Seeing as my PC configuration is finally set in stone, and I shall hopefully get it soon.  What card should I get for it?

• AMD 64-bit 3.0 Ghz
• 1Gb of RAM, later to be upgraded to 2 or 3
• Asus K8V Deluxe
• PNY NVidia Ti4200 64Mb
• Windows XP Home
• Philips sonic edge 5.1

I can't think of anything else relevant, and I'm willing to pay up to $200.  Fire away with your suggestions, gentlemen!

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Scorpion, my old friend, nice little rig there sir!

Let me just say this to you and anybody else considering a "new" Graphics card, FORGET ABSOLUTELEY ANY OF THE OLD GeForce FX or ATI Radeon's, period.

Why? I think your just throwing your money down the pan! I'd personally sit back & wait a while for prices to level off. If you insist on the (excellent in its day) 9800, then wait again, this card is now old hat & frankly overpriced by a considerable sum.

Nvidia have their new 6800 Ultra, Ati have their X800Xt,  if you fancy an average of 40+ fps @ 1600x1200 with 4xAA & 16(!) x AF in FS2004  then you really have no other viable option, not to mention future games performance.... - Far Cry will slow to a crawl with more than a few 9800's I've seen and Far Cry is no where near as performance intensive as the likes of Doom3 / Half-Life2 or FS10 / CFS4 no doubt will be.


Buy an FX5900 or 5950 / Ati 9800 by all means just remember they are now utterly obsolete.

To quote this months PC Gamer magazine, "No Touchy" !

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA4ODEwMzE5ME9waVhxWmxmUU1fN18yX2wuZ2lm Read & weep

I was quite literally about to buy a new 5950Ultra from my local store www.overclockers.co.uk the bod behind the counter gave me some quiet heads up and strongly advised me to wait until the newer cards either reduce in price, or the 5950's / 9800's drop to a more realistic level.

I'm keeping my wonga in my pocket for a month or so, I'd advise you to do the same sir.

Paul.

Only reason I said that card was the guy said he has got a $200 limit.

If money is no object then yes get one of the new gen cards.  My money this time is on the Nvidia 6800 series as they are gonna develop a lot and support sm3.0

Hence I got a nice 6800 ultra on order 

I can afford to wait, although how long are we talking here, a month, or two years? I do consider myself particularly patient.  While not a speed demon, my Ti4200 bears all my gaming, graphical and 3-D work just fine.

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I'd stick with the Ti4200 and see how the land lies at Christmas, the new hardware alone will give your card quite a kick up the rear in performance stakes - when I upped from a 1.8 p4 to my current 2.6, wow! I thought I'd got a new card into the bargain!

Paul.

If only I was so sensible

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Erm, Far Cry with 4xAA 16xAF @ 1600x1200, MAX settings with playable framerate? 40 fps average at the same settings in FS9?  An average 50% advantage in terms of speed with most benchmarks???

The FX 5950 cannot stand upto the new Ati & Nvidia beasties if they gently tap it never mind if they were thrown at it!!!  

Hmm, Graphics card chucking, a certain Olympic sport of the future!  

As annoying as it is, the new 6800's show up the FX's for the frankly lame cards they are, don't forget, Far Cry is a full DX9 game, the 5950 Ultra is the 3rd revision of the top line FX card (FX 5800, 5900 & 5950) you'd have thought after 3 attempts they'd get a card that ran Far Cry well with full quality settings, even at lower resolutions, the plain fact is it could'nt cut the mustard and has been hastily replaced, and replaced by a card that once again has been immediately been pipped to both the market and in performance by their biggest competitor - ATI - some of us will recall a similar thing happening a few years back with an old company with its name linked to the very card you own Daz, 3DFX the FX in FX5950 is a direct reference to the 3DFX team, supposedly.

All in all, 3DFX were beaten and ultimately swallowed by there upstart competitor, history repeats itself, it seems to be doing so as we speak.   and if ATI ever manage to get their drivers upto standard (a reason I've always avoided ATI) I'd say Nvidia should have great reason to worry if they arn't doing so already!

grr im not saying that the 6800's arent beastly sons of a bitches im even thinking of getting one in my new machine just stating the point that the 5950 is not outdated yet

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i have mine locked at 25 fps and it stays there as well on them settings but then again i have overclocked it

core clock 525 mhz
memory clock 1.07 GHZ

the 5950 ultra is not lame by any means and until i buy a game that it struggles to run then i wont replace her

heck even the old ti4200 8x cards are doing well even though they are pretty old now

daz

I think what we are trying to say about the fx5200 is that yes it will play the game but with very small amounts of detail and very low levels of AA if any at all. 

The card itself will play all of todays games but will it play them at high res with detail turned up and AA and AF on?

For the price though it isn't a bad card though I would still try and search out a second hand GF4 ti4200 or GF4 ti4600 first as Directx9 compatability isnt a big issue with FS9 or a lot of games for some reason.  I would have thought I would have been limited more but I havn't noticed any.  All effects in fs9 work just great 

9800pro does look about the best for your $200 but like said if you can afford to wait and save a bit more its probably well worth getting a fx6800gt up or ATI9800pro up.  I reckon 6800GT is a pretty good but as everyone is managing to o-clock them to ultra speeds at the moment 

Im short sighted but run desktop at 1280x1024 and fs9 at 1600x1200 with 2xAA. Cant go higher as its starts gettin sloo in the busy bits as it is LOL.

Hmm let me try. Test

Its like this : [*URL=http://link_here.com] your name here[/URL*]

I put this posts http...... and Test where 'your name' bit is    Also remove both the * I had to put those in so it showed up.

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Sorry Daz, just about any current batch test of video cards will tell you that ,frankly, it is just that, outdated!

The only "old" card out that can hold its own with the new breed is an ATI9800 but, considering specs/price/performance, it is now way overpriced.

And by the time we've finished a flame war about the relative pro's 'n'cons of this card against that one, the cards were bitchin about will indeed themselves be outdated.

Birtman's got a good point, by the time we've all saved up for X800's or 6800Ultras, DX10 will be out and they'll be relegated to bin fodder!!!  (Oh no it's happening all over again!!!    )

Trying to keep up with PC hardware is a little like keeping women happy, the more money you have access to, the better chance you've got!!!

Alas,certainly in my case, a happy Mrs = no money for 6800 Ultra.... Bah! 

Paul.

OK, change of plans guys.  I've vetoed putting the card on hold, but I have put it in the end of my update queue.  The main reason being that, assuming everything goes to plan (and it never does), I'll devote 100% of my paycheck to getting this computer and a shiny new pair of boots, and then I'll have about a year left before I go to Europe, and because of power differences, I doubt I'll be able to use it there, after a year in Europe, I'll come back and be in the airforce (and with more luck than I really deserve) flying whatever they need me in.  So why am I going to wait to buy something that I probably won't be using more than a couple of months?

Putting a definite money ceiling aside, what's the best value card, now or within the next month or two?

PS: Is there any way to learn this stuff aside from just reading tons of reviews?

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Probably not. However, if all you want to do is choose a Graphics card that represents value for money, then get hold of a recent VGA Card Performance Chart, and start doing price comparisons based on card performance on those charts. I still do it that way regardless of how many reviews I've read. Tom's hardware guide does VGA card comparison charts.

Just take care when you order the card, that you are actually getting what you want, instead of a different card with a very similar name. Many manufacturers code their own names, disguising the genre of the card.

For example; Winfast Leadtek A350 TDH is actually an nVidia FX5900XT. XT doesn't stand for "eXTra" either, as in the ATI Radeon series where the XT model is the better one. The FX5900XT is the slower one out of the 5900, 5900 ultra, 5950 ultra etc.

ASUS makes a 5900XT that confuses the FX5950 name I believe.

Let the buyer beware.

Not sure about the 4800se.  I went from a GF3 ti200 which was 64ddr to a GF4 ti4600 and did notice a difference especially as the GF4 is 128ddr.  Thing is they are old cards now and unless you have been offered one really really cheap then you would be better off savin a bit more for an FX5900 or 9800pro.

Found a Leadtek nVIDIA GeForce FX5900XT Video Card, 128MB DDR for only $183. It's an 'XT' model, but it seems like they all are

Would this, in your opinion, be a good video card?

How does the Geforce FX 5900SE compare to the 5900 or the 5900XT?

I think so. It may have been one with a duff fan or summin that got sent back and was fixed.  Though as long as it has its warranty I wouldn't be to worried about it.

Not sure about the SE model.  I know the ATI SE models are not as good as a plain numbered one, i.e. a 9800se is worse than a 9800. I dunno how Nvidia work all there letters at the end.

Why is the Memory clock so low on that GT  ???

Default GT memory speed is 1000MHz.  Ultra speeds are 400/1100 for most though some are pre-clocked, i.e. the XFX at 425/1200 minimum some may come with up to 450 on the core.

Only thing I find strange is even with a GT o-clocked to Ultra speeds they never score quite as high as the Ultras do in the bench tests  ??? Cant work out why as they should be the same. 

I go along with the GT is best buy at the moment, Im just gonna waste my money though and keepin the Ultra.

I thought about that before I replied but that would mean its running at 1500MHz+  ???  I have seen no o-clock on these cards that high.

Dam if I did I would cancel my Ultra order straight away    Think the most I have seen is just over 1200MHz on the .

There is no such thing as a 5900 SE other than a proprietry name branding.

All the nVidia FX 5900 cards share the same exact GPU, the NV35 I believe.

An SE is an XT.

There isn't much performance difference in the 5900 range.

The performance increases from the FX5900XT to FX5900 to FX5900 Ultra to FX5950.

My FX5900XT is a Leadtek A350 TDH and comes with a util to clock it up to Ultra levels. It's my fastest ever card and performs somewhere between an ATI 9600XT and 9800XT if you are familiar with ATI cards.

Here is some research material

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/faq.html