Video Card: Need Help On Purchasing A Video Card

[SpartacusUSTASA 0]

I am looking for a new Video Card and was wondering what the prices range from. In my current one I am getting video, but the quality is not too good. I played that new game Rome and the game works, but when they get to the parts where the animated characters talk it starts lagging, and same with age of empires III. I just want a video card that can play all the games properly and above the minimum requirements. Anyone got any ideas on what kind I should get?

Edited November 12, 2005 by microscopic^earthling (see edit history)

[What If 0]

I am looking for a new Video Card and was wondering what the prices range from. In my current one I am getting video, but the quality is not too good. I played that new game Rome and the game works, but when they get to the parts where the animated characters talk it starts lagging, and same with age of empires III. I just want a video card that can play all the games properly and above the minimum requirements. Anyone got any ideas on what kind I should get?

1064329474[/snapback]

If you need some good prices online, chec out New Egg or Zip, Zoom, Fly.

[Killer008r 0]

There are other topics on this "Video Card Purchasing" Please Search for one of the couple. BTW, (I use Pricewatch.com

[wutske 0]

Really depends on how much money you want to spend and what bus you currently have.If you have an AGP slot for your graka (most likely), you'll probably won't get anything higher than a nV6600GT.On the other hand, if you have a PCIe slot, you can go as high as a 7800GTX .What card dou you have now and how much money would you like to spend on the new card ???And what's the rest of the computer (cpu and memory)

[kam1405241509 0]

I am looking for a new Video Card and was wondering what the prices range from. In my current one I am getting video, but the quality is not too good. I played that new game Rome and the game works, but when they get to the parts where the animated characters talk it starts lagging, and same with age of empires III. I just want a video card that can play all the games properly and above the minimum requirements. Anyone got any ideas on what kind I should get?

1064329474[/snapback]

Hi Spartacus :-),

I love Rome Total War too.

Check out this roundup of cards (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/print/2004-27gpu2.html). It's quite old (no 7xxx's etc) but I doubt you're after a high-end expensive card ... esp since these things double in power every 6-12 months ... it's probably best to upgrade later (unless you have a specific game/app that needs the 7xxx's power ... or you could upgrade to PCI-e & SLI etc .. but that's still quite an expensive route as well).

 

Anyway, the review includes benches for a few strategy games (Rome) & some FPSs (Doom3, HL2, Far Cry). If you just want to play the Rome & DoomIII at min performances (low-res, low effects), then just get a 5700 which will give you approx 20-23fps in both, otherwise a 6800 would be twice that performance&cost in Rome, and nearly quadruple that in Doom3 (because it has the hardware to handle complex shaders/lighting, & the fill rate etc ... and hi-poly characters/animation)! At the highest end in Doom3 (1600x1200, FSAA/AF, etc), the 5700 only manages 5fps whilst the 6800 can reach almost 39-49fps (54-90fps in SLI mode)!

 

The 6800s have upto 16 pixel pipelines (62xx was released with reduced functions to sell cheaply etc .. I think they had 12), 6 vertex units, Shader Model 3.0 ... upto 7200Mpixels/s fill rate (same for #texels per sec wrt 1 texture unit per pixel pipeline) ... and the memory bus reaches 35GB/s (128-256MB)!

 

5700's are 75USD, and 6800's (at newegg) are 150USD :-). So it all really depends on whether that extra 75USD is worth it for you if you play the most recent games with complex shaders etc.

 

Finally, personally I prefer NV for their drivers (very good Linux, OGL & multimonitor functons ... see the above link plus this one http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/), but ATI has a strong following too due to their focus on efficiency & low-heat/noise etc rather than brute force.

[Killer008r 0]

Theres another topic http://forums.xisto.com/topic/86859-topic/?findpost=1064324667 and http://forums.xisto.com/topic/86732-topic/?findpost=1064323519 Look there they should help with your decision.

[firefoxsilver9 0]

Do you want an internal PCI card, or an external device? Having an external device takes a load off your CPU resources, and does all the processing before sending the encoded video to your PC.For less than $200.00, you can get the Datavison DAC-100 (~$185.00) or the ADS Pyro A/V Link (~$199.00, but on sale now at Circuit City for $110.00). Both will encode your video to DV before sending it to the PC.I don't know for sure about the Datavision unit, but the ADS will definitely work with Premiere, as well as many other programs. It comes with Ulead Video Studio 7 and all the cables are included in the box (Firewire 4 pin, Firewire 6 pin, Component video, S Video).If you're interested in an internal card, look at the ATI all-in-wonder cards, ask Lordsmurf (on this forum) about them, he has a website dedicated to them. They are excellent cards in the midprice range.Any other questions, please ask and I'll try to answer, or someone else here will try to help you.

[=ALiEN-SK= 0]

I personally prefer an ATi Radeon X800 PCiE as i hav one.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

I know the 6600gt line is really good power for the price. I have two friends who each got one for fairly cheap and it can take any game they throw at it currently. If you only have agp and reeeeally want a kickass card, I'm pretty sure AGP released a 7800 GS for agp slots... but it's probably hella expensive. Personally I would stick with a nVidia 6xxx agp card if you have an agp slot, less you'll be spending alot of money.Oh, and to the person who said you could get a 5700 to get 20-23fps... don't. It's not worth buying a new card to get that kind of crap performance. It'll look horrible at those rates, get a card that can at least pump out 30fps on the game you want.

[twitch 0]

What are you really looking for?

A graphics card?
http://www.planetmicro.co.uk/results_cat.a20Cards&sort=az

or

A video card?
http://www.planetmicro.co.uk/results_cat.a20Cards&sort=az

Graphics card is for your computer graphics and movies.

Vide cards are for televisions or for Video Editting on computers.

[AntLvK 0]

new 7800GS is agp slot.... powerful and cost USD300

http://www.tomshardware.com/articles/

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

I would assume he is talking about a graphics card, since the two terms 'graphics' and 'video' are used interchangably by most people, and he mentioned having issues involving games, not tv out type things.