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Advice on a budget(ish) GFX card upgrade please.

  • 28-06-2003 7:38am
    #1
    milltown
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,616 ✭✭✭


    My current card is a GF3 Ti500 64MB which performed faultlessly on my 17" CRT @ 1024x768 (right numbers?) with all the latest games like Splinter Cell, Unreal 2, GTA Vice City etc.
    For being such an all round nice guy I got myself a present of an 18" TFT with a native resolution of 1280x1024 and my trusty GF3 is now struggling to keep all those luverly pixels topped up. So it seems the time has come for an upgrade but I don't want to break the bank, as much below €200 as I can keep it.
    The basics I want/need are:
    DVI connector
    128MB
    DirectX 9

    Are the low end GeForce FX cards any use, the non Ultra ones? Would I notice any increase in performance?
    Is it worth paying a premium for a DX9 card or would I be better off with something like a GF4 Ti4200?
    Am I kidding myself looking for a cheap card that will do what I want @ 1280x1024?
    Does anybody wish to sell me a Radeon 9700 Pro for <€200? :)


Comments

  • #2
    Dempsey
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,553 ✭✭✭✭Dempsey


    Have you updated the driver to the latest ones. I have that card aswell, it is a good one.


  • #3
    ozt9vdujny3srf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,152 ✭✭✭ozt9vdujny3srf


    imo the geforce 3 ti500 is a good card, i think you should hang around for a bit and get a card thats well suited to doom 3 and hl2


  • #4
    milltown
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,616 ✭✭✭milltown


    Thanks for the responses guys. From looking at a few benchmarks it seems I'm not going to get any big performance gains without breaking the €300 barrier. And Nvidia are claiming a 30% boost with the latest detonator drivers so I'll try those and hang fire for the moment.


  • #5
    milltown
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,616 ✭✭✭milltown


    30% my hairy nutsack!
    I ran 3d mark 2001 before changing a thing and scored 10,100 odd. Updated to the newest drivers and ran the benchmark again and only scored 9,015!

    If anyone is in the habit of testing their drivers in this way I would be very interested to hear which driver they found to be best.


  • #6
    koneko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,304 ✭✭✭✭koneko


    The GeForce4 Ti4200 is a great performer at an even better price. I use it in a system myself aswell that also needs to run at 1280x1024 (19" TFT) and it's grand.

    The newer FX 5600 should be pretty decent too, just over 200 though. Maybe a Radeon. The 9500 was meant to be pretty good for the price, not too sure about the 9600 (I've heard mixed opinions) but worth checking out reviews.


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