Gaming card for the working man

[recover]

First post .

I want the cheapest card I can possibly get.

Shouldn't be a huge problem, I mostly play Counter-Strike, but I'll be getting into Soldier of Fortune II, and to a lesser extent, Unreal Tournament 2003.

I get 100 fps pretty constant in CS with my GF2 mx400. I'm not sure what kind of framerates normal people recieve in the other two games, but I'd want around 100 for SofII and 60 for UT2k3.

I'd rather not get the gf4 mx440, and I was looking at Radeon 8500 and some geforce 3 cards, just wondering if I could get any other input on ways to hang on to the lower edge of technology until I find more dollars.

/me thinks I spent too much money on the 2700+ tbred and corsair XMS ram

 

[CurtCold]

Originally posted by: recover
First post .

I want the cheapest card I can possibly get.

Shouldn't be a huge problem, I mostly play Counter-Strike, but I'll be getting into Soldier of Fortune II, and to a lesser extent, Unreal Tournament 2003.

I get 100 fps pretty constant in CS with my GF2 mx400. I'm not sure what kind of framerates normal people recieve in the other two games, but I'd want around 100 for SofII and 60 for UT2k3.

I'd rather not get the gf4 mx440, and I was looking at Radeon 8500 and some geforce 3 cards, just wondering if I could get any other input on ways to hang on to the lower edge of technology until I find more dollars.

/me thinks I spent too much money on the 2700+ tbred and corsair XMS ram

Don't buy a geForce 3 or 4 for just CS. If you want better performance in 2K3, or SoF, then I suggest the 8500, you can also head over here and search for video charts, and get a full listing of todays most popular video cards, and their performance.

JMO, but that 2400 and corsair ram deserves a 9700.. You might get 60fps in 2k3, depends on the eye candy, I play it fine with my 8500 at 1024x768

8500 runs about $70, 4200 runs about $115

 

[recover]

8500 seems like the way to go so far, but what's this built by Sapphire powered by ATI mumbo-jumbo?

And how much would it matter to get the 128mb version over the 64mb?

Thanks

 

[CurtCold]

Sapphire build alot of ATI cards now. That usually just means that the card is little bit lower priced, just make sure you check the clock speeds, because some of them are clocked lower than they should be. The LE is supposed to be 250/250, that's what I have.

You can go here and get Rage3d tweak, and set the card to 275/275, which is what the 8500 speeds are.

The 128 version should be able to handle the newer games better, as it has more memory capabilities, versus the 64MB version, which is what I have right now.

I think it's a nice card, you'll just have to browse Rage3d forums, and that will give you plenty of info on how to uninstall the GeForce drivers, and install the ATI card properly.

I went from a gf2 to this card, and was very happy.

You can go with the 4200 64MB for a little more performance, my friends all have Gainward, or MSI gf4 4200's and the images in 3d are a little more crisp, but bang for the buck, I think you'll be hard pressed to beat the 8500.

 

[IBdaMac]

You should definitely get the 9700 pro, or even the 9500 and then just oc. I have the 9700 pro and let me tell you it's so wonderful
to play games like UT2k3 at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and 16xAF and still get 40fps easily. With such a powerful system I would definitely
save the money for one of the new series. That would complete your system and certainly make me jealous!

 

[NEVERwinter]

if 9700/PRO costs too much, get 9500... or for the cheaper cards get 8500 or GF3. It should be enough...

 

[ScrewFace]

The RADEON 8500 (275/275) will be called the RADEON 9100 so look for it to come out soon. It'll be inexpensive and still powerful to run the games you want, except Unreal II and Doom III.