What To Buy?

[Nebor]

Alright, here's the situation, I've been saving up my 'computer budget' for a while now. My specs are in the sig, but basically I have an IC7-G, P4C 3.0ghz, Zalman 7000 Cu, 1GB Corsair 3500, and a GF4 ti4400.

My decision is between this monitor. and one of these video cards.

My current monitor is a hitachi CM715 19". It's not flat screened, it's just a regular ol' monitor. ANd it's white, as compared to all my other stuff, which is black. So that's a candidate to be replaced w/ that nice NEC display.

Also to be considered is replacing my GF4. It's held the test of time, 1 year, which is an eternity in video card land, and those new 5900s are calling to me. I narrowed that down to the Gainward Golden sample 5900. Now I COULD get the 5900 Ultra... but from all the benches I've seen, it's just ridiculous. The gainward regular 5900 overclocks beyond the ultra with it's proprietary cooling solution, while the ultra uses the standard cooling.

If I got the 5900, I could pass my gf4 down to my AMD system, which currently uses a GF2, and thus have two competent gaming systems.

As I said, I will be able to upgrade again before HL2 releases, so which one would be better for the here and now? I'm leaning towards the new monitor myself, my eyes get tired looking at this CRT so much, and I've heard LCDs don't wear you out.

 

[zainali]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Alright, here's the situation, I've been saving up my 'computer budget' for a while now. My specs are in the sig, but basically I have an IC7-G, P4C 3.0ghz, Zalman 7000 Cu, 1GB Corsair 3500, and a GF4 ti4400.

My decision is between this monitor. and one of these video cards.

My current monitor is a hitachi CM715 19". It's not flat screened, it's just a regular ol' monitor. ANd it's white, as compared to all my other stuff, which is black. So that's a candidate to be replaced w/ that nice NEC display.

Also to be considered is replacing my GF4. It's held the test of time, 1 year, which is an eternity in video card land, and those new 5900s are calling to me. I narrowed that down to the Gainward Golden sample 5900. Now I COULD get the 5900 Ultra... but from all the benches I've seen, it's just ridiculous. The gainward regular 5900 overclocks beyond the ultra with it's proprietary cooling solution, while the ultra uses the standard cooling.

If I got the 5900, I could pass my gf4 down to my AMD system, which currently uses a GF2, and thus have two competent gaming systems.

As I said, I will be able to upgrade again before HL2 releases, so which one would be better for the here and now? I'm leaning towards the new monitor myself, my eyes get tired looking at this CRT so much, and I've heard LCDs don't wear you out.

Try getting your monitor from dell. Last week they had the 1800fp for 43x.xx with tax for CA.

Also wait for the next generation of video cards. By the time HL2 and doom3 comes out you could probably get the fx6000 or 9900 pro or something. the ti4400 should be good for your current games.

 

[Nebor]

Not interested in a Dell. If I had a dell monitor, it would cause people to think I had a dell computer... Which would be terrible. I say no to dell. Plus it has 35ms response time.

Pretty much the decision to be made is, get a sleak new LCD monitor, to compliment the hundreds of dollars I put into my case and periphrials, and give my eyes a break. Or get a screaming new video card to allow me to have fun lanage between my two computers.

 

[d0wnthe11235813]

i agree with zainali except i would get a 9500/9600 with the saved money because that way you would get a jump in graphics and be able to play HL2 much smoother. i also suspect that the next generation of graphics cores will not be out this year, and probably in the spring of '04.

 

[Nebor]

Well, first off the 9500 and 9600 run at about the same speed as a ti4400, and only cost about $40 more... So upgrading that way would just be silly. Second, I'll be deep in the cold cold ground before any of my computers have an ATI in them.

I'm getting one of these items in the next few hours, and the other in probably a month or so. Which one should come first?

 

[Nebor]

I chose the monitor.

 

[IanthePez]

Monitor all the way