Video Card advice

[mubs]

I need to procure a 1.5v 4x AGP video card. I'm somewhat familiar with Radeon GPUs, but totally ignorant of NVidia's GPUs. Budget is low - $90 or ideally less.

I originally thought of 9550 based cards, which would have been ~$65 shipped. For about $25 more, I can double performance (I think) by going with a 9600XT. The 9600XTs seem to provide the most bang for the money. Don't know enough to asses any of the NVidia-based cards.

I tried eBay; the bidding goes crazy, with people willing to pay almost retail. For the price, I'd rather pay a bit more and buy retail from Newegg, ZZF and the like, and have peace of mind.

Gigabyte's GVR96X128D 9600XT/128MB can be had shipped for ~ $90, but they fare very poorly in providing product info. Only says 8x; no mention of 4x or 1.5v. Cannot even access the product page except thru ZZF's manufacturer support link. I'll try calling them tomorrow.

Sapphire's 100573 9600XT/128MB is approximately the same price. But they too provide little info; it's supposed to be 4x compatible, says nothing about the voltage.

It's almost like these guys don't want you to buy their product. Sheesh.

MSI's website is very explicit; the RX9600XT-TD128 is compatible with 1.5v 4x AGP. Unfortunately, can't seem to find this product anywhere.

Comments, advice gladly accepted. Many thanks.

 

[Mercutio]

Question: What is the impetus for choosing a 9600XT over a 9550?

I'd think you would be happier with the cooler and less expensive chip, unless you were a game player.

 

[mubs]

The 9550's are really attractive in that they're passively cooled. But the m/c may end up being used in hot environments and despite the downsides of failure, active cooling may be a better choice.

On paper, the specs indicate the 9600XT has twice the performance. Since this is an AGP card, I want it to be the last AGP card bought. There'll be some game playing (but not the Quake/Doom type that require very high end cards), some photo editing, some DVD watching. The GeForce2 MX / MX 400 in there now has some lag and isn't smooth.

I know I'm "measurebating" here, but I want to do this and forget about it till the m/c is scrapped.

Attrib              Radeon 9550           Radeon 9600 XT
Pixel Fillrate      1000 Mtexels/s         2000 Mtexels/s
Geometry Rate        125 Mtriangles/sec     250 Mtriangles/sec

 

[Mercutio]

There ARE passively cooled 9600s. They just aren't XTs. Try looking at the 9600Pros. I know Sapphire has one since I just sold one, and Gigabyte probably does, too. 1.5V... I don't know. I never pay attention. You're still using a P3, right?

Stupid little fans are evil.

 

[mubs]

I'm still using P3s on an AGP 1x/2x m/c. This is for another m/c - a P4 based one. I know the fans are evil, but I wonder if passviely cooled will pass muster.

The only 9600Pro passivley cooled at Newegg right now is an ATI for $189! I'll look more into this. Thanks.

 

[Mercutio]

You could look at their refurb stuff.
Or else a different site. Allstarshop.com usually has a pretty good selection of video cards at sane prices.

 

[mubs]

Thanks Mercutio.

 

[mubs]

Is Rosewill a good brand?

 

[Mercutio]

Gigabyte, Sapphire and Powercolor are the brands I normally prefer.

 

[LiamC]

Picked up a PowerColor or eXpertVision Radeon 9550 a couple of weeks ago. Funny thing is Windows and Utils identify it as a 9600 and the core and mem clocks are 400/400 :eekers: Was amongst the cheaper 9550 prices as well.

Bargain.

 

[mubs]

Gigglebyte 9600XT it is. Thanks, Merc.

Liamc, now you tell me. After I placed the order. :evil:

 

[time]

Just to change direction slightly, what are everyone's current views on PCI-e cards?

I like Sapphire X300-SE for business. It seems to be equivalent to a 9550, and the price is unbeatable.

For entry level gaming, has anyone tried nVidia 6200 'turbo cache'? The Leadtek 128MB version looks like it fills this niche.

I'd be inclined to skip the X300 and the X600 Pro, and go straight to Sapphire X700, or possibly a base nVidia 6600. This segment then seems to turn into 6600 variants, with X800GT a lonely alternative.

Finally, we get to the cut down Leadtek 6800LE - I don't think ATI has anything to compete with this? And then into the big guns, the full 6800s, or if you're an ATI diehard, the X800/850.

Comments?

 

[Mercutio]

As I understand it, the X800GT is a bit faster than the 6600GT, but the nVidia card is a little cheaper. From personal experience I can say that an X800GT is fast enough stutter-free video in Doom3, Farcry and Riddick when any of the above are being displayed @ 1280x1024 at 4xAA and max detail settings.
I pretty much don't care about anything beyond that and would advise anyone else not to care, either.

The only PCIe cards I've worked with are the X300, X700 and X800GT but I'm generally inclined to agree with your valuations, although I think the X850XT is pretty much neck and neck with whatever the big 6800 is; the 7800 is the one that's unbeatable at the moment.

 

[mubs]

I must have been born under the same stars as Santilli.

I bought the Gigabyte 9600XT video card from ZipZoomFly on Sep. 20. Give a few days for shipping and installation. The thing croaked in the first week of November (I've been away since about then till a few days ago).

Symptom: Display is dark and complains of no signal. Inspection with an open case shows the fan starting up fine. Replacement with the previous video card that was in use results in proper operation.

System is a Dell Dimension 4400 running at stock/factory settings, no overclocking or mods.

Six weeks of sporadic use (my kid's gaming machine). Would have saved me some grief if it was DOA instead.

Doesn't make me feel good about buying Gigabyte in the future.

 

[time]

This seems to be our most recent video card thread, so ...

I picked up a Sapphire 9250SE 128MB (64-bit) card on Friday to replace an MX440 with a noisily dying fan (I tried fitting a passive cooler but it ran way too hot). I've used them before and thought they were comparable to an FX5200 (i.e. hopeless in games but you get a DVI connector).

What I hadn't realized is that unlike the 9550 and X300, they're only DX8.1 compatible rather than DX9. I wonder if this will be an issue with Vista?

Anyway, I ran 3DMark01 and 3DMark03 just out of interest, and performance seemed a bit off. Curiosity aroused, I installed a clock frequency tool and noticed the memory clock was a pathetic 266MHz. WTF? These are supposed to be 400MHz (200MHz DDR)!

A different utility confirmed it. Overclocking the RAM to 380MHz boosted performance by 50%. However, it couldn't reach the expected 400MHz and in fact had display glitches above about 350MHz. :roll:

Shame on you, Sapphire. Now I know why that model is so damn cheap! :x

 

[LiamC]

What I hadn't realized is that unlike the 9550 and X300, they're only DX8.1 compatible rather than DX9. I wonder if this will be an issue with Vista?

~~snip

Shame on you, Sapphire. Now I know why that model is so damn cheap! :x

The Vista interface will (from my understanding) degrade gracefully if the video card isn't DX 9.0 capable. What that means is that you (probably) won't get the fancy 3D graphics/icons. And that won't be any great loss.

And as for the second bit, I hate ATi and NVIDIA for saying part X has Y clock and Z memory clock—and then allowing their AIB partners to decrease Y and Z as they see fit! :x

 

[mubs]

For me, Gigabyte is in the shit house. I feel the same way about them that Merc does about Western Digital.

The new video card I bought died within 2 months. They've had it on RMA for 1 month now, and I've called 2 times to follow up. The staff I talk to are polite and courteous, but that does not help my situation. They can't tell me the status, can't tell me what's wrong or when I'll have it back.

Their reliability/MTBF stats may be great. But it's no fun to be in that statistical percentage that actually experiences problems. This was my first Gigabyte product, and will probably be my last.

 

[Sol]

Other than motherboards (and them only in the last couple of years), I've never found gigabyte products particularly compelling... Thier optical gear especially (Which I suspect they don't actually make anyway) ranks along side BenQs in my opininon and that's pretty low...

I've seen any problems with thier video cards but then again I've never owned one. For nvidia stuff leadtek seems to be the go, sapphire for ATI and power color make either a little cheaper. To be honest I'd just as soon buy an Asus video card as a Gigabyte though...

You shouldn't let you opinion of one product taint your perception of the whole company though. With computer gear especially a company can make one or two great products and completely bollocks up every other thing they try. BenQ aparently make really good lcd monitors, Gigabyte make great motherboards, even Microsoft can make an O.K mouse most of the time...

 

[Mercutio]

I have a Sapphire Radeon 9200 that kills the AGP slot of whatever motherboard I put it in. I'm saving it for the next customer who really pisses me off...

I can't say I've had a bad time with Gigabyte video hardware, but I've had Sapphire and Powercolor cards go bad on me. I can probably list a dozen manufacturers on my "nvidia wall of shame", and over time I can even think of four or five Matrox cards I've had to replace.

When I think of hardware that actually goes bad, the things that are at the top of my list are Power Supplies, floppy drives (who cares?), optical drives... and then video cards (modems are up there too, but like floppy drives, who cares?). Usually I run into something which is supposed to be actively cooled, but either never had a fan (this is pretty much every nvidia product I've had to replace) or had a fan that stopped spinning (...and there's the rest of them).

My point is, video cards ain't the most reliable hardware to begin with. Especially given the complexity of the more expensive models. I'd even be so bold as to suggest that the more money a video card costs, the less likely is that the stupid thing is going to work properly for its whole life. That matches pretty well with my experience, at least.

 

[time]

Wow - I agree with you 100%!

Unfortunately, I'd now have to add motherboards to the list, thanks to my epidemic of leaking capacitors - although that's usually after two years or more.

 

[mubs]

I guess my situation is a bit weird. I've never had a motherboard, processor, RAM, video card, any PCI card, powersupply, disk drive, optical go bad on me. I started building my own PCs in 1991. I've had about 4 fans fail - CPU HSF fan, GPU fan, case fans. And one floppy drive. That's it. I still have an ISA and a VESA video card somewhere.

That's why a failure bothers me, but I can take it in my stride. It's the lax response to the issue that's getting my goat.