Graphic/Sound card suggestions?

Odin

Odin

Carbon Dated and Proud
Admin
Yes, I'm looking to buy myself a new graphic card and a new Sound card for my play computer, right now I've got an Geforce 3 Ti500 and it's not giving me the fps/performance that I would like..
I haven't been paying much attention to the hardware scene lately so I've fallen a little behind, any suggestions ?

As for sound card, it would be nice to hook up my sound card and have DTS/Dolby Digital sound on my sorround system..
 
Sound card - Audigy 2. Definitely.
Graphics card - Either the GeForce4 4600, 4800
or Radeon 9800 Pro

Those are the most powerful and most expensive on the market right now.
 
soundcard - Audigy II Platinum or Extigy (if you want to be cool and different)

video card - GeForce FX 5900 or Radeon 9800 Pro

There, that shouldn't cost more than thousand dollars... :P
 
Ratty said:
soundcard - Audigy II Platinum or Extigy (if you want to be cool and different)

video card - GeForce FX 5900 or Radeon 9800 Pro

There, that shouldn't cost more than thousand dollars... :P
Click to expand...

I agree, if you want surround and great frame rates you won`t be disapointed with this.
 
And how much difference would I get from an:

-Geforce FX 5900 vs 5600 (pro and so on..)
-Radeon 9800 vs 9800 Pro
 
the Pro has faster engine and memory clock speeds.

Here's a comparison chart (it's for the Radeon however):

Radeon 9800

Anyways, from what I've heard, the Radeon 9800 Pro is supposed to be better than the GeForce FX 5900.
 
Well one question comes to mind when you say that the Radeon is better (I've also heard this), do all games support the radeon card ?

I've checked out prices and damn do they drop from 5900/9800 to previous cards, the previous models are less then half the price these two cards are..
 
Since we're on the subject, can anyone tell me if the Audigy 2 card is good for recording as well? (I'm starting to use my PC as a multi-track and my chipset isn't up to the task). I've heard the Audigy isn't a good card for this - can anyone confirm/deny this?

To Odin - I don't have one of those cards myself, but everything I've read says that Nvidia's drivers more than make up for the Radeon's superior hardware. Personally I'm going for a 5600 or 5900 when I upgrade - the 9800 seems too expensive seeing how close the two brands are performance-wise.
 
I recently bought the newer ATI Radeon 9600pro w/128Mb. It isn't top of the line but I didn't want to spend that much money. It is a very good mid-priced card and should do well on HL2. I played UT2K with it in singleplayer and it worked beautifully, I had no problems. Ratings on it have been pretty good, you may want to check some comparisons at Sharky Extreme to get a better feel for meeting your specs. I read a few articles in recent issues of Maximum PC which gets pretty in-depth.
 
I'm leaning towards getting a new Geforce card, since I'm so pleased with the one I've got (well..erm..not right now..but...).. I could save some money and get the 5600 but we'll just have to see..

Damn that Audigy II Platinum card wasn't cheap..
 
Well i've heard alot of good thins obout the ATI Radeons recently, and has anyone else noticed nvidia advertising on nearly every new game coming out?
 
nVidea is trying to use marketing muscle by contracting with game-makers to design specifically for their card.
 
Odin said:
Well one question comes to mind when you say that the Radeon is better (I've also heard this), do all games support the radeon card ?
Click to expand...
What do you mean? All games support all cards. This isn't the 90-ies. There are only two existing API's - OpenGL and Direct3D. Radeon and GeForce have fine support for both.
My advice to you is to get Radeon 9800 Pro. However, if you have more money than you can spend and want to be able to say "Hey, I could've spent 500$ but I spent 700$ instead!", then you should go ahead with GF 5900.
 
I was just looking at all the FX/9800 cards available, and I noticed that they are all AGP 8x. My computer (Pentium 4 running XP) has AGP 4x support as far as I know, and my current card is an Geforce 2MX. Would I be wasting my money getting one of these newer cards? I can't decide if I should just get a fairly cheap Ti Geforce 4 card, or plan for an eventual upgrade and go for the FX/9800 cards - can anyone give me any advice?
 
Montez said:
I was just looking at all the FX/9800 cards available, and I noticed that they are all AGP 8x. My computer (Pentium 4 running XP) has AGP 4x support as far as I know, and my current card is an Geforce 2MX. Would I be wasting my money getting one of these newer cards? I can't decide if I should just get a fairly cheap Ti Geforce 4 card, or plan for an eventual upgrade and go for the FX/9800 cards - can anyone give me any advice?
Click to expand...
Bah. Switching from AGP 4x to AGP 8x gives almost no performance increase. Advantages of AGP 8x will start to show in a year or two, but right now it's okay to use AGP 4x mode.

Maybe your motherboard supports AGP 8x and you don't even know it. Check the manufacturers site - maybe there's new firmware available which activates AGP 8x support.

Btw., it's possible to turn Radeon 9500 into Radeon 9700 Pro by activating four additional pipelines and increasing clock frequencies. Nice way to save some money.
 
If only Xotor was here

If only our beloved Xotor was here, this thread would turn into a nasty mud-slinging fest because Xotor loathes ATI. Because their ATI Rage Pro drivers were shit. Talk about holding nasty grudges.
 
Thanks Ratty, I appreciate it. So far I can't find any firmware updates but I'll keep checking.

It's funny you mention Xotor, Skynet, cause Xotor's posts were the reason I went with Nvidia over ATI when I first got a 3D card - after that Valve article Brio posted though, I think I'm gonna have to go with ATI for any upgrades I make.
 
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