Confused Ge-Force FX 5200 Or ATI Radeon 9000 Pro ? help me buy a new low-end gfx card

[cryptonx 0]

heloo everyone , I am about to buy a new PC ( in a day or two ) which consists of :a PIV 3.2 Ghz 1 mb CACHE ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, Intel i865PE chipset512 Spectec DDR ( x2 256 ) not sure of the speed yet80 GB HD with 8 MB cacheSony CD-RW (52x-32x-52x)An Old but good 19" DELL black monitor SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 ( already owned )Anyways I like to think of myself as a gamer , although I dont afford to buy GAMERS hardware ... I can't REDUCE/IMPROVE any of the above feature as they are a part of s special promotion here in my city , ( cairo , egypt ) the only thing that I can chose is the monitor and the Graphcis card ...here comes my confusion !i don't have lotsa money left .. and i mean i need a gfx card that is in the range of $70 - 90 and CAN run modern games ( HL2 / UT2004 / FarCry .. )on my mind and on the market there's only the following cards that suits my budget :ATi :ATi Radeon 9000 PROATi Radeon 9200 128 ATi Radeon 9250 128Nvidia :Geforce FX5200 after reading many many many THG and other articles ... I got more confused ..the whole ATI list i mentioned above are DX8.1 cards .. that has similar clock/memory speeds .. although the older Radeon9000 is the fastest in the Above list ( ATi/Nvidia ) it's kinda oldon the other hand , the GeforceFX5200 ( not ultra ) might be the slowest card on this list but it's using DX9.0 and PS 2.0 which are mostly used in nowadays games so I was thinking ..If i got a Radeon 9000 PRO / 9200 for better speeds with less features should be better than better features and lower speeds right ?Considering that I can upgrade the graphics card in A period of 2-3 months .. Should I go with an ATi Radeon 9200 or a 9000PRO or the Nvidia way ?I currently OWn a P3 1.0ghz PC with a Geforce 2 MX 32SDR wich allowed me to play almost all games till Doom3/FarCry showed ... I even finished HL2 on it . so I believe in low-end cards .. really besides I won't be turning the res over 800x600 or 1024x768 , nor touching FSAA .what do you think ? please help .. as this would directly affect my purchasing ....

[Rhys_Rhaven 0]

Personally, I think what your doing is a waste. Most games now are far more dependent on Video cards than they are on CPU. I run with a 2800+, but a good vid card and i get awesome results.The DirectX 9.0 is kinda a must, so your only choice would be for a 5200. Ive also mentioned this in another thread, but your best card in the 5/9 range (nvidia and ATI respectivly) is the 9800 pro at 150$. best deal you could get if your really pushing on cash. Nvidias reply to that is the 5950, which just doesnt compare due to clock speed.

[blix1405241486 0]

heloo everyone ,

 

I am about to buy a new PC ( in a day or two ) which consists of :

a PIV 3.2 Ghz 1 mb CACHE

ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, Intel i865PE chipset

512 Spectec DDR ( x2 256 ) not sure of the speed yet

80 GB HD with 8 MB cache

Sony CD-RW (52x-32x-52x)

An Old but good 19" DELL black monitor

SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 ( already owned )

 

Anyways I like to think of myself as a gamer , although I dont afford to buy GAMERS hardware ... I can't REDUCE/IMPROVE any of the above feature as they are a part of s special promotion here in my city , ( cairo , egypt ) the only thing that I can chose is the monitor and the Graphcis card ...

 

here comes my confusion !

i don't have lotsa money left .. and i mean i need a gfx card that is in the range of $70 - 90 and CAN run modern games ( HL2 / UT2004 / FarCry .. )

 

on my mind and on the market there's only the following cards that suits my budget :

 

ATi :

 

ATi Radeon 9000 PRO

ATi Radeon 9200 128

ATi Radeon 9250 128

 

Nvidia :

Geforce FX5200

 

after reading many many many THG and other articles ... I got more confused ..

 

the whole ATI list i mentioned above are DX8.1 cards .. that has similar clock/memory speeds .. although the older Radeon9000 is the fastest in the Above list ( ATi/Nvidia ) it's kinda old

 

on the other hand , the GeforceFX5200 ( not ultra ) might be the slowest card on this list but it's using DX9.0 and PS 2.0 which are mostly used in nowadays games

 

so I was thinking ..

 

If i got a Radeon 9000 PRO / 9200 for better speeds with less features should be better than better features and lower speeds right ?

 

Considering that I can upgrade the graphics card in A period of 2-3 months .. Should I go with an ATi Radeon 9200 or a 9000PRO or the Nvidia way ?

 

I currently OWn a P3 1.0ghz PC with a Geforce 2 MX 32SDR wich allowed me to play almost all games till Doom3/FarCry showed ... I even finished HL2 on it . so I believe in low-end cards .. really besides I won't be turning the res over 800x600 or 1024x768 , nor touching FSAA .

 

what do you think ? please help .. as this would directly affect my purchasing ....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi,

I bought a P4 3.2 just a coupple of month ago and the computer came with a ati 9600. After updating the gfx drivers from the ati website the problems just started kicking in. I did change to a nvidea gforce4 with 128 mb memory and everything works fine. I couldn+t figuere out what exactly caused the problems but i guess ati fu**ed up the driver in the first place. Just my opinion...

[Rhys_Rhaven 0]

Actually thats a known problem, if you had already had ATI drivers installed, then tried to update, it makes 2 sets of drivers causing all sorts of choas and mayhem.

[dado-online 0]

I am always for ATI i think that NOW ATI is better than nvidia!!!!I have ATI Radeon 9600 and is working great !

[XorpheX 0]

soo, i think, you should take the 5200, it's just better than the ATI 9000 (or the others), i think, and i could play some good Games with the 5200, too, but not on the highest preferences... With a little overclocking, i could play HL² pretty good...But I would buy a worse PC and a better Graphic card.....

[Trekkie101 0]

I must also back up others here, I have always used ATi at home and its never let me down. nVidia look okay but ive seen some pretty amazing things on ATi's. And i myself have a Radeon X300.