need a card...

macromp

the retarded one
Joined
29 Jul 2002
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426
ok, i'm upgrading my computer at last! i need to know which card is the best...i don't really want to spend more than £250 on the graphics card, i was looking at the "Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800 PRO 128 MB DDR 8x AGP DVi & TV-Out" it looks good to me, or is there a better one out there for £250? (that one is £247 on ebuyer) also i've never tried a radeon g card, but i've only been hearing bad things about the latest geforce fx's so...help basically =P i want one that will be able to run the latest games for a while...doom3, hl2 etc and if i stick with my awesome geforce 3 ti200 (hehe) i can see the computer spitting the disc out and laughing at me.
 
ok, change of plan! do i get a £250 card and some £80 5.1 speakers, or stick with my 2 tsunami gx-880 (i think that's what they are) speakers and get a £350 Sapphire Radeon 9800XT 256MB DDR DVI TV-Out?
 
Lets see 100 pounds extra for 10-15% extra performance...

I'd stick with the 9800 Pro. It'll last for 2 years, maybe more if nvidia can't lick it's DX9 inefficiencies.

PS My gaming clan is all switching to Radeons by attrition (our geforce's are crapping out) and everyone has said the same thing after the switch - WOW.

I'm sure you'll be happy. :)

PPS For a good response to paying for 256 meg Ram instead of 128 meg on vid cards see any posts by SAZAR.
 
ok so the 9800 pro would last about the same as the XT? oh another thing, i was gonna get a TFT monitor but i've heard about ghosting on games, would it defeat the purpose of getting a good graphics card and then end up with ghosting? there's either a 17" LG with DVI or 18" without...does DVI make a big difference? (i could not be more out of date with all this DVI, TFT stuff)
 
I'm not that much into the LCD displays but the guys in here who are and the reviewers say that the new top of the line LCDs are pretty good on ghosting now. The general comments I've seen were that people were pretty happy with even the last generation LCDs while gaming. The convenience outweighed the ghosting issue. Make sure the brand and store you buy from have a good return policy on dead pixels. Most dead pixels are not a big deal but ones failed ON in red are distracting.

I think www.Tomshardware.com had some reviews on the newest generation LCDs.

And yeah, the 9800 XT was a disappointment. All they did was boost the clock speeds a little. There are new chips coming this spring but what benefits they'll have is unknown. One rumor is that ATI is going 32 bit textures on the next version but no one is sure that will make a big difference in quality.
 
Originally posted by macromp
ok so the 9800 pro would last about the same as the XT? oh another thing, i was gonna get a TFT monitor but i've heard about ghosting on games, would it defeat the purpose of getting a good graphics card and then end up with ghosting? there's either a 17" LG with DVI or 18" without...does DVI make a big difference? (i could not be more out of date with all this DVI, TFT stuff)

with lcd's... dvi does make a difference and its highly recommended you get a tft that has dvi...
 
Originally posted by LeeJend
I'm not that much into the LCD displays but the guys in here who are and the reviewers say that the new top of the line LCDs are pretty good on ghosting now. The general comments I've seen were that people were pretty happy with even the last generation LCDs while gaming. The convenience outweighed the ghosting issue.
i concur. my lcd is at least half a year old now and ghosting is hardly an issue on it at all. i got used to it after a day of gaming.

Originally posted by Sazar
with lcd's... dvi does make a difference and its highly recommended you get a tft that has dvi...
i concur. analog vga has signal 'echos' which result in you seeing slight remnants of text or whatever a few pixels after the original. the higher resolution your lcd is, the more of an issue it becomes. also colors won't be as true and the image won't always be automatically centered. none of these are issues with dvi because of it's digital nature.
 
Originally posted by taurus
i concur. analog vga has signal 'echos' which result in you seeing slight remnants of text or whatever a few pixels after the original. the higher resolution your lcd is, the more of an issue it becomes. also colors won't be as true and the image won't always be automatically centered. none of these are issues with dvi because of it's digital nature.

I still don't think PC lcd's are quite @ the level of Apple and their displays :drool:

I say their top of the line cinema lineup thinger 23" er... ooooh... sooooo sexeh :cool:

only problem is I am not sure if it is properly supported by pc gfx cards :(

I'll get an email soon enough though
 
thanks for the help so far, i'll get the 17" dvi, still undecided on the graphics card tho =\ that XT does sound very nice, it comes with tomb raider AOD, powerDVD, and a coupon for the full game of half life 2 when it's released...hmmm
 
From the performance graphs I've seen, there realy isn't that much seperating the 9800 Pro and XT. Maybe it's worth going for the cheaper option, and spending the savings on a different product?
 
the 9800XT has some decent features and does oc reasonably well... there is not that big a difference though it is the better card...

alternatively if you have a reasonable card @ the moment use that till both companies drop new products early next year... those products should hold up better for a year or two :)
 
Hey Sazar do know what early would be? January, February.....
 
I wish I did... per the grape vine samples are already inhouse... ergo they have definitely taped out.. now what version samples they have (ie... first spin or more) I got no idea...

it seems as though feb might be the best time for review...
 
Samples to the reviewers in Feb with real product on the shelves starting in April seems to be the pattern.
 

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