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What graphics card are you using and what are its advantages disadvantages?

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

Um, I have a GeForce FX 5900. It fits into that nifty AGP slot and makes Need For Speed Underground run significantly better than the GeForce 4 I had. These days upgrading your video card is like upgrading the CPU, it's amazing. I haven't noticed any disadvantages yet. Well I never thought they would start ricing out video cards. What's with the neon light? Well my cousin got a thrill out of it since I leave the case open and it can be seen. They really take extreme measures to make it look fancy, but fortunately the performance does back up it's looks. Oh and it is a bit noisy since there are now 5 fans running in my computer now (the video card has 2). Whenever I do something that requires video processing (basically anything) you can hear the fans running faster if you're listening. Pretty soon they'll probably have an A/C system built into every case and you'll have to leave it closed.

This post has been edited by i90east on 22nd March 2004 04:18

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FFXI (Siren server)
Tauu the Windurstian Tarutaru!
White Mage & Paladin

I use a geForce Fx 5600. (i90 5900? no wonder your always telling us your broke!) 180 dollars. runs FFXI Amazingly. its awesome. I have headrd bad things about Nvidia Cards Frying and such though.

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

I have a Radeon VE, which came standard with my computer, and is apparently the same thing as a Radeon 7000, according to Tiddles.

It is incredibly AWFUL. Recommendation to those who buy Dells: Upgrade your graphics card.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

gF FX 5600.

Advantage: Plays current games uber smooth.

Disadvantage: Does NOT play Halo smooth at all, and it's causing problems with Maya Paint FX (very annoying)

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

NVidia's Geforce range is currently lagging behind ATi's Radeons for price and performance. The best value you can find (at least, as I was informed at the time I bought it) is in a Radeon 9600XT. The 9800XT is the best thing on the market overall but, like NVidia's top models, has a huge price point.

The best thing you can do to compare is look for recent reviews with benchmarks. The difference between ATi and NVidia cards is more apparent when using fullscreen antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, I understand, so if you want the best image quality, ATi is certainly the better choice - some benchmarks with these settings show the mid-range ATi cards right up there with top-range NVidia offerings.

The only major advantage/disadvantage a buyer needs to know is this: the Geforce cards marked as MX versions don't have pixel shaders, which means you can't even run many new games on them at all.

I picked up a Geforce 4 Ti4600 just recently because my ATi Radeon 9600 Pro's fan was acting up.

It still works and I guess I can put it in another computer or something some day

Rad 9200SE here. Not the top-of-the-line, but plays the games good enough for me.

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My soul is bound to the Mistress of the Afterlife, and my fealty is to her always. So let's just hope she doesn't use it as one of her ten daily meals.

Quote (FraudulentTommah @ 23rd March 2004 00:03)

I picked up a Geforce 4 Ti4600 just recently because my ATi Radeon 9600 Pro's fan was acting up.

You know you can usually just replace the fan, right? I couldn't on my old one because it had a non-standard fan header (and a new fan would probably cost more than a new GF2MX anyway these days), but you should be able to on a decent card.

The Geforce 4 Ti4600 is certainly the best of the older generation of video cards, anyway.

Tiddles, what do you think of this card: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-125-113&depa=1 ?

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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

I don't know much about the lower Radeons, but ideally you should look for something listed with DirectX 9 hardware support, as more and more games are going to use this and will run more slowly on a card without it.

The Geforce FX 5200 is NVidia's equivalent in this budget range, and at this level it beats the Radeon hands down -- it's based on the newer generation of NVidia stuff which, while weak compared to ATi's current generation, is a whole heap better than the previous ATi generation on which the 9200 is based.

See HardOCP's review for more information.

I use the AOPEN AEOLUS 5950fx, currently the best video card on the market... I beg to differ from my old Radeon 9200 SE, it's certainly true to say your wasting your money if you move to the 256MB video cards. Thats the con. The pro, I'm set for the future, that is until PCI express comes out, then I'll have to throw this piece of junk in the trash, or give it to some homless kid.

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How can orange be a color and a fruit? It's impossible! Nothing rhymes with orange!!!