Which Radeon?! Please HELP

[Boom-Town-Rrrrat]

OK...I have been looking at the various Radeons available today. I have also been in two minds of whether or not to get a 128MB card or a 256MB. I have been looking at the 'Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB', which totals at £323 in the UK. However, i have read on these forums that some 256MB Radeons actually run slower than some 128MB?!

Please help me, as i dont know what to do. I would greatly appreciate it if some1(s) could provide me with some ideas of other Radeons.

Lets say i have a budget of £300, give or take a little.



Here is my basic spec :-

Pentium4, 2.53GHz
512Mb DDR RAM (I will be adding an extra 512MB shortly!)
GeForce MX420 64MB

If you could help me out, i would greatly appreciate it...As i have very little knowledge on the subject at all, and i do not want to regret my decision.
I think it would be best to add that i would like to be able to play all next gen games, such as DOOM3, HL2, UT2004, etc. and to gain the full enjoyment of these games...

Thanx -1-

[ArcticFox]

I'll start with the lowdown on the various Radeons, just add "Pro" to the end of the name if you are considering one of those cards, their just up-clocked versions of the non-Pro's:

9000: Basic, budget card.
9200: Newer, but still very bugdet card. Has pixel shaders
9500: A crippled version of the 9700 Pro, you can flash it's BIOS to make it a 9700 Pro. This card, sadly, is no longer being produced.
9600: Replaced the 9500. Very overclockable, like a Ti 4200. DirectX 9 compatible.
9700: ATI's answer to the GeForce4 line of cards, still very fast.
9800: ATI's next-fastest card
9800 XT: Bleeding-edge new

So it really depends on your budget. If you want to play HL2, grab a 9800 Pro/XT and don't look back. What I would do to save some cash is buy a 9800 non-pro and flash it's BIOS to unlock the extra pipelines so it's a Pro card.

Hope this helped!

[Boom-Town-Rrrrat]

Yeah, thanks...so the card i described in my first post is well worth going for?

i was also wondering if any1 knew of where i could purchase this card any cheaper? i am willing to order online from American websites. I will also look at other...erm....'makes'...such as 'sapphire', etc.(dont know the correct term).

Also...could any1 please inform me of any problems or advantages to this or any other card...i just want to be sure i make the right decision for future use also. I simply havent got much in the way of knowledge on the subject. It just seems right to me, for me to buy a 256MB card in order to be on the cutting edge at the moment and also ensure that i will be kewl for the future...if yu know what i mean. But i have read that some 256MB card under-perform compared to some 128MB's?!

thanks
-1-

[sechs]

There is a performance advantage to 256MB vs. 128MB, but it's not very big and you have to have every memory-eating option turned up. It will be several years before you will require 256MB of video memory to run a game well.

I figure by that time, you'd want to upgrade your card anyway.

[tony_j15]

Get the Radeon 9800 128mb version. As sechs said, 256 aint worth it. This card will do you fine in HL2, Doom3, etc.

9700: ATI's answer to the GeForce4 line of cards, still very fast.

Disagree. The 9700 is a DX9 card, so it doesnt contend with the ge4's.

[Boom-Town-Rrrrat]

Oh right...thanks.

but that is a good thing...this is why i wanted to get a 256MB, because i do not want to have to upgrade soon...so, a 256MB should cover me for a few years, yes?

[blubomber]

Well, the type of memory is also a factor. some manufacturers, to keep costs down, will put a lower grade memory on their boards thus impacting performance.

I am not sure what type of memory Power Color uses or Saphire for that matter, but it is something good to check with this kind of investment.

And if you can, the 9800XT cards are the way to go. Because you can get a coupon for a free full version of Half Life 2 when it comes out. But, you may have to buy the card directly from ATI to get that deal.

[Omardeth]

256mb of memory on a video card is a marketing ploy as far as i am concerned . there is noting out today that will take advantage of that amount of memory. for that matter nothing really takes full advantage of 128mb cards . as for them being slower . yes they can be . it is the same with 64mb and 128mb cards . if you look at benchmarks you will see that some 64mb cards are faster or marginaly a tad bit slower than 128mb cards . why is this you say ? well sometimes it is simply the program being run doesn't need as much memory on the card to do what it has to do . also with 64mb the manufactures use faster memory . so for instance you will have 3.8ns memory on the 128mb card but 3.3ns memory on the 64mb card .

also i wouldn't buy a 256mb card thinking you will future proff yourself . there is no such thing . by the time you will need that amount of memory to play games there will be MUCH better cards on the market .

people think they will keep themselfs from upgrading if they do that . well thats what the manufactures want you to think . thats the marketing ploy i was talking about .

for instance a gf2 is a 4year old card ?. it will still play most if not all the games out there today at a playable rate . my son has a gf2 mx in his machine and he plays halo . the only time it will slow down is when there is ALOT of action on the screen at one time . but 98% of the time it runs fine .

first thing to do is deside if what your budget is , then look for a card . my advice is get the card that will do what you want at the lowest price . in a year there will be way faster cards . so spend 100-150 now . buying a 300$ card now is a waste of money if ya ask me . as far as game speed a ti4200 is still a great card . for 100$ it will do all you want . but if you are a ati fan the 9600 is plenty . they can be had for about 100-130 range easy and will do all that ya want . the fx5700 is a very nice card . and it is under 200$ now and it was just released so it will drop in price in the next few months .

[tony_j15]

Boom-Town-Rrrrat: yes, you could get a 256mb card, but the ones out right now are not really optimized for that much memory. And no programs require that much. By the time 256 memory is needed, companies will have cards that utilizes them well. A radeon 9800 will last you at least 2 or 3 years before you think about upgrading again.

so for instance you will have 3.8ns memory on the 128mb card but 3.3ns memory on the 64mb card .

My 128mb card has 2.8ns memory. Todays games show that 128 is way better than 64.

[Boom-Town-Rrrrat]

well....this is the card i was looking at...and i would imageine (i may be wrong) that for THAT MASSIVE PRICE, the memory would be good?!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...agx_2d014_2dpc

but then agen, i know very little...