Recommend Video Card Please

[power97]

Hi,
I am going through major issues trying to get Windows 2000 or Windows XP to work with my nvidia GeForce 2MX card and I am tired of trying. ( it freezes up during gameplay ) .
Thus can someone recommend a good card for Windows XP that will work on a Gigabyte motherboard running an AMD 2500+ CPU. I don't want to spend more that around $150 if possible.

Thanks

http://www.musicianwanted.ca

 

[norty303]

Which gigabyte board you running?
What do you want to do with it. I've got a GA-7DX with Sapphire Radeon 9100 vivo which i'm very happy with and now very cheap. Runs all the games i want on it. Sounds like if you've got a GF 2MX then outright power is not a massive necessity.

The 9600 is also a popular cheaper choice but do a search here for 9600 radeon and check some of the probs that some people have had with certain mobo's/chipset configs b4 parting with your money

 

[paparazi]

9500 or 9600pro Radeon seems to offer the best price/performance ratio for around the price stated.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[power97]

It is a Gigabyte K7 Triton FSB 400.

http://www.musicianwanted.ca

 

[Jinx79]

I personally have a Connect 3D Radeon 9600 (non Pro) which I'm very pleased with. It cost me about £90 over here in the UK. I'm not sure what the current exchange rate is but it should fall within your budget. I've not looked up your board but I think it has AGP x8 support so you will benifit from one of the newer cards. If I have got it wrong and it only supports up to AGP x4 I would save yourself some money and go for one of the older Radeon cards as you won't get the full potential from a AGP x8 card.

 

[cdogg]

power97,
Go with the Radeon 9600 Pro as others have mentioned. Many mags and gaming websites have it listed as the best budget video card on the market right now.

Also, I wouldn't worry about whether your board is AGP 4x or AGP 8x. The 9600 Pro will adjust automatically and unless you run games at or above 1280x1024 screen resolution (which hardly anyone does), then the extra bandwidth that AGP 8x gives is not needed. Just about every benchmark I've seen with AGP 4x versus AGP 8x shows that at normal screen resolutions, it doesn't matter which one you have. AGP 8x is meant more for the future, and expect future cards and games to really need it.


~cdogg
[tab]"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab][tab]- A. Einstein

 

[dakota81]

The biggest reason for the newer AGP standards (2x, 4x, 8x) is the bandwidth, which is primarily used when the video card uses system ram for extra memory (AGP aperature setting in BIOS). AGP 8x really is utilized by like a 32meg video card where you run into the issue of filling all of the video memory & spill over into system memory for the graphics. But currently, I don't think games are even pushing the 128meg size yet, so don't worry about agp 4x / 8x.

And if you go all out & get the Radeon 9600 Pro w/ 256meg ram, you really can forget all about your slot being 4x because games aren't going to fill up all that memory for quite some time.

 

[cdogg]

In addition, there aren't any 32MB AGP 8x cards and I doubt there are even 64MB AGP 8x cards out there. So the "spilling over to RAM" shouldn't apply to a decision on needing an 8x board, assuming every 8x card carries at least 128MB of RAM and can run at 4x or 8x.

 

[SYAR2003]

I'm using GF4 ti4200 , works great and are cheap to buy now.

 

[Georgi1chuikov]

I aggree with several other users. ATI 9600 pro is the best budget high performance vid card around. I have been really happy with mine. Upgrading from an MX card to this is a major upgrade. you will definitly notice a difference in your gaming.

 

[qingjin]

Ti4200:fastest DX8 card
Radeon 9600:support Dx9

 

[cdogg]

small correction
Ti4200:fastest best-priced DX8 card for performance