# New Graphics Card??



## genie_v1 (Aug 2, 2002)

I/we have this at the moment 
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
My 15 year old son is telling me I need to spend 200 quid to upgrade it.The pc is only used for gaming and forums, and im not convinced that we would see 200 pounds worth of difference
Any comments /suggestions would be most welcome

ps PC is a 2gighz, 512 rams

M


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

Depends on the games... anything that does 3D (basically everything except Solitare  ) will show an improvement.

Look at nVidia Geforce4 4400 or 4600 (approx Â£220+ vat) or ATI radion 9x00.


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## jgoodman00 (May 6, 2002)

A colleague just got an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, & he reckons it has completely transformed his games (he used to have an MX400). Apparently it has added completly new textures to the games, as well as speeding them up tremendously.

It did cost about Â£250 though !


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

Games are the one thing that currently dictates the progression of video cards.

The geforce cards are great and are currently at a good price point - Ti4200 or Ti4400 - the Ti4400 being the top of the range card. 
Look are products from Gainward or Leadtek - they offer best price/features value. Prices for geforce 4 are coming down - you can get one of the ti4400 for around Â£150. There is a new geforce card coming soon called FX but I would forget about hanging off for that one.

Check out www.dabs.com or www.scan.co.uk for prices etc.

With regards to ATI based Radeon cards - they are currently the fastest money can buy for home pcs - however dodgy driver software support and the fact they are fairly difficault and expensive to find make them 2nd choice. The Radeon 9700 is the top of range but come in at way over Â£200


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

> A colleague just got an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, & he reckons it has completely transformed his games (he used to have an MX400). Apparently it has added completly new textures to the games, as well as speeding them up tremendously.


The MX cards are the cheapy budget doobies that are no better than say the mid range previous revision of a video card. Any upgrade to a full version grphx card would show big differences over the MX esp to the Radeon 9700 - however as stated the Radeon is still way to expensive for a vid card............overkill........even on my system with a Ti4400 & 2.4 ghz Intel games at full res & effects fly along.....sometimes too quickly rendering the game somewhat silly looking.


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## snaxo (May 31, 2002)

I got a new Dell PC in NOvember - and I just didn't do enough background research. It's a pretty decent spec:

2.66 Ghz
512m Ram
nVidia Geforce 4 Ti4200

(mind you - already - 3 months later - you can get a much better spec for the same cash ! grrr !)

..I should have got a better Graphics card - I should have paid the extra for the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro.
It's simply the card to have.

Even with my spec - Sim City 4 will slow down quite dramatically at times (though for the most part it is fine to be honest). Very disappointing after shelling out Â£1700!

If you can get the 9700 pro. I've seen it on Ebay 'Buy it now' for Â£195.

If you like I'll sell you my Ti4200 (still a pretty decent card and a major upgrade to yours!) for Â£50 

Damian


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

Snaxo - there is nothing wrong with the Ti4200 - check the nvidia website for latest drivers.

www.nvidia.com

Sometimes a duff set or old set of drivers can make all the difference to a pcs performance. Also check the settings for the card too through the display settings profile in control panel..... might be the case that you have antialiasing on too high or some other setting that is degrading the performance.

The 9700 is overkill for all but the most hardcore of gamers - the Geforce & Radeon cards can both manage resolutions and refresh rates far beyond what normal monitors can handle.


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

i wouldnt pay more than 125 quid for a graphics card get an older Gforce 2or3 ti that will do the job 
they change too often for no reason apart from making money


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## vlastan (May 6, 2002)

> 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 TX Graphics Card with DVI Dual Monitor Support and TV-OUT via S-Video- (+Â£80)
> 
> 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Graphics Card with DVI Dual Monitor Support and TV - Out via S-Video (+Â£230)


from Dell web site.

Is the pro so much better to cost so much more over the TX one?


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## snaxo (May 31, 2002)

Good tip Saint - I had been meaning to download the latest drivers, don't know why it didn't 'reoccur' to me !!

Cheers 

Damian


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

V - yes - there are differences in the performance - but looking at those prices they are totally inflated - the Â£80 will run @ a slow gpu clock speed - Pro will be clocked faster through the gpu and video card ram.


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

I use the Ti4200 here at home for all my games... I've not yet found a game that slows down enough to annoy me (play UT, UT2003, C&C Generals, and soon Freelancer)


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

Kevin - grab playable demo on www.fileplanet.com for freelancer - not bad game - bit like Elite...... grphx nice too.....though a bit cheesy on the old dialogue


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

freelancer should be arriving here (KST goes off to check nbpro...) in about 40 minutes Â ;D
Like the idea of trading etc (brings back memories of Elite etc Â ;D )

Edit: Oh - nVidia have now released the Ti4800... same specs as the 4600, but with AGP8X (not convinced that's worth it yet :-/ )and the Ti4800SE... same spec as the 4400 but with AGP8X.

Ti4800 card from ebuyer.com is Â£160+ vat and the Ti4800SE is Â£130 + vat.


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

ahem......cough...cough....

Am currently playing full game........try the life as a pirate.....a more interesting storyline....


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