Which video card...

clintoris · Post by **clintoris** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:11 am

...should I choose? I have 6 choices and I'm pretty sure I know which ones to steer clear from. So I just need a little advice as to which one would be the best.

Basically, I want to run 2 monitors at the same time so I can run full screen Apps on my main screen and have chat windows on the other one. Ok, here goes:

#1
#2
#3 - If it's low profile, does it have to go into a low profile machine?
#4
#5
#6

I was leaning towards either #4 or #6. I don't run big 3D games (often). I mainly play older games like Baldur's Gate or Master of Orion. So, yeah, I'll stop typing now.

ZH/Franky · Post by **ZH/Franky** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:52 am

Stay away from Ati. Only go with Intel if absolutely necessary.
Nvidia is the way to go.

So go with none of the cards you linked to pages of in this thread.

Post by **Agozer** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 2:17 am

Better yet, don't go with Intel. At all. "Intel" and "absolutely necessary" shouldn't be used in the same sentence when discussing graphics hardware.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 2:36 am

and don't listen to franky

it's stupid

we keep it for fun, and pity

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 2:45 am

Get a Dual Slot video card unless you intend to replace it with a 3rd party cooler or water cooling... they are tons quieter and much more efficient at cooling.

Squall_Leonhart · Post by **Squall_Leonhart** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 3:17 am

nvidia's drivers are currently better, ATI's does poorly constructed cpu offloading which results in poor driver performance.

they intend on fixing that sometime this year, yet thats only 1 point where ati fails.

clintoris · Post by **clintoris** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:32 am

I will get one of those video cards I already specified. I was wondering if I could get some advice on those. I'm sorry, I realize nVidia might be better and I respect that. But I am going to go with ATI.

So, one of those cards, or none at all. Like I said, low maintenance gaming and overall video usage, only want to run 2 monitors simultaneously, and it will be one of the cards specified or something similar to them.

I do appreciate you taking the time to read and answer.

MajereDB8 · Post by **MajereDB8** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:42 am

If you're running Windows, nearly all of those cards should be sufficient for dual monitor support and old DirectX or OpenGL 2.0 games. ATI no longer supports the 9550, so you'll have to use an old version of the Catalyst to get that model to work - I'm thinking 5.6 or so. If you are running XP, I don't think you'll have any problem with those cards.

ATI support on Linux or Unix is questionable at best. The configuration tools on their older drivers tended to be kludgy. You could probably get dual monitor support working with Xinerama, but that's another esoteric topic that you should read up on.

One thing you should also keep in mind is that some of those, like the HD 3450, are PCI-express cards. Older motherboards may not support PCI-x, and may only have AGP or PCI ports.

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:15 am

120cdn for a refurb 4370?

thats a rip, my 4670 was 99 bux cdn.

that being said, go with nvidia, multimon support is better than ati's

or try windows 7...

ZH/Franky · Post by **ZH/Franky** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:16 pm

sweener2001 wrote:and don't listen to franky

it's stupid

we keep it for fun, and pity

No, listen to me. I'm correct.
Ati/Intel != good idea
nivida = good idea

Starman Ghost · Post by **Starman Ghost** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:45 pm

I would go with number 3 or 6. The others really aren't worth your time.

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 9:14 pm

Franky wrote:
sweener2001 wrote:and don't listen to franky

it's stupid

we keep it for fun, and pity
No, listen to me. I'm correct.
Ati/Intel != good idea
nivida = good idea

You're going to need to provide reasons to backup your "argument."

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:23 pm

how can you possibly explain away that the 4850 is the best bang for buck card on the market. and that the 4870 X2 is the king of the hill.

and that the 4730 (not sure about the number) is the bargain hunter's dream?

and note that these are all current gen. also note that nvidia hasn't done anything to their card design since the 8800. they still refuse to add DX 10.1 support. and they charge a ridiculous amount for their current gen cards. they had to drop their prices on the 260 and 280 almost immediately after they were released becasue ati came out and said "HI, here's equally performing cards for a fraction of the price"

Post by **odditude** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:55 pm

sweener2001 wrote:4870 X2 is the king of the hill.

just got beat by the GTX295 (basically a gtx280 x1.8)

sweener2001 wrote:and that the 4830 is the bargain hunter's dream?

fixed.

sweener2001 wrote:moar stuffs

quite valid.

clintoris · Post by **clintoris** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 1:57 am

Just bought #6. Told you I was going to buy one of those. Thanks to those who actually gave advice I requested.

This thread may be locked/closed/deleted.

kick · Post by **kick** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 2:34 am

Good choice !

The X1000 series AGP cards were really good. Modern cards run old games like crap (just run the first test of 3DMark 2001SE on a HD-series card and you'll see what's wrong).

Another advantage of the X1000 series over the modern cards is the awesome 2D performance.The latest GeForce and Radeon HD cards lack specialized 2D hardware,so the performance suffers badly (especially under Linux).

AGP ATI cards are much better than nVidia when it comes to analog image quality,TV output and multimonitor support.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 3:10 am

clintoris wrote:Just bought #6. Told you I was going to buy one of those. Thanks to those who actually gave advice I requested.

This thread may be locked/closed/deleted.

Haw!

Generally, threads are not locked/closed/deleted unless there's a compelling reason to do so.
"Question answered" doesn't usually provide that reason.
'Specially not when other people are engaged in a side-conversation.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:17 am

odditude wrote:
sweener2001 wrote:4870 X2 is the king of the hill.
just got beat by the GTX295 (basically a gtx280 x1.

i didn't know that that had launched already. i'll have to take a look at the tests. does it beat it by a lot, and is the pricing competitive?

EDIT: fixed tags

DOLLS (J) [!] · Post by **DOLLS (J) [!]** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 6:12 am

My last two videocards were from AMD and I had not a single problem with either. The driver's control panel could be better (not that NV's is any better), but that's what ATI Tray Tools is for.

MajereDB8 wrote:ATI support on Linux or Unix is questionable at best. The configuration tools on their older drivers tended to be kludgy. You could probably get dual monitor support working with Xinerama, but that's another esoteric topic that you should read up on.

I had a few problems with the installation package, but once sorted out, the installed drivers ran fine and dandy.

They've at least released a tech demo making use of the full HD architecture up to 4xxx along with the source code. Proper drivers should be amongst us in little time.

Bottom line: Don't listen to Franky.

kick · Post by **kick** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 6:46 am

Use fglrx/Catalyst 8.7 or older for Radeon HD cards on Linux.
Don't install anything newer than this one,since the 3D performance is noticably worse.

Catalyst 8.11 doesn't work at all (black screen) and 8.12 has the worst performance ever and comes with a broken/segfaulting CCC.

The driver team currently doesn't care too much about performance since they work on completing the driver feature set and getting it on par with Windows.Optimizations/fixes will come later.

The Linux installer/packager is really good stuff from AMD/ATI.
I never had any problems with it.

The biggest 'problem' with the ATI Linux drivers is that you'll have to wait a few more months until they complete OpenGL 3.0 support (currently 68% on both Linux and Windows),add the missing point sprites and the much needed XvBA video acceleration feature,

Broken color conversion for Xv,two x servers started at the same time and 3D games with WINE are the other big issues with the Linux fglrx driver.

The Open source driver is almost full-featured and works great for the X1000 series of cards and doesn't have the problems of the fglrx driver above.

Radeon HD owners will have to wait a while,but the best thing is ATI gave out almost all of the specs to the FOSS community,while nVidia has done nothing yet.

Post by **odditude** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:10 pm

sweener2001 wrote:
odditude wrote:
sweener2001 wrote:4870 X2 is the king of the hill.
just got beat by the GTX295 (basically a gtx280 x1.8)
i didn't know that that had launched already. i'll have to take a look at the tests. does it beat it by a lot, and is the pricing competitive?

EDIT: fixed tags

anandtech wrote:While NVIDIA has the halo, AMD's top of the line card is slightly cheaper than the GTX 295 and still outperforms it in some cases. Currently the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is a $450 card while the GeForce GTX 295 is a $500 part. This 11% price advantage (10% savings depending on how you look at it) might be incentive for some people. We don't consider it enough to recommend the Radeon HD 4870 X2 over the GTX 295 though. There are some opportunities with mail in rebates that could net you a 4870 X2 for closer to $400, but mail in rebates are always hit or miss, aren't permanent and not everyone likes them. If the 4870 X2 were being sold without a rebate for $400, the choice would be more difficult, but as it stands, the GTX 295 gets the nod even considering price from us. If you need a top of the line single card option that is.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 2:09 am

i also checked some benchmarks from tomshardware. not bad at all. and the price is actually good.

their 9800X2 or whatever it was cost 600+, and that was ridiculous.