Is this the video card for me? Help me please.....

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I am looking at a Powercolor AGP Radeon X1600pro 512 meg card. I read its a
good card for a budget gamer, like myself, about the only game I play is M/S
Flight Sim. BUT I also want to be ready for Vista, and according to the ATI
test my video card that I have now is too weak, it's a AIW Radeon 9000 with
64 meg.
Anyone suggest a better bang for the buck? I can get this card for 99 bucks
at Newegg...
TIA
John
 
Come on I know someone out there can give me an opinion, I just wondered if
there was an NVIDIA card of approx the same price that might be better...
System is a Athlon 64 3000+ Gigabyte K8NS ultra 939, 1 gig memory, and right
now an ATI AIW 9000 64 meg. Sata primary drive and a couple of DVD burners.
I would suppose that the video is the bottleneck in the system at this
point....
anyone?
Thanks,
John
 
No one said:
Come on I know someone out there can give me an opinion, I just wondered
if there was an NVIDIA card of approx the same price that might be
better...
System is a Athlon 64 3000+ Gigabyte K8NS ultra 939, 1 gig memory, and
right now an ATI AIW 9000 64 meg. Sata primary drive and a couple of DVD
burners. I would suppose that the video is the bottleneck in the system at
this point....
anyone?
Thanks,
John
Click to expand...
Well you get what you pay for when it comes to graphics cards. If you really
don't play games I suppose X1600pro would be OK. You might try looking at
some of the tech sites and see what they say about this card compared to
what Nvidia has to offer. I used to only use Nvidia cards, but ever since I
bought a 9800pro a couple of years ago I'll never go back to Nvidia. ATI is
all about quality graphics. Don't get me wrong the top end ATI cards are
lighting fast, but they also output a better all around picture compared to
anything Nvidia has to offer, if it's 2D or 3D. Good Luck, JLC
 
No one said:
Come on I know someone out there can give me an opinion, I just wondered
if there was an NVIDIA card of approx the same price that might be
better...
System is a Athlon 64 3000+ Gigabyte K8NS ultra 939, 1 gig memory, and
right now an ATI AIW 9000 64 meg. Sata primary drive and a couple of DVD
burners. I would suppose that the video is the bottleneck in the system at
this point....
anyone?
Thanks,
John
Click to expand...

If you can wait for about 1 or 2 months, scrap up around $200.00, go for the
x1950pro for agp that is to be introduced soon.

I just upgraded my old system this last week - very similar to what you
have. ASUS K8VSE Deluxe, Athlon 64 3200+, 1gig ram, ATI x850pro. I wanted
to upgrade in perpetration for VISTA. Out with the old and in with the new.
MSI 975X Platinum, Intel c2d e6600, 2gig ram, ATI x1950pro, 500wt ps. I'd
still be using the old one if the market wasn't going pci-e everything, and
VISTA hungry for everything you throw at it.

William
 
Didn't you say in another post that you had problems with that motherboard?
I am in the same boat as you and am trying to figure out if I should just
bite the bullet and go all new or try and squeeze the last ounce of breath
out of my aging AGP system.....
Please let me know what your motherboard problems were and why you didn't go
with an AM2 AMD processor.
Thanks a million,
John
 
<snip>
Click to expand...
I just upgraded my old system this last week - very similar to what you
have. ASUS K8VSE Deluxe, Athlon 64 3200+, 1gig ram, ATI x850pro. I wanted
to upgrade in perpetration for VISTA. Out with the old and in with the new.
MSI 975X Platinum, Intel c2d e6600, 2gig ram, ATI x1950pro, 500wt ps. I'd
still be using the old one if the market wasn't going pci-e everything, and
VISTA hungry for everything you throw at it.

William
Click to expand...

Serious question. What is Vista going to do for you that XP doesn't do
for you? I'm running Vista and I'm kinda underwhelmed. DX10? Won't be a
must have for at least a year. By then I'll be upgrading to a quad core
in all probability but I see no need to part with Lotsa dollars to run
Vista until at least the first service pack is out.

BTW, Vista rates my system at 5.1 so it's not like it's a dog, but it
definetly runs noticibly slower under Vista than XP SP2.

Bill
 
Bill said:
Serious question. What is Vista going to do for you that XP doesn't do
for you? I'm running Vista and I'm kinda underwhelmed. DX10? Won't be a
must have for at least a year. By then I'll be upgrading to a quad core
in all probability but I see no need to part with Lotsa dollars to run
Vista until at least the first service pack is out.

BTW, Vista rates my system at 5.1 so it's not like it's a dog, but it
definetly runs noticibly slower under Vista than XP SP2.
Click to expand...

Their are no immediate benefits. A well running XP system is still faster
than VISTA is at present. I have no plans to upgrade to Vista for at least 6
to 8 months, maybe more. I waited two years to upgrade to XP. I'm looking
to the future, the trends, where things are going. VISTA will, in time, be
a better product and do more than XP did.

Vista was LOW on my list for reasons to upgrade. My main reason for
upgrading was to go pci-e for advanced graphics support. Read -GAMES-. Oh,
and boring things like video production, graphics work, and what-not.

William

PS. I've been on this machine for two days now, I might be kidding myself,
but the color fidelity seems to be richer, more depth that the old system.
Perhaps the 30bit color depth on the x1950pro is doing something for me.
Their is quite a bit of discussion in the graphics world about 24 bit verses
30 bit graphics. This is the first time I have been able to see the
difference. Time will tell.
 
No one said:
Didn't you say in another post that you had problems with that
motherboard? I am in the same boat as you and am trying to figure out if I
should just bite the bullet and go all new or try and squeeze the last
ounce of breath out of my aging AGP system.....
Please let me know what your motherboard problems were and why you didn't
go with an AM2 AMD processor.
Thanks a million,
John
Click to expand...

John:

I am a computer enthusiast. I do things I would never recommend to anyone
else to do except the most skilled and adventurest types to try and do.

If I had known last month that ATI was going to introduce the x1950pro for
the agp, I might have gone that way and upgraded my system next year. But I
didn't know that until I had put the money on the table.

Putting this new mobo together was a frustrating and a fun experience at the
same time. I enjoy doing this as it teaches me skills I need for my
profession and continuing education. Besides, it gives me something to talk
about and share with people like you.

I went with Intel because it has the best processor on the market bare non.
It has the best near-future future around. AMD is sucking wind right now,
and is playing catch-up with its processors. It's back and forth for which
maker has the best chips. Yesterday was AMD, today it's Intel.

Read the post to Barry Watzman under "After market OEM Radeon Cards..." for
information about the mobo problems I ran into.

If you like getting your hands dirty, kussing and swearing, and pulling your
hair out, and feeling the exceleration of conquering the impossible, then go
for it. Not for the faint of heart. Or those that do not know good
trouble-shooting skills!

William
 
William,
I have been in the IT world for quite awhile, (about 9 years) however my
main work has been in the networking area, not the desktop world, and
certainly not home desktops, My machine has been an on-going evolution for
years, as things changed, but lately things have been changing so fast it is
hard to keep-up.
(X2 939 then AM2 then Intel with the core 2 duo, I was just getting a grip
on video...or so I thought.... with the new pci-e then the proc's started
changing too. along with MOBO's, memory, like DDR2 for AMD etc, etc, etc...)
as you can imagine with servers you can still get away with a 4 meg card, as
all you need is to be able to see the screen!
So here I am just trying to figure out the cheapest way to keep going
without spending a bundle....anyway, thanks for your replies as they are
greatly appreciated . Good luck with all your computer endeavors, and all
others too.
Thanks,
John
 
What are your system specs? I would be interested to know...
Thanks,
John
Click to expand...

Antec P180B case with Antec NeoHE 550W P/S and 4 120mm fans
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe MB
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC to 2.6 GHz Stock cooler
2 Corsair CMX1024-3200C2 @ 200 MHz 1T 3.0-3-3-8 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)
MSI Nvidia GeForce 7900GT graphics board
1 1.44 floppy
2 NEC 3540a DVD burners
1 PATA WD 320GB hd
2 SATA Seagate 320GB hds
3 SATA WD 250GB hds running in RAID 5
Logitec MX1000 mouse
Viewsonic VP930b 19" LCD
Avant Stellar Keyboard

Bill
 
Their are no immediate benefits. A well running XP system is still faster
than VISTA is at present. I have no plans to upgrade to Vista for at least 6
to 8 months, maybe more. I waited two years to upgrade to XP.
Click to expand...

Same here.
I'm looking
to the future, the trends, where things are going. VISTA will, in time, be
a better product and do more than XP did.
Click to expand...

I my timing is a bit different. I'm going to wait until the new quad
cores and there accompanying motherboards get sorted out. By then
DX10/Vista and applicable cards for gaming, video and graphics work
should also be out and sorted.
Vista was LOW on my list for reasons to upgrade. My main reason for
upgrading was to go pci-e for advanced graphics support. Read -GAMES-. Oh,
and boring things like video production, graphics work, and what-not.

William

PS. I've been on this machine for two days now, I might be kidding myself,
but the color fidelity seems to be richer, more depth that the old system.
Perhaps the 30bit color depth on the x1950pro is doing something for me.
Their is quite a bit of discussion in the graphics world about 24 bit verses
30 bit graphics. This is the first time I have been able to see the
difference. Time will tell.
Click to expand...

Yep. Here's hoping those 24" and bigger displays get a bit cheaper
too.

Bill
 
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