video card

[ace]

i was wondering what everyone's opinion is on the type of video card i should get.


my system is an hp with win me,128ram,933mhz,40 gig hd.
any help on this would be greatly appreciated.:)

I mostly play U.T, but am trying to get into cs, and a few others.

[Joe]

What is your current video?

[ace]

intel 815direct agp 3d graphics

[the_mp3_refuge]

Yea i was about to say an Intel chipset. So basically everything more or less is better lol. I had an HP too with the 810 chipset and well now it's gone lol but anyway it all depends on what you want to do with ur pc so here's a list of the 3 leading cards(I think) to date:

nVidia GeForce3 - This card is the latest installment from nVidia. It features 64 Megs of 3.8ns Ram. It is currently the fastest card out in my opinion and will almost always produce the fastest framerates in anything. Plus it has a ton of new features that will play all of todays games, and the games of tomorrow.
Price - $310.00USD

ATi Radeon(any version) - ATi is know for their 2D quality, and DVD playback. These cards were the first that took full advantage of DirectX 8. If you need to to a lot of 2D apps, and DVD playback this card will kick just about anything there. Plus it will play almost every game with lots of detail on, with resonable frame rates.
Price - $68.00-$147.00USD

Hercules 3D Prophet 4500(Kyro II) - This card is aimed for the budget user that will need a fair ammount of power for a little over 100USD dollars(103 right now) Our mod here Brent has reviewed this card and says it produced some of the best Image quality he had ever seen. Even surpasing the GF3 in his opinion. It utilizes new features like tile-based rendering that only renders what you see on screen so it can maximize memory bandwith usage. This is the perfect card for someone on a budget.
Price - $103.00USD

Well that's my 2 cents about good video cards. Hope it helps. Peace:2cool:

[Joe]

You have a fast system so you wouldnt exactly need the fastest card out there.

I have a TNT 2 16mb O/C'ed to 160 core/ram and it out performs some 64MB cards :eek:

Id say a Geforce 2 mx400 if your looking to save money.

If you want performance there are a few Geforce 2 Ultra/Pro DDR cards at pricewatch for under 150$ and that would more than enough card for any game considering your specs.

[YeOldeStonecat]

I'm a big fan of nVidia cards, have been fully sworn on nVidia since the first TNT came out and pulled me away from 3Dfx. Tossed my SLI voodoo2 cards and haven't gone back.

Currently I have two GeForce3 cards, one Asus and one Hercules. Love them, but yes, pricey.

Bang for the buck....GeForce 2 MX cards...32 megs of RAM, they do quite well for just over a hundred bucks.

GeForce2 Ultra with 64 megs are really nice, and very fast.

Like MP# said, those Kyro II cards are getting great reviews, lot of performance for little cash.

I had an ATI Radeon, sitting in desk drawer now. Great for video editing, yes, but I think any nVidia product GF2 MX or higher looks better in games.

I had a Matrox G450...also in desk drawer, slow.

Anything on board, like Intel integrated....puke! Barely better than the old S3 Virge. If you're at least partially into gaming, get a real AGP card with 32 megs or higher. nVidia is simply king in my opinion here...so many games run great under them, and reference drivers are so tweakable if you're into that, very overclockable.

[Joe]

Like MP# said, those Kyro II cards are getting great reviews, lot of performance for little cash.

My TNT 2 M64 16mb (slowest TNT2) posted the same frame rates as the new Kyro 2 64MB card on a 350 CPU compared to the kyros 900.

(card is @ 160 core/mem... 125 default )

I think they are junk compared to what is out there for the same amount if bills.

[YeOldeStonecat]

In what games and at what rez....I'm not gonna knock the TNT2, as I've had every nVidia card made since the TNT 1 won me over, but 16 megs.....on current games it would grind to a halt, I like 1024 res with high details and 32 bit color.

I'll stick with my pair of GeForce 3 cards, if I couldn't I'd go with a GeForce 2 Ultra 64 megger, but for budget purposes, a GeForce 2 MX or the Kyro II cards aren't bad.

For budget purposes, I would not go out and buy a 16 meg card, why spend a hundred bucks for 2 year old technology. I wouldn't spend a dime on a card that I couldn't run 1024 smoothly with all the details cranked up.