Good Vid Card For Under $100

[RedDragon]

Need a good vid card for clan buddy under $100 . he currently has a Geforce 4 and it's time for an upgrade. I was leaning towards a 9600 Pro for $99 at newegg. Thoughts?

 

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-102-408&depa=1

[Ziggy54354]

if its a ti series the performance will be about the same... if he has the mx series yea go for it i guess, though id personally save up and get a 6600gt

[fastvfr]

Twice that amount will get him 10X the card, as Ziggy pointed out.

 

There are no good vid cards for 3D games available for under $100.

[guzzidom]

Obviously the guy has got $99 and may have already saved to get that much, every time anyone asks anything about a lower end card everybody chimes in with "save up for a 6600gt" or if they are bying a a64 2800 CPU everyone bellows "save up for a 3200 939 Winnie" , it's getting really tiresome we've got to assume when people put a cash figure in THAT IT IS ALL THEY HAVE GOT TO SPEND! otherwise we just aren't being helpful.

A 9600 pro is a great 3d gaming card on a budget and should also clock up a bit, it is, as already pointed out about the same as a ti4200 at stock clock speeds in terms of raw power but has far better Directx 9 capabilities and will play HL2 at a decent lick and Doom 3 at up to 1024 x 768 with the pretty bits turned down (dependent on the rest of the system).

An alternative if the guy has a geforce4 mx series would be to look on Ebay for a Ti4600 for about $75, Direct x9 is overrated really and translates into "slightly smokier smoke and shinier water" , it's a bit faster than a 9600pro and generally clocks up a treat.

 

Cant really see where the twice the price, 10 x the card comes in, a 9600 pro gives my system approx 11'000 in 3d mark 01 and 3'300 in 03 and a 6600gt would be seriously pushed to give me a 22'000 in '01 and 6'600 in '03 seems on the high side too. So I think a more accurate statement would be "twice the price, errr, approximately twice the card" which after all is how it should be.

Edited February 26, 2005 by guzzidom

[The_WRATH]

trust me, go with a ti4800, not the 4200...not the 4600....the 4800, it out performs the 9600xt AND i was able to clock it over a 9800! no bs

msi ti4800 = $70

[fastvfr]

Quizzidom, I have installed several specimens of both cards into PC's both strong and weak.

 

I can tell you that, in games with AA & AF cranked up, the IQ and smoothness cannot be compared between the two.

 

FWIW, EVERY ONE of my gamer clients that have tried to 'skimp' and get a cheap vid card have replaced it within a year...even a poor economist could see that this is insane!!

 

The reason I recommended he wait a little longer wasn't to be an asshat; it was to SAVE him some money in the long run.

 

With a 256MB FX5200 POS costing over $120 at Wally-World it isn't hard to see that $180 spent on a 6600GT is an investment that many would consider ten times wiser...and you didn't take into consideration the high probability of his wasting money on one of those DOA and badly-abused, half-cooked electronic components that are listed for sale on E-Bay, AKA The Great Dumping-Ground.

 

And something else: my Gainward 5900U GS scores about 16,600 in 3DMark01 and around 6200 in '03...but the 6600GT will nearly double those scores in a rig like mine.

 

What's more, you didn't give my suggestion its due for future-proofing, either.

 

Finally, while DX9 may not be necessary for the games on shelves now, there are few games coming out that will play acceptably on the older cards with Medium or higher settings...yet another reason to hold out for something worth owning IMHO.

 

And in games like Painkiller you miss out on too much of the game by having only a DX8 card installed.

 

Just my $000,000.02!