Jump to content

whats a good video card


hero4682

Recommended Posts

I'll attempt to answer 2 of your questions (one being from your other thread),

 

1. RAM - DDR vs DDR2:

 

There are currently 4 categories of DDR RAM you'll find on graphics cards currently available. Those are DDR, DDR2, (G)DDR3, and (G)DDR4.

 

Simply put, the difference between DDR and DDR2 is that DDR2 is designed to run at much higher frequencies (almost twice as fast, though in some cases not quite) than standard DDR. DDR3 can run at almost three times the frequency of standard DDR, and so on. Not only is higher-rated RAM faster, it's also generally more power-efficient. The higher the frequency a given type of RAM is capable of, the more "through-put", aka data transfer, it can achieve over lower-clocked varieties. The more data that gets transferred at once, the faster the card is capable of operating.

 

2. Graphics cards for $150:

 

There's a bunch. The best answer would depend on where you plan on shopping for it. If you're planning to buy it online, the ATI X1950PRO is a good choice. It's tons faster than what you currently have, and ATI x1000-series cards have excellent image quality. I myself wouldn't touch any of the DX10 cards in that price-range right now. They all suck for the money they cost. That includes the Geforce 8600's and Radeon 2400-2600's.

 

In my opinion, until a card comes along that unseats it, the Geforce 7600GT is simply the best deal out there right now, hands down. It's less than $150, and it beats the hell out of anything else in the $100 range.

 

The Geforce 7900GS is available online for $150 too, and is also fast.

 

Link for 7600GT:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....&Tpk=7600GT

 

Link for 1950PRO:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....mp;x=3&y=43

 

Link for 7900GS:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....p;x=27&y=24

 

Cards I would avoid: Radeon x1650's, Geforce 8500/8600's, Radeon 2400's, Radeon 2600's.

 

Hope that answers your Q's. Ciao.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd go for the 1950PRO if you have an AGP set-up. There are simply no faster AGP cards available than the ATI 1950's. You should be very happy with that card.

 

I recently installed a 1950 Pro AGP 512MB in my 939 MB with an AMD X2 4800 CPU. At first I wasn't impressed - frame rate was only slightly faster. 

But then I turned up the video to the highest setting... wow!!! Blew me away! FPS didn't go down at all and the quality is simply amazing.

 

Highly recommended.

 

-Jumonji

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

hey, so i went ahead and ordered the x1950pro, and the UPS guy finally brought it home...

 

my new question is about the drivers, which one should i use?

 

my old video card is a radeon x1050, running on the latest regular ati driver.... and since im upgrading to the HIS/ATI radeon x1950pro im not sure how to go about the whole install...

 

for now im just going to run the cd that came with the card, but im currious on which driver to use; the latest ati driver or one from www.hisdigital.com?

 

ive never had a HIS card before so im not very knowledgable about the whole thing.

 

this is the HIS driver im looking at; its at the www.hisdigital.com -

-Official Radeon X1950PRO

Package Version: ATI Catalyst: 6.9 8.291.1-060822a-036363C-ATI with WHQL

 

any help would be apreciated

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the new ATI drivers are anything like the nvidia ones, then you should not need to reinstall the drivers once you install the new card since the GPU is of the same manufacturer. If you have the latest then there would be not point in using older drivers, unless you had issues with the latest ones. I did that with my nvidia drivers, took the old card out, put a new one in and it recognized my new card since both were nvidia cards. I assume ATI is the same. Someone who has done this with an ATI card should respond though since I am not very familiar with their software anymore.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You should always use the latest card drivers from the manufacturers (ATi or nVidia) site, unless there is a known issue with the latest driver and your select game (there shouldn't be).
Link to comment
Share on other sites

my old video card is a radeon x1050, running on the latest regular ati driver.... and since im upgrading to the HIS/ATI radeon x1950pro im not sure how to go about the whole install...

 

A nice feature of all cards/gpus from the Radeon line is that they each use ATI's standard Catalyst driver system. If anything at all, you should only need to download the latest version of Catalyst to drive your new video card.

 

Hope this is helpful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...