Building/Upgrading a PC for TS2
KittKitt:
Heck, there's plenty of other quality cards out there. These days however, anything that's not seriously outdated tech is going to run considerably hotter and require more power than the old generation stuff did.
For example, you can snag a GeForce 6800 AGP 256 Meg card, though those retail at about $200 US give or take.
If you don't mind a bit of performance and feature loss, you can drop down to a 6600 GT series AGP for about half that price. It's all a matter of how much performance you insist upon, and what you're willing to spend to get it really.
It would also seem that the X800 isnt' quite the top-end ATI avaliable in AGP either, which was news to me too. Apparently, you can also get the X850 Pro in an AGP model as well.
I've not personally done the comparison research for some time, but I would suspect that to be a comparable or perhaps slightly superior card to the Geforce 6800. It'd take me some digging to actually do the comparison work though, so consider that just a guess.
If at all possible (I'd have to look at your case to know), it would behoove you to add a cooling fan that moves some cool air in the vicinity of your video card regardless of your choice. The cooler you can keep them, the better and the fans they come with aren't high-velocity enough to really be sufficient alone in many situations.
Even if you can't get a fan directly pointed at the thing, something that will pull some cool external air into the case and move it around even in the vicinity of your expansion slots will be some help. There's a ton of options for doing this, and what you should go with depends mainly on your case and which options that makes available to you.
-Kitt
Hegelian:
Quote from: KittKitt on 2006 September 06, 20:17:03
It would also seem that the X800 isn't quite the top-end ATI avaliable in AGP either, which was news to me too. Apparently, you can also get the X850 Pro in an AGP model as well.
It's just not as good a value for money as the X800 GTO. On a performance-per-dollar basis, you can't beat the X800 GTO in the AGP format. In the U.S., the Sapphire model is $134 shipped from Newegg; and this is the model than can often be unlocked to 16 pipes. ;D
There is also the X1600 Pro in AGP, but then you're saddled with DDR 2 with a 128-bit interface, so the X800 GTO is probably a better performer (for about $15 more). If you choose to go that route, don't bother with the 512 MB version, and make sure the model you get has the appropriate outputs—some models have one DVI (digital LCD) and one D-Sub (CRT) connector, whereas others have two DVI connectors so you need an adapter for a CRT, which could lead to image degradation (which may or may not be noticeable to you).
KittKitt:
Quote from: Hegelian on 2006 September 06, 20:47:45
It's just not as good a value for money as the X800 GTO. On a performance-per-dollar basis, you can't beat the X800 GTO in the AGP format. In the U.S., the Sapphire model is $134 shipped from Newegg; and this is the model than can often be unlocked to 16 pipes. ;D
Aye. Noted, and I fully admit that it's been a while since I did any research or comparisons of the myriad of cards out there, which I attempted to convey above, though it may not have been entirely clear.
With the request however for 'any other quality cards' tossed out there, I figured the others I mentioned were easily within that classification, even were they not necessarily the 'best bang' selection.
In short, don't take anything I already said as trying to refute Hegelian. Without going through pages and pages of independant reviews and comparisons, I would say the info sounds good to me and I suspect spending the time to actually pursue said comparisons would likely merely confirm this. :)
-Kitt
Hegelian:
I didn't take it as a refutation. I just wanted to make it clear that I didn't intend to suggest the X800 GTO was the only high-performance AGP board out there, only that it is currently the best value (by a wide margin), especially if you can unlock the extra four pixel pipelines. The X850 Pro is probably about the same in real-world performance, but costs about $20 more in the U.S.
I do, however, stand by my assertion that at this price level the ATI boards are a better choice than nVidia-based boards for performance, image quality, and driver stability (I believe the problems a few folks are having with recent driver releases are machine-specific rather than a problem with the drivers). The X800 series have always outperformed their nVidia equivalents, the 6600 series, even matching some of the models in the more expensive 6800 series (of which the better-performing X850 series was the ATI equivalent). Also, nVidia has a long-standing and well-earned reputation for sub-par visual quality (always focusing on benchmark performance) and wonky drivers—I remember fondly one reviewer's description of the image produced by an nVidia board as "knife in the eye." ;)
ATI has had driver issues in the past, but none that I know of in the last couple years. Similarly, during the period when ATI was focused on the budget and OEM market, the visual quaility of some of their boards was dreadful. Indeed, when it was time to upgrade from a Matrox G400 Max to a DirectX 9 board (by which time Matrox had abandoned the gamer market), it was with some trepidation that I bought a Radeon 9800 Pro. It turned out the "2D" image quality of the 9800 was the equal of the Matrox (the king of image quality in consumer-level graphics), and I haven't looked back since. I've had nothing but excellent results from the Radeon boards I've had, all of which are currently in service in our household.
I admit that my animus toward all things nVidia dates back to the acquisition of 3dfx and the way nVidia (mis)handled it. I've never liked their corporate attitude, nor that of the nVidia fanboys. As long as there is a reasonable alternative, no nVidia for me! ;D
kewian:
ok what I want to know is this....how come this update is for sept 8th but was actually done on sept 7th?
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