Video card differences

[kayden azagthoth]

Hey gang,

I was asked by my wife what I wanted this Christmas. I told her I really wanted a new video card. I've been looking around and trying to stay on budget. Through word of mouth and Internet surfing, I think I found the card that is within our budget.

Now my question is simple, yet probably difficult to answer. I currently have a 32Meg RIVA TNT2 M64 AGP video card and I am looking at the 64Meg GeForce2 MX AGP video card.

My two main concerns are these:

Will I see a huge or at least noticeable difference between the TNT2 I have and the GeForce2? I am an avid gamer and I know that the GeForce3 would be totally ideal, but they are super expensive in Canada...like $550-$600!!

And, will it run well with on my system? I don't have a great system but here are the main parts.

K6-2 500
13G 7200 RPM HD
EPOX MVP3G2 Mobo
Windows 98SE
Soundblaster PCI128
Samsung 17" Syncmaster750S monitor

I could really use some advice. I know pricings are difficult to give because of the US and Canada dollar difference. All I know is that I've seen the GeForce2 at my local computer shop for $129.00.

I had hoped to get a card that was on sale last week at Future Shop/Best Buy. But they ran out and wouldn't offer a raincheque. It was an ATI Raedon 7500 64MB card. My brother-in-law told me it was a good thing I didn't get it because he said ATI "sucks". I would assume he knows what he's talking about but, I hear good things about ATI and that they're coming out with a Raedon 8500 that's going to put the GeForce3 to the test.

So, what's everyone's views on my dillema?

GeForce2 for Christmas? Or stick with what I've got?

Thank you all and Happy Halloween!

Boo http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

------------------
And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be.

-Pink Floyd

[psabi]

I think you get to a certain point that your setup may not really benefit from a newer card. The ATI card may have even been a waste as if you did play a game that would really benefit from a better/large memory card (i.e Max Payne or Nascar 4), your CPU would be the bottleneck. Any limitations you may have playing games now I would attribute more to your cpu/mobo than your card. I'm not alone in this - pick up recent game and you will see that your 32MB card meets the "recommended specs" but your cpu probably just hits the minimum system requirements.

Honestly, I would stick with what you have (32MB card) and focus on upgrading your CPU/mobo. If this means anything, I was running a 550 k6-2 on a somewhat lame AcerLabs mobo. My vid card was a voodoo3 3000. I upgraded my system to a socket A 750 athlon tbird and game performance improved dramatically - much higher 3dmark scores besides gameplay differences were incredible.

I am in the market for a card myself and have been checking pricewatch as a gauge. With the new Geforce Ti series, you may be able to score a great deal on a geforce GTS or pro.

I want to watch this post as it seems ATI is coming on strong to Nvidia's recent dominance. I never really considered ATI as an option; I am curious to see if others can recommend ATI as a strong gaming platform.

[iisbob]

psabi is right-it's not just your video card nowadays that has to carry the load, they do handle more of the video graphics processing, but in return they lean more on your CPU for it to handle the AI in the game and respond to it's call for information.

The true bottleneck in today's systems is the memory/harddrive-the CPU has advanced faster than any other peripheral in your common system ( followed by the Vid card )-the real bottleneck in todays sytem is the transfer rate of the harddrive and memory-though DDR is helping to remedy that.

I would second psabi's advice and tell you to get a new DDR motherboard w/athlon CPU-it'll help all your programs run smoother/faster. Then i'd save up your cash for a G2TI ( they replace the Pro series ).


Or like me you can get a Geforce3 TI and watch your enemies die in all their Gory slpendor!! http://community.theunderdogs.org/smiley/misc/disturbed.gif

------------------
iisbob
"Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It's not fair that some men should be happier than others."
-- Oscar Wilde

[This message has been edited by iisbob (edited 10-30-2001).]

[Jixxer]

I third the motion. There wouldn't be any difference in gameplay unless the mobo and cpu are upgraded. It looks like your plateau on your computer has been reached using what mobo and cpu you have. Think of it this way, you have a car that runs pretty fast, but you want more power. So you put a new air system that gives some horsepower and changed out your spark plugs, at some point that engine can't get much more powerfull. What do you do? You put in a better engine block.

[kayden azagthoth]

Man, you guys are GOOD! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

So I've been heeding your advice and looking around locally for parts to build my new system. Here's what I have so far. Tell me if you see any inconsistancies or incompatibility issues.

Case: Aopen Custom PC HT45A Midtower 300W, 12V
CD ROM: Acer 56x IDE
CPU: AMD Athlon 1.3 GHz (266FBS)
Fan: Athlon K7 Slot A
Floppy: Panasonic 1.44MB
Hard Drive: Seagate 40 GB 7200RPM
Mainboard: ASUS A7A 266
Memory: 256MB PC266 DDR RAM
Soundcard: Soundblaster Live! Audigy Gamer
Videocard: Inno 3D Tornado GeForce2 Pro 64MB DDR

The total cost of these parts is $1421 Canadian inc. taxes. Now that's not freakin' shabby considering I bought my current system not quite 2 years ago for $1700 inc. tax! Of course, it was built for me and it included a keyboard, mouse, speakers, 17"monitor and Windows 98SE. But I have a new mouse (Logitech Optical) and I'm going to buy a new keyboard and I'm would install Win98SE on this new system.

And if I am able to buy the system I listed, I would try to sell me current tower for about $500 Canadian...probably to my parents because they don't have a computer...and my computer is a damn good starter for them! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

So, what do you all think of those parts? Any recommendations? Any good sites or web pages you could recommend to help me put this sucker together? I've had a bit of experience upgrading my current system, but this would be my first building of one.

Now, all it's going to take now is a lot of sweet talking to the wife! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

Kayden

------------------
And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be.

-Pink Floyd

[psabi]

Holy s*** - you went from a vid card for a buck twenty nine to dropping 14 bills on a whole new system...

If you do convince your wife to let you get this new system please do this forum a tremendous favor - TELL US WHAT YOU TOLD HER. You either set your goals really high or you are one hell of a negotiator... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

One thing that was possibly missing from your new system: CD burner.

Should you not be able "convince" your wife and/or she threatens you with a baseball bat, post in the forum and we can see where you can scale back...

[kayden azagthoth]

HA HA HA HA!!

Yeah, I guess that is a bit of a shock to see! I just can't bear the thought that my system is chugging along at 20-30 fps and as each new PC title gets released, the recommended specs get higher, and higher.

Well, it won't be easy convincing the wife to get this new system, that's for sure. I have a couple possible sources of income and one definate one. I am trying to sell two guitar amps I have and if I get what I am asking for them, that'll be $1350 right there...but that's easier said than done. I also have almost $600 in some stock options that I could cash out...even though my wife says not to. Sigh. Plus, if I do get the money and build my new system, selling my old system is like getting an instant rebate. So it's all win/win...unless I can't sell those damn amps!

As for the burner issue, I picked one up about 2 months ago. It's a Sony 16/10/40 and the up side? The wife loves it!! She's using it more than I am!!

Sadly, the last time I mentioned buying a new system (about a month ago) she gave me "the look" and commented on how many bills we have. Ah, if you aren't in debt, then you are either rich enough to pay cash for everything, or you don't have ANYTHING! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

But other than the CD burner, do you see anything else that might be a hiccup in my system? I checked out the AMD site and they seem very strict on what type of ASUS mobo should be used for that particular chip. And the one I have listed isn't on their list of choices. Hmmmm...

What about the cooling issue? Should I get an extra case fan or two? Or would the CPU fan be sufficient? I hear that Athlons need lots of cooling and if they don't have it, they fry. What about one of those Thermal Orbs, or whatever that I've been hearing about?

Again, any good references for building this sucker if I get the nod from the wife? I know I always have someone here at the PC Guide to help, but I'm looking for something to print off before I tear anything out of my current system and possibly render it 'not useful at this time' http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Thanks for your reply psabi!

Kayden

------------------
And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be.

-Pink Floyd

[iisbob]

I would recommend against the ASUS board unless you're an experianced builder/user-they take a lot of tweaking to get happy and keep there.

Go instead with either an Epox board, or even the new ECS k7s5a DDR; both companies sell reliable boards and general cost less than ASUS and ABIT.


Other than that i don't see much else to change-everything looks ok.


If you're interested here is my current " Gaming " rig; K7S5a board 512 mb's DDR at 2400 Athlon 1.4 40gb ATA100/7200 Maxtor Geforce3 Ti500 Sound Blaster live!Gamer Dual boot 98se/2000 my trusty old 8/4/32 HP 9110i cd-burner Acer 52X and a sweet 17" flat screen Samsung CRT

All this for less than $1000 US.

Not to Bad, and as soon as they get an Athlon XP board out that supports DDR333 i'll be changing over to it. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif



------------------
iisbob
"Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It's not fair that some men should be happier than others."
-- Oscar Wilde

[kayden azagthoth]

Can you smell that smell iisbob? It's me reeking of jealousy!!

Nice rig my man! Nice rig.



------------------
And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be.

-Pink Floyd

[kayden azagthoth]

By the way...have you ever heard of MSI mainboards?

Are they any good?

------------------
And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be.

-Pink Floyd

[BigBlue66]

Hey,

Can't add much to what's already been said. Lookin good, dude. However, why not go for broke, and throw another 256mb of RAM at it, eh?

Also, haven't seen an answer to your question about case fans. YES, if the new case you're getting does not come with them, make sure you have two high quality case fans, one in the front blowing fresh air into the case, and the other one in the back of the case, sucking hot air out.

Also, you may want to consider upgrading that power supply from the git go. 300watts is the bare minimum to run an Athalon, and if you're installing a lot of components, such as a fast harddrive, CD-ROM, CD burner, etc., you will use up that power rather quickly. Besides, a 400-450 watt power supply won't be that much more in price, and will provide for future expandibility.

I haven't heard any bad things about MSI boards, but then, the general rule when building/upgrading a computer, is to research, research, research. Did I mention research?

Speaking of research, you didn't mention what chipset you have on that board, and I'm too lazy to go look it up. You really should do a little research and find out if there are any compatibility issues with the Audigy card and whatever chipset you have.

Cheers, and Have Fun! Don't know about you, but I just love to tinker. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Big Blue 66




------------------
Life = Karma, or is it, Karma = Life?

[Big Daddy]

I have used MSI motherboards and have been quite pleased with them. I currently use one of the RED boards now. Also, if you are not going to keep your old system why not do a little at a time, doesn't hit the wallet so hard. You could get the MB, CPU and memory first. Then take the other items from your old system. I would get a new case with at least a 300 watts power supply. I just updated my fun machine to an AMD Tbird 900, SOYO motherboard and a new case for just over $130 (US). I took the DVD, CD-RW, memory (512) HD, floppy, video (TNT2 64M) and TV tuner card out of the my old fun machine.

I would also consider getting a DVD instead of a CD-ROM if you already have a burner.

[psabi]

BigBlue emphasized the RIGHT way to install fans - intake and outake. You want air flow - not fans "battling" against each other.

As for the power supply issue, I do sometimes think people go for overkill. There are certified 250w supplies for athlon. With design enhancements along a specific processor line, usually the processors will decrease the consumption. Also keep it relative to what you have hooked up in your rig - are you going to have several IDE devices. every slot occupied etc. Power supplies degrade overtime as well. If you have the budget, than go get a 400w or higher model. Otherwise, you can install a 300w or 350w with a clear head. I will stress that you look for a power supply that is from a reliable source; a name brand and/or one with a guarantee. That "generic closeout" power supply at "tigerdirect" may not be your best bet...

Not sure if you have your system hooked up to a UPS - that 5,000 watt p/s may not get along with your UPS. Just something else to keep in mind...

[kayden azagthoth]

I found a computer store that has everything I want! Man, and the guys there were super nice and knew what they were talking about. I went to their website and configured a system and if things go well, I'll be getting it sometime in November.

Case: A-Open HX45 P4 ATX w/300w PS (PIII/P4/Athlon)
CPU&Fan: AMD Athlon XP1600+ (Slot A)266 FBS
RAM: 512MB PC-133 SDRAM (2x256)
HDD: 40 GB Quantum 7200 RPM ATA 100
Motherboard: MSI K7T-Turbo2; 266SDRAM (Skt. A) Athlon/XP
CD-ROM: 16x Pioneer DVD-ROM (40x CD-ROM)
AGP Video card: 64 MB MSI GeForce2 MX400 w/TV out
Sound card: Creative Labs "Audigy" Gamer

And this system will cost $1390 before taxes.

No doubt, I'll probably move things around and add or remove things before I actually go out for the parts. What do you think?

Heh, I know I sound like a kid or like I'm bragging, but I am very excited about the new rig and I don't want to screw up and buy something I don't need or something that isn't compatible. I'll be using my rig for tons of gaming and Internet surfing. I'll be yanking my burner out of my current sys. for this new one.

Here are a couple of links too, in case anyone is interested!
http://www.yps2k.com/
That's the place I am going to get my rig. Nice guys, and only about a 10 minute drive from my house. How sweet it is.
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/K7Tturbo2.htm
That's the mobo for my new system.

Ciao for now!

Kayden



------------------
And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be.

-Pink Floyd

[iisbob]

..CPU&Fan: AMD Athlon XP1600+ (Slot A)266 FBS..

I wasn't aware that they were making Slot CPU's again?!

Are you sure you didn't mean " Socket A "?

------------------
iisbob
"Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It's not fair that some men should be happier than others."
-- Oscar Wilde

[kayden azagthoth]

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/redface.gif Ooops! That's what I meant to say! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

------------------
And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be.

-Pink Floyd

[Jixxer]

Man!!! You're really going for it. The GeForce and the Audigy!!! What more can a hardcore gamer want, great graphics and sound. By the way, watch out for Asus motherboards as they have a compatibility issue with the GeForce cards. I've done some research and it has to do with the VIA KT133 chipsets having that problem. So be weary of motherboards with that chipset in it if you want to get that GeForce. VIA has a website that has all the 4in1 drivers to supposively fix this kind of problem, but I haven't seen it fully remedied.

Oh yeah, if you get your wife to agree that it's time to get a new comp, tell us how you did it so we can use that tactic too! (LOL)

[kayden azagthoth]

I decided not to go for the ASUS mobo and I'm going with the MSI mainboard. Not only does it look fantastic, I've read some good things about it and it comes recommended from the place I am buying it from. Yeah, yeah, I know how salesmen work, but I really believe this mobo will be good. I had an Epox one and it died on me in less than a year, and I never even touched it or opened my case! Good thing my system was under warranty!

As for convincing the wife, that's going to be a tricky one. Luckily, I may be acquiring a new job with more hours and more pay, so that will help. Plus, if I get the new job, I'll be getting about a $900 cheque from my old job in stocks and diferred profit sharing, plus my accumulated vacation pay. PLUS I am trying to sell a couple guitar amplifiers I have and don't use anymore. Heh...I also have a credit card with about $1300 credit left on it http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif but I hope to not go that route!

My only real concern is trying to convince her that my system is 'old' and needs to be updated. She watches me game a bit and sees the frustration on my face and hears the curses from my lips when my slow machine gets bogged down. However, I mentioned a new computer about a month ago and she told me that any money we get is going straight onto bills. I mean, bills??? Why pay bills when I can have a smokin' system?? http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif Those bills will always be around, but the computer age is passing me by! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

...Maybe I should get her to read all this. Maybe you all should try to convince her for me and I'll show her my pleas and all of yours. Let's hear everyone's ideas!!

Oh, and comment on the new rig as well. Good/bad/ideas/pats on the back...anything is good. Heh, plus I'll be building it from scratch...my first attempt at building!! I'll probably end up seeing some sort of light and spark and smoke show when I'm done!! WHOOOOO http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

------------------
And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be.

-Pink Floyd

[psabi]

Your new system is using pc-133 RAM. If you were looking to recycle the memory from your old system, that would be understandable. But as I understood from your posts, you are selling/giving your old system to a family member. Have you considered a system with DDR RAM? Since you will have to get new memory, you might as well benefit from a newer technology.

maybe iisBob can share his experience since is gaming rig is using DDR.

[kayden azagthoth]

Good point. My current system is using PC-100 Ram, actually. I really want to go for the DDR ram, but I don't know what benefits it has over the PC-133. Plus, if I get DDR Ram, do I have to have a video card that has onboard DDR Ram too?

------------------
And all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be.

-Pink Floyd

[Jixxer]

No, the video card doesn't need to have DDR technology. The difference between all the RAM is the speed. For example, PC100 runs at 100MHz, PC133 runs at 133MHz, and depending on what kind of DDR you get, you can get one that runs at 2100MHz. Hope that helps.

[iisbob]

DDR means Double Data Rate; whereas standard SDRAM memory sends info on just the rise of the signal-DDR uses the rise and fall of the signal to send data ( hence Double data rate ).

You'll see any where from a 15% to as much as a 40% increase across the board on applications and performance.

It's not much more expensive than PC133/100 anymore and offers better performance. The reason i mine is at 2400 is because i'm overclocking it slightly; it's actually running at around 2357-but 2400 is much easier to print and say. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

------------------
iisbob
"Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It's not fair that some men should be happier than others."
-- Oscar Wilde

[Zimfun]

I have an Asus A7A motherboard and have had no compatability problems with it and my Asus GForce3 Deluxe ( score of 10015 in 3DMark 2K proves that !! ) .

DDR memory is a definate must have . I don't know what the prices are like in Canada , but here in the UK , 256Mb of branded DDR PC2100 memory is £21.59 including tax and delivery (about 30 US$).

Buy some !!

[iisbob]

I think i should clarify that my memory is running at 286mhz ( giving it a theoretical speed of 2.4 GB's per second transfer rate ). Normal DDR runs at 2.1 GB's per sec ( or 266 mhz ).




------------------
iisbob
"Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It's not fair that some men should be happier than others."
-- Oscar Wilde