What graphics card is best for me? How to upgrade for X3?

[Elwood J Blues]

What exactly is the best card for less than $700Au? I've been looking at the NVidia 7800GT.

Elwood J Blues.

[Casper20]

Just upgraded my system yesterday:
P.4 2,7 GHz---->3,0 GHz
ATI Radeon 9200 128 Mb---->ATI Radeon X550 256 Mb
Both with 1024 RAM.
Also new motherboard, don't wanna check which one.

I don't have X3 yet (coming 11th of Nov.) but normally X2-benchmark ran @ 30 fps with 1024*768*32 and all settings low. Now it runs 98 fps with those same settings. With shadows and bumpmaps on it falls to 40, which is a pretty big drop if you ask me, but still better than ever before, and I don't notice the difference anyway . I hope I can run X3 on lower setting @ 50 fps, that would be nice

[Deleted User]

I'd like to know if my PC can run X3 well, with good graphics and low jitters, and if not get some upgrade suggestions. GAME don't do PC game returns anymore and both Xmas and my birthday are coming up and I can ask for PC parts.

My Specs are as follows:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (2.2 GHz)
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
RAM: 512 MB

[nitebot]

I'd like to know if my PC can run X3 well, with good graphics and low jitters, and if not get some upgrade suggestions. GAME don't do PC game returns anymore and both Xmas and my birthday are coming up and I can ask for PC parts.

My Specs are as follows:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (2.2 GHz)
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
RAM: 512 MB

Up the RAM first. X3 was using 450 MB earlier on mine today. The 9800 Pro should run it but look to the ATI 6600Gt AGP card for a minimum upgrade for decent performacne in good detail.

[Deleted User]

Thank you! Come to think of it, I'll need to upgrade the cooling too. Every month or so I have to open the case and blow until I collapse of hyper-ventilation to reduce the CPU idling temperature. It has to go down by 5 degrees to 40C to prevent crashing!

So, weasling list:

2 x 512 MB Sticks O' RAM (Y'arr!)
1 x Fan + Installation (Although I am electrically experianced, I don't fancy actually cutting into my PC )
1 x Slightly better graphics card

Or, of course, I can threaten to put my parents in a home in return for a juicy Radeon X850 XT!

[sq_paradox]

Or, of course, I can threaten to put my parents in a home in return for a juicy Radeon X850 XT!

The performance difference between a Radeon X850 XT and a 6600 won't be much as your 3000+ will quickly become a performance bottleneck. I would know I have a 3200+ with a 6800 Ultra, my CPU holds my system back significantly.

[crazygoldfish]

Hi guys,

hoping you kind people out there could maybe recommend a graphics card which gives a good performance for X3.

Despite the current frame rate issues!

Current system

3200xp barton
1gig ram
256meg 9600XT

ive got £300 to burn on a card, so place your votes NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[The_Abyss]

Are you on PCI-e or AGP?

[Cycrow]

will be AGP
althon xp boards dont have pci-e on them
ur best bet will be something like a 6800GT
all the better cards will be pci-e which would mean a new motherboard and cpu as well

[swaaye]

Low End Bare Minimum recommendations:
A Radeon 9700 or 9800 (not SE) off eBay for cheap! Don't bother with 9550s, 9250s, 9000s, or ANY Geforce FX. The 'ol 9700 and 9800 will wipe the floor with those cards. The Geforce FX cards are especially awful and I cringe at seeing people buy them. Even the top end models (5900) have a hard time competing with meager Radeon 9600 in some modern games.

Another potential option would be Geforce 6200 or plain 6600. They are fantastic chips. I'd shy away from ATI X700 as they aren't really as fast as 6600, especially 6600GT.

Please note that ATI's X300, X550, and X600 are simply PCI express versions of Radeon 9600-based cards. X300 has the lowest GPU and RAM clock speeds while the X600 is the fastest but they are FAR slower than a Geforce 6600 or X700. And also note that most cards are available as both PCIe and AGP versions, each with identical performance. And finally note that video RAM is usually not the deciding factor in video card performance, contrary to many people's beliefs.

Mid-Range recommendation:
PCIe - ATI Radeon X800GTO (12 pipe, based on X850) ~$200
ATI Radeon X800XL ~$260
AGP - ATI Radeon X800GTO or X800XL

These cards are superior in performance/value to the 660GT and 6800 cards unless you really want NV's superior OpenGL performance for Doom3-based games.

High-End recommendation:
PCIe - nVidia Geforce 7800 GT or GTX. Perhaps ATI Radeon X1800XL or XT but they have similar performance to the cheaper 7800 cards.

AGP - ATI Radeon X850XT PE. Or maybe NV 6800 Ultra. Neither ATI nor NV have announced next-gen AGP cards unfortunately.

------------------
Excellent Card Roundups
Tom's Hardware's VGA Charts Summer 2005 PCIe
Tom's Hardware's VGA Charts Summer 2005 AGP
------------------

All of the listed cards are available at Newegg (my fav by far). Other popular merchants are Tiger Direct and ZipZoomFly.

Most useful sites for 3D Hardware info (in order of my preference): Beyond3D, The Tech Report, Digit-Life, AnandTech, Tom's Hardware.

[crazygoldfish]

thanks guys, i'll either go for a 6800gt or a x800XT agp card.

the 9600XT will be used as a paperweight when my new card arrives

[crazygoldfish]

the cheap part of me was considering going for this

Asus V9999/TD/128 6800 128mb AGP

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=98265

and keeping the rest of my cash for the new XBOX360.

[Elwood J Blues]

Don't they make an AGP version of the nVidia Geforce 7800 GT, or does the ASUS P4P800S have PCIe? As I believe that is the Motherboard that I have.

Elwood J Blues.

[nomad2k3]

the 7800 class cards come in PCIe only

[Yskonyn]

Nice talk about the desktop PC's. But I'd like to know how well the tablet/notebooks of today perform.
I have a killer desktop PC, but because I am away in foreign countries most of the time I decided to buy a nice multimedia laptop.
I decided to go for the HP Pavilion zv6149. Great performance versus price relation (It has a ATi Mobility Radeon Xpress 200M with 128MB). Most of the games run quite good on it, even a new game like Black and White 2 (with the LOWMEM and MINSPEC command line parameters) which runs on 30 fps+ and still looks very good.
You do see, however, that the card has some problems with true 3D applications like FPS games, depending on the options the game lets you alter. Usually you can still manage to get acceptable performance versus display quality after a little fiddling.

How well does X3 expect to be running on this ATi card. The rest of the relevant hardware specs in the notebook are: AMD Athlon 3200+, 512 MB DDR RAM @ 533MHz.

Thanks.

[The Rook]

*Edit: sorry wrong forum.

[Apollo911]

@ Yskonyn, I don't have the game yet, but from reading the forums I would expect it would struggle, even with all settings on the lowest as I believe the mobility express 200m is an integrated graphics solution. Sorry I can't be of too much help, Id wait till someone with a similar spec'd laptop tried out the game.

Ok, after about 7 posts, and several edits, Ive finally decided on a pc spec, (64 3500+, 7800gt, 1gig ram) I am just trying to decide where to get it from now. Is there any reason why it'd be a bad idea to get it from a big name manufacturer like compaq or HP (I know they've merged but the still sell their own lines). Both desktops have all the specs Im looking for, minus the 7800gt which I'd add later. My worry was initially about the motherboard, but the both come with ati radeon express 200 chipset, which easily stands on par with the asus a8n and nforce4 mobos. Is there any reason I'm overlooking why it'd be a bad idea to go for a mass produced one like this over a custom built. (Upgrading components does not void the warranty.)

[sq_paradox]

Is there any reason why it'd be a bad idea to get it from a big name manufacturer like compaq or HP (I know they've merged but the still sell their own lines).

Yes, the major reason not to go with a major manufacturer is cost. If you are confident enough to order the parts and build it yourself you will save the most money. If you don't feel confident enough to do that then it would probably still be better to get it custom built. You should still save some money, plus you have the oportunity to avoid some of the low end parts many manufacturers use to save money (not to say all name brand PC's are bad, just that most companies tend to cut corners).

As an example of said price differnce: I just ordered parts for my New PC/Upgrade. I will be keeping my current case, CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, floppy drive, hard drives, and my various PCI cards (sound, TV, wireless). The total cost of the upgrade will be around $1500 to $1600. The specs will be as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 FX 55
DFI Crossfire Mobo
1 X1800 XL (I'll get the crossfire version at somepoint later)
2 GB DDR 400 Ram
600 Watt SLI certified PSU

To get a comperable PC from Alienware would cost me close to $3500. The parts I'm not replaceing would be around $500. Thats a savings of over $1000.

For reference this is my current PC:
AMD Athlon XP 3200+
DFI nforce 2 mobo
6800 Ultra
1 GB DDR 400 Ram
450 Watt PSU

P.S. I saved $200 by buying the FX 55 new, in box, unopened off of Ebay. And Make sure to get a socket 939 mobo, 754 is being phased out.

[swaaye]

Radeon Xpress 200 is sub-9600 performance. Its performance is probably like a Radeon 9200SE since the integrated GPU must traverse the CPU to get at the system's RAM, adding to the latency of accessing this already slow memory. The integrated GPU itself is half a Radeon 9600 core, a 2x1 instead of a 4x1 configuration. Basically it's very low-end. However, it is easily the best IGP out there. For gaming though there is nothing better than a real discrete graphics processor with its own memory.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/ra ... dex.x?pg=2

Probably the finest cheapish gaming notebook out there is the Dell Inspiron 9300 equipped with a Geforce 6800 Go. You can NOT beat it pricewise, especially if you live in the US because you can get insane discount deal coupons from places like www.fatwallet.com. I got mine for about $1500.

SQParadox, he was talking about notebooks. Good luck custom building a notebook

[vindicator]

X800XL all the way. best bang for your buck. extremely competitive price, 16 pipes, 7 vertice shaders, 400/1.0 clocks, and it doesnt require a cord to your powersupply. runs quiet and cool. plus, in my opinion, ati's catalyst drivers are far superior to the crash- bad performance-prone new nvidia drivers.

again just a personal preference. i owned an X800XL for a few months, before a friend found me an extremely cheap X800XL 512mb card. i am hoping the extra 256mb of video ram will help storing textures in x3