I want to spend no more than £100 on an nVidia card ... which one????

I recently bought a Sapphire Radeon 9200 card and it was long before I realised I have been ripped off big style coz it's almost useless!! I now want a new card but I'm steering well clear of ATI based cards. I would like to buy a card that would at least run the Farcry demo with no real lag in high detail but I have a limit of £100 (I think that's about £170 in US!). With there being sooooo many cards to choose from, which would be best all round? I've seen MSI 5600XT and XFX 5600XT that look good but are they any good? Also, are GF4 still any good? Could really use some help here! Thanks!

 

Is the Far Cry demo the only thing you're having problems with or does it apply to other titles as well? It seems like the demo has some issues with it

I haven't run it, but it seems like it needs a fairly meaty card to run at high res, and even then, there are issues on high-end cards running it. You might wanna disable the shadows if possible, since I hear they're a problem on ATi cards for some reason.
If you're not concerned about the proper DX9 support, than the FX's might be alright.

The 9200 is a rebadged 8500.

See if that thread has any info you might be able to use
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=717676&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

 

So basically you don't want to buy an ATI card because you bought a low-end card without knowing it ?

Seems to me like you should have done your research before purchasing the card.

In any case, £100 is $186usd which is enough to get a very decent card.

For that price you can get a 5700 Ultra 128mb DDRII or 256mb.

But again, for that price you can have a 9600XT which comes w/ HL2, has better image quality, performs better and is a true DX9 card.

Look around, you'll see that the 9600XT is the perfect card for your budget.

 

I am actually having problems with other titles. Need for Speed Underground can be quite sluggish with high detail, as can be Colin McRae Rally 3 (even with low detail). Ideally, I would like a card that can run games like these well with no lag.
I did do some research but a friend miss-led me into buying the 9200. I found a 9600XT here . Would this card cater for all my needs? After being royally screwed over with my current ATI card (and pretty much being a newbie!), I'm being very cautious on what I spend my money on! Thanks for your help! :good:

 

That would definitely do the trick. You're getting something that's on par with the performance of a GeForce 4 Ti4600 with proper DX9 hardware at the very least. It's not that we nVidia, but the FX series of cards have a screwed up DX9 implementation.

Just avoid the 9600SE, as that will likely peform no better, and possibly worse than your current card.

 

ati cards aren't bad. but i bought an 5900fxpowerpack!ultra/1100 for £140 and its brilliant. Easy to overclock too. Now i just need a god game to test it on...

 

It seems some do not understand what is the issue here.

ANY GeForce FX cards will not render DX9 effects properly. thus, how can it be called a DX9 card ?

In addition, the 5900 Ultra is slower than the 9800 Pro, let alone the 9800XT in TODAY'S games. The FX might give you 360 FPS in Quake3 whereas the 9800 Pro will ONLY give you 300, I can give them that. However, nobody buys a $300+ (usd) card for outdated games. The 9800 Pro is even faster than the 5950 Ultra in some games (that is card especially built to compete with the 9800XT).

I know some may think that I hate nvidia but it's not the case. I just know for a fact that current Radeons are way better cards than FX cards. however, Nvidia might grab the 1st place with their ne3xt gen of cards, we'll just have to wait and see.

EDIT: I have a 9800 non-pro flashed to a pro that can do XT speed so it is easy to oc too !

 

Harrack52 is right about the current state of Nvidia. I'm using a radeon 9500np that's converted to a 9700Pro, and it smokes the FX 5900 on almost every bench (excepting those fixed by Nvidia)... very sad, considering I got the 9500 for free when a client upgraded. Even so, it's only a $120 card retail, compared to the pricey 5900. I think that's the bottom line: bang vs buck. Right now, Nvidia doesn't have the bang, but they're sure charging the $$$.

 

Right on. Sure, the FX's aren't the worst thing we've seen, but when you're no better off if you go from a GF4 Ti4600 to an FX 5600 Ultra/5700 Ultra with the whacked DX9 support, you've gained jack. And at 300+ FPS on Q3, are you really going to notice that. My GF2 MX can run playable framerates on most at medium to low resolutions. For the future, it's not going to stand up. 3DMark was fine as a benchmark, but nVidia insists on optimizing their drivers for it. ATi has been caught doing the same thing, but they stopped doing it. Until nVidia stops cheating in 3Dmark 2k3, you won't find it on any reviews I do, except maybe for an off the record shot. Maybe.

 

Not to nitpick B, but the 9200 is actually a rebadged 9000... the only differences are the clocks, and the 9200 uses its v1.2 Pixel Shader to clean up 2D video playback. The 9000 and 9200 are both limited to a single rendering pipe. I think the card you're thinking of is the 9100, which is the same as the 9200 except with 2 pipes instead of one (like the 8500). I know this crap's confusing, but that's corperate marketing for you.

 

That's it...too, many frickin 9x00 cards!

 

Yeah, they even skipped some (9300 & 9400). Maybe they're saving them so they can re-rerelease the 9600 as a 9400... just up the clock speeds, and disable another 2 rendering pipes! Bam, new card. :sick:

 

I am considering buying the Radeon 9600XT (The one with Half-Life 2 voucher included!). Would this card be ideal for all of my needs and play games with no or little lag? Also, what difference does it make with all this DirectX 9 support as oppose to the nVidia cards that don't?
I've found the 9600XT for £98 ... is that a good price? Thanks for your help, guys! :good:

 

With DX9, future titles like Half-Life 2 and Doom3 will have extra eye candy that can be rendered properly by the Radeons. The 9600's are the best mainstream graphics card right now and will be even more so in the future. The XT is basically the highest clocked 9600 avalible with temp monitoring on the core. Unless you want to run everything at the max settings at a 1600x1200 resolution, the 9600XT will do it.
Pricewise that sounds about right.