Best Card under $220?

kilabane

I still haven't got my computer problem fixed so I'm going to buy a new video card.  In your opinion what is the best card under $220?  I have seen the Radeon 9800, i think thats about 220, the Geforce 6600, and Radeon x600.  I just want something reliable that i can play EQ2 and WoW on.

Amd64res.

U can get the 6600 GT for $222.00 and i think it has 256mb ram too.

DerfelCadarn

6600GT- http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=605

EQ2 Qeynos Guild- http://www.imperium-arcanum.com

Kiamde

The newest Radeon 9800pro. The 9800xt should be down to 240 by now.

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kilabane

Thanks.  I think I'll go with the geforce 6600 GT.

Elapsed

I was torn between a 6600GT or a 6800NU myself. In the end I decided to spend the extra $50 and get the 6800NU ($288 from Newegg before shipping and tax of course ). Unlocked and overclocked it near matches the 6800GT (a $400 card)

Coraith

you may have clocked it near to a 6800GT but th 6800 only has 12 pixel pipelines, whereas the GT has 16. So unless you try and softmod it your not going to get the same performance.

DerfelCadarn

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Originally posted by Coraith
you may have clocked it near to a 6800GT but th 6800 only has 12 pixel pipelines, whereas the GT has 16. So unless you try and softmod it your not going to get the same performance.

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Yea, but you cannot softmod the 6800 to a 6800gt/ultra(due to different memory).

6800= 12 pipe, 325/700 clock, 128mb DDR
6800Gt= 16 pipe, 350/1000 clock, 256mb GDDR3

You can see quite a difference between the cards, the 6800 only gets 39.5 fps in UT2004 1600x1200 4x AA/8x AF while the 6800 GT gets 88.2 fps. When you get up to big res, the limitations of the 6800 start to show. http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/index.html

EQ2 Qeynos Guild- http://www.imperium-arcanum.com

Elapsed

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Originally posted by DerfelCadarn

Yea, but you cannot softmod the 6800 to a 6800gt/ultra(due to different memory). 6800= 12 pipe, 325/700 clock, 128mb DDR
6800Gt= 16 pipe, 350/1000 clock, 256mb GDDR3

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There is a chance to unlock 4 more pipes on a 6800 with RivaTuner. It won't be exactly as good as GT but it's fairly close and enough for me to not spend an extra $100 on a GT. Plus my monitor can only run 1024x768 max and from my understanding the 256mb is useless unless I run at higher resolutions.

DerfelCadarn

Most of the time getting the 4 more pipes isn't successful. Is your monitor ancient or something?

EQ2 Qeynos Guild- http://www.imperium-arcanum.com

Elapsed

Nah, it's just a 15" LCD.

Johnark

Radeon 9800 Pro for 220???  Dude, buy it.

My friend only has an AMD 2600+ like mine, except he has a 9800 Pro and I have a Geforce FX 5900, and they are both the same price... and he's running Half-life 2 at 2x antialiasing and everything else set to max at 1024x768 resolution.

I'm at 1024x768 resolution except I have no antialiasing and all graphic configs are at Medium with only the textures at High.

I mean there's nothing else really.  I hated any ATI card that is under the 9800 Pro... oh and maybe the 9700 was amazing too.  But anything under the 9700 I hated.  They were faster than their Geforce competitor, but god damn do they always crash or give out that "blue screen of death" Windows generates.  Geforce?  Heck I haven't seen the "blue screen of death" for years... not to mention I can leave my PC running for weeks and it will never crash.

So you make the decision.

Buy ATI -> 9700 and + cause they are stable from what I've seen and you get better performance and graphic quality.

or

Buy Geforce -> Go for the FX5900 if you can still find'em.  It's a great card, it's stable because ALL Geforces have always been stable, ever.  But unfortunatly the 9800 Pro for the same price performs much better.   But don't forget Geforce is garantied to be stable, they never made a card that crashes... ever.