MSI with an Intel 845 chipset, the cpu is a P4 1.5GHz and the computer has 512mb of memory. The motherboard is capable of 4xAGP. Thanks

Shouldn't be any problems running a later model video card with that setup then , Just that first thing that popped into my mind when you said you were using a GF2 is that I thought you might have been using an old P3 or similar. Looking in some online shop catalogues, the fastest you'll get for <150 bucks would be a 9550 256meg for around 130-140 bucks. Next best would be a 9600 but they are around the 250ish mark.

edit: steer clear of any ATI card that has se on the end , se doesn't stand for super edition or special edition, it stands for shit edition!!!! ie: chips that don't make the standard for the good cards and are crippled so they work at a lower speed rating so the manufacturer can offload them. I'm not sure of what Nvidia designates their crippled cards with though, but I think it might be LE?

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by GSWXA

Thanks for all your help, my budget of $150ish is because I would rather put the money into a mini I am restoring for my other half (as well as our wedding) and I plan on doing a proper upgrade in about a year and a half. This card is just to give my current computer a bit more life until I can get a motherboard with PCI Express. My mother board is an MSI with an Intel 845 chipset, the cpu is a P4 1.5GHz and the computer has 512mb of memory. The motherboard is capable of 4xAGP. Thanks

Ok, well I'd definately see if you can get your hands on one of the following then (in order of best to worst choices, IMO):

• 128M Leadtek-A360LE TD GeForce FX5700LE
• 256M Gigabyte HW-MB-GV-R955256D
• SAPPHIRE Radeon 9550 128M DDR AGP VGA
• Gigabyte GV-R955128D 128M AGP
• 128M ASUS R9550 AGP

Any of these will work without any problems in your computer, and to be honest, spending much more then $150 on a video card could mean that your new video card isn't running as fast as it could because your CPU isn't fast enough. Of course, that depends on what you're doing with it, but I've found that my video card works noticably faster (in benchmarks and Doom 3) when it was tried in a system with a much faster CPU then my XP1800+.

As I mentioned in a previous post, several of these can be obtained for around your price range or less from either http://www.msy.com.au/ or http://www.itwarehouse.com.au/warehouse/default.asp and any of them would be a huge leap from a GF2 like you're using now.

Most importantly, shop around, see what prices you can get on them, and don't be afraid to haggle and try and knock their prices down, after all, AGP now has a limited lifespan and if they don't accept your offer, they might find themselves reducing the price themselves to below what you offer them now in a month or two to just get rid of it.

Originally Posted by wedgey

edit: steer clear of any ATI card that has se on the end , se doesn't stand for super edition or special edition, it stands for shit edition!!!! ie: chips that don't make the standard for the good cards and are crippled so they work at a lower speed rating so the manufacturer can offload them. I'm not sure of what Nvidia designates their crippled cards with though, but I think it might be LE?

Agreed, in the case of the 9550 cards, a 9550se is the 64 bit crippled edition, whereas if it doesn't have se on the end it's a 128 bit edition. If in doubt, ask if it has a 128bit ram interface, or look on the box. In fact, if you see 64 anywhere on the box, steer clear. In the case of nVidia, as long as you don't get a fx5200, or even worse, a GeForce 4 or GeForce 4000, you should be pretty much right, again, as long as it doesn't have a 64 bit memory interface.

Good luck!

[SpoolMan]

Go the ATI radeon 9600 Pro 256 mb...$185 best value card around.

[MAD]

On the topic of video cards.... if anyone has an ATI S-Video to RCA converter they are not using, I would like to buy it. My Radeon 9800pro didnt have one when I bought it (2nd hand) and I thought the adaptor from my old GF4mx440 would work, but it seems ATI wanted to be difficult and use a slightly different plug/pin config.

[XAGSV8]

Just got an ATI 9550 with 256mb on it for $132. All the games I have tried (V8 Supercars 2, Farcry, quake 3 etc) have been able to be put up to full quality with no slow down or jerkyness. It's like I have just bought a new computer and I never realised how much the geforce 2 slowed the system down.

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by GSWXA

Just got an ATI 9550 with 256mb on it for $132. All the games I have tried (V8 Supercars 2, Farcry, quake 3 etc) have been able to be put up to full quality with no slow down or jerkyness. It's like I have just bought a new computer and I never realised how much the geforce 2 slowed the system down.

Good to read you're happy with your purchase, it is amazing how much of an improvement there is from a gf2 to something newer like a 9550. Which 9550 did you get?

Originally Posted by paul7v7

i have 2 nvidia 6600gt's running (SLi) and for the price (back in jan i paid 300 each) they are bloody good value for money. I am sure now they are cheaper.

You can get a PCI-Express 6600gt for (looks up price) 128M Leadtek 6600GT SLI for $285 from http://www.MSY.com.au
I want to get the AGP 128M Leadtek 6600TD DVI for $215 for my system - I know it's not the top of the line, but for the price it would still kick 7 shades of sh!t out of my overclocked 9550