Best Budget Card

[Kamikaze_Badger]

Does anybody know what the best budget card for under, or slightly over, $100 is?

 

 

I've got a GF 4 Ti4200, if anybody wants to know what I'll be upgrading from.

[drewkivela]

the geforce 6600 gt is aroung $150 some places, thats probably your best bet. im upgrading to a 6800gt from my ti4800

-drew

[tbone2sk]

You can get a 6200 and flash it to 8pipes, then it is a 6600gt with a little slower ram.

[Kamikaze_Badger]

I've only got an AGP slot on my mobo, though. So I guess that's out of the question...

[MasterRex862]

The 9800 series from ATi are dropping in price rapidly; they play games really well too. I am using a 9800 non-pro and I get 150fps constantly on HL2, all settings max @ 1024x768.

 

Here is a 9800pro 128mb for 129.99 :

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp...N82E16814164025

 

That is the BEST sub $150 dollar card available.

[GregP24]

I X700 non-Pro's are around $150. They are scaled down X800s - 8-pipes, but all 6 vertex shaders. Should be a bit faster than a 9800Pro.

[Kash]

That may be true, however, the X700s are PCI-Express and KB has AGP. So that idea is out the window along with the 6200

 

Edit: I just found some 6200s in AGP flavor, and they're not too far from the $100 price range.

 

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp...N82E16814125183

 

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp...N82E16814150082

 

I was going to suggest a 9600XT since 9800Pros are still hovering in the $150 area, but would he see enough of a performance benefit from his current Ti4200?

[MasterRex862]

That 9800pro is 130 dollars. That 9800pro will blow a 6600 out of its clock cycle.... The x700 is only in PCI-E , buddy.

 

9800pro. Last time I will say this. $129.99

http://www.overclockersclub.com/link/?http...N82E16814164025

[Kamikaze_Badger]

The memory interface on that 6200 is 128 bit, though.

[guzzidom]

Look around for a recon ATI 9700pro, they're about 5% slower than a 9800 pro and If you overclock even exceed 9800pro performance, Ebay are showing some Hercules ones (good o/clocker!s), factory reconditioned, for $90 a pop, 13000 in 3dmark '01 and 5800 in 3dmark '03 guaranteed. Nothing else at that money can even get close.

have a look at what you can expect

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1155644,00.asp

 

Thats against a ti4600 and doing DX8 benchmarks!, in DX9 the difference is approx 400% greater!!

Edited May 1, 2005 by guzzidom

[sirjake]

I got a Leadtek 6200 AGP, and I got it O/C to 487mhz core/719mhz mem. *EDIT* and thats up from 300/500

 

I also unlocked the 4 pixel pipelines, I think with the nv43s there is a 100% unlock rate.

 

It cost something like $115 at newegg

Edited May 1, 2005 by sirjake

[MasterRex862]

Yes but that is still 100000x slower than a 9800pro. And for 10 dollars more, you get 256bit mem bandwidth!!!