Halo 1 & 2 for PC
This topic has moved here: Subject: The Buyer's Guide to Graphics Cards [UPDATED 9-1-05]
  • Subject: The Buyer's Guide to Graphics Cards [UPDATED 9-1-05]
Subject: The Buyer's Guide to Graphics Cards [UPDATED 9-1-05]
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First, a benchmark for all the AGP/PCI-Express cards from the past 2 generations can be found here


This was calculated by averaging out benchmark scores from Doom 3, Half Life 2, and Unreal Tournament 2004. Following the descriptions of various GPU components is a list of all GPU's and their specs. Sorry about the insane size, it is pretty hard to read any smaller. I'll work on it for the revised edition soon, though.

Chipset or GPU: This is the integral part of a graphics card. If you think of your graphics card as a mini motherboard, think of the chipset as the CPU. It performs all of the 'thinking' that your card does. In essence, this is the most important part of a graphics card. The chipset's speed is determined in MHz. Really, speed doesn't always matter. What really does is speed AND the chipset and it's process.

RAM: RAM stores information for the chipset to process later - just like on your computer. RAM is important, but only as much as your GPU can handle. An old card is really no good with 256MB, as you cna see above; you might as well get the 128MB version of many, because that's about how much it will process anyway. However, in uber-powerful cards, up to 512MB and beyond of memory is used, and not only is that memory expansive, but it's also fast, ie GDDR3. The other thing that is important with memory is its data transfer, also measured in MHz. In addition, RAM is measured in bits. Bits are the actual data-widths of the RAM interface with the core - how much data can actually pass through per clock? New cards use 256-bit memory. This is very exhorbitant and can help you get to those ultra settings on Doom3, but 128-bit is perfectly fine for all but the latest-gen cards. 256-bit is a good investment for now, though, as games will soon thrive in 256MB+, 256-bit+ environments.

Interface: AGP, PCI, or PCI Express? That is the question. Old PCI cards use a PCI slot, common on most computers. The data transfer between the motherboard and the card is minimal - I highly disapprove this type of graphics card. AGP slots nowadays are all 8x, although they do support 4x for older boards. This is a good transfer rate, and has been the standard. PCI Express is about a year old. It allows fast data transfer, however, as of now, AGP vs. PCIe board tests show that both have similar performance. Motherboards with PCIe slots cost about $30 more than those with AGP, and the PCIe cards cost about $30 more than AGP cards. If you can find the extra $60 or so, just get it. You will be able to upgrade your card in a few years again, rather than getting a whole new pc.

Integrated Graphics: Intel boards seem to have this more than AMD boards. Integrated graphics have a chipset implemented on the motherboard. However, if you actually play games, you need a graphics card. The integrated graphics are only for people who don't play games or like to see mc grey and the warthog as a green blob. They are absolutely terrible. If all you have is integrated graphics and you wish to play Halo, you need to get a graphics card. Recently, ATi has released their own line of integrated graphics on some motherboards that hold their chipset. Performance wise they're better than the other integrated units on the market, but still nevertheless integrated. Integreated uses system memory, so in addition to having a crappy GPU, it bogs down the rest of your system's resources.

Pipelines: This gets down to the roots of your graphics card. (Analogy alert), think of your graphics card as LA, and the number of pixel and vertex pipelines as each lane on the freeway. The more pipelines/lanes you have, the more information your card can handle. Let’s take two cards as examples. The 9600XT has 4 pipelines. Cool. The X850XT has 16 pipelines (!!!). Very cool. In general, the performance of your card can be a function of chipset, core/memory speed, and pipelines. This will help you even more when deciding to get a card. 8 pipelines deliver sub-mid range performance, 12 mid to above average performance, and 16 will give you absolutely awesome graphics. This is one reason why the X800XL is such a steal. 16 pipelines, while its competitor 6600GT has 12. Pipelines are in essence data-width or how much data can pass through the GPU core processor in one GPU clock cycle. This is different than RAM data-width...

Overclocking: While you can just leave your graphics card the way it is, there are some good programs to squeeze out more. Overclocking basically pushes your card faster than it's specifications say. This can save you a significant amount of money. When overclocking to find your optimal setting, check the temperature every 15 minutes while playing a demanding game. Make sure it doesn't get above 70C or so, or whatever your card manufacturer has deemed unstable temperatures. Also check for artifacts, any anomalies like lines on the screen, random texture errors, geometry errors, etc. If any of that happens, turn it down a notch, about 15MHz. You should be able to run your GPU on a torture test like the one in ATi Tray Tools for 24 hours without errors.

Overclocking Software: I like to go to Guru 3D. The best I’ve found for ATI is ATI-Traytools, although Coolbits is good for nVidia and RadTools for ATi, I’ve heard. The tray tools app lets you make graphs of temperature as a relation to gpu/memory speeds when trying to find your optimal settings while also providing a feature for detecting artifacts, again to get that optimal setting.

SLI: SLI is very new (less than a year). It involves dual PCI-e slots, two cards of the same build (ie two 6600GT's), and a small connector that links them. In this configuration, the computer believes it is dealing with one card, instead of two. SLI requires a special motherboard, specifically nForce 4 SLI motherboards. This is one huge advantage Nvidia has over ATI. ATI cards do not support SLI. There are problems, though. The cards must be from the same manufacturer, be the same model, and have the same BIOS revision. ATi has announced Crossfire, their answer to SLI, but it has not been released yet.

Recommended Interface:
PCI: Oh, hell no! If all you have are PCI slots, you at least need a new motherboard, probably a new pc, too!
AGP: Good for now, it still has nice cards, but manufacturers are discontinuing production of new cards for AGP soon.
PCI-Express: Getting a new computer and have a budget that’s not too tight? Get PCI-e. You’ll be happier with it than with AGP.

Trusted ATI Brands: Sapphire (just don’t get the 9800 pro!), Gigabyte, Asus, Connect3D, Abit, HIS [Best cooling, best overclocking]
Trusted Nvidia Brands: BFG, XFX, Gigabyte, Chaintech, Asus

Buy your cards from the above manufacturers. They are licensed and inspected for quality by their respective companies (ATI or Nvidia), and usually have more powerful cards for a cheaper price.

Good places to buy cards are Newegg and ZipZoomFly, though do not discount new-in-box cards on eBay.

I like Newegg for it's great interface and prices, but ZipZoomFly has free 2nd day delivery. However, Newegg usually gets the good stuff to you faster than you expect, every time. The cheap 5-day shipping option usually gets my orders to me within a few days.

3D Labs' Wildcat series cards I like to...exclude from these suggestions. For the price tag (over $1000), they're a bit overkill. Heck, $500 is a bit too much. At 208MB - 512MB of memory they will handle any CAD design programs like 3ds with ease, and their chipsets and dual-RAMDACs are unmatched. However, they're built for CAD programs like 3DS Max, not games. In fact they can't even play games. They posses some very new technology, such as volumetric texturing (instead of textures being applied to the surface of the model, they are actually applied to the actual 3D model itself, so if, in the rendering views, you could cut, say a rock in half, the inside would be textured as well, not just the outside surface). 3D Labs is an innovator of graphics tech. My suggestion: respect them for their view to the future, but don't get their cards. They are really for work with developers. If you want to get into 3D-design I'd say wait and use the card you have. Why? A developer card is pricey. Very pricey. Again, why? It's such a small market and the products are so advanced that they have to hike prices high to make money. eBay is your friend here. I do have some experience, I own the Wildcat 6110. By far, faster than my X850XT for 3DS, and yet it is from 2002. Of course, I saved $800 by buying it on eBay Wink

New 7800GTX out! After the R520 cores by ATi hit, I will update the graph. In the meantime - spec sheet!

[Edited on 9/1/2005]

  • 01.15.2005 8:01 PM PDT
Subject: The Buyer's Guide to Graphics Cards
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just for the heck of it:
if you only wanna spend like $200 for a -blaming- good card from nvidia, get the 6600 GT. it's better than the 6800, but like half tthe price. the 6800GT can be like $400(100 less than the 6800 ultra), but can be easily overclocked to beyond the utra's speed.
i just wanted the info out there, and this seemed like a good place to put it.

  • 01.15.2005 9:39 PM PDT
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I thought PCI express was the best out there right now. The AGP card that I had at one point said on the box "AGP 4x/8x" and the PCI express I'm getting says "PCI express 16x"

[Edited on 1/15/2005 10:10:25 PM]

  • 01.15.2005 10:08 PM PDT
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True, PCI express has a faster data transfer rate. However, with the exception of the little slots, the PCI-e and AGP cards are basically the exact same. They are within 1 frame per second on games. But that's only the first generation. The next wave of PCI-e cards will start to woop the crap out of AGP cards.

  • 01.15.2005 10:51 PM PDT
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Heyyo,

Smurf... did you bother to read what davis wrote aboot ram? Most games nowadays don't even take up the whole 128MB, so 256MB isin't really needed right now. :p

As for vidcards? 6600GT is the best value for mid/high range videocards, and the 9600XT's the best for budget. ;)

He forgot 1 type of vidcard: intergrated. Intergrated is the worst ever. In common sense, it should be the fastest since it's intergrated and doesn't pass through a pci or agp bus, but an intergrated bus seems to be even weaker than those, so that's why if you have intergrated and no agp port? buy a new mobo. :p

  • 01.16.2005 12:04 AM PDT
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Integrated sucks but not as bad as using an old PCI video card. When I had a 9250 (ATI) it couldn't even make me invisible.

  • 01.16.2005 7:31 AM PDT
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i wish this was a stickie.. it helps :D:D soo how do u overclock? i tried before but im afriad of fryin it how do u know if u have a pci etc.

[Edited on 1/16/2005 8:34:50 AM]

  • 01.16.2005 8:30 AM PDT
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What type of card do you have? ATI's Catalyst software actually has a menu for overclocking. If you select 'enable overdrive', it will push the card's RAM and core as hard as it can go w/o overheating. It's quite nice, really. It will never overheat that way, plus you can always look at the little thermometer just in case.

If you have Nvidia...well, I've never o'ced one. Does anyone have suggestions?

  • 01.16.2005 10:02 AM PDT
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i got a bad card, its intel extreme graphics.. :( but i renamed it to intel bad graphics dunno y they put "extreme"

  • 01.16.2005 11:44 AM PDT
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You know, you can get a much better card for about $100. It'll play games well too. If you can muster $130, get the 9600XT. It will run all games fairly well on 800x600 and some higher resolutions. For me, it ran Half-Life 2 on 1024x768 with 4x antialiasing and 2x anisotropic filtering, everything turned to max including water reflections, and never dropped below 40 fps.

  • 01.16.2005 12:44 PM PDT
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i dont have a agp but i might have a pci express how do you tell i have a hp a210n

  • 01.16.2005 1:47 PM PDT
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and if i dont have one i dont want to change my mother board so what pci card do you recommed sexy legs davis

  • 01.16.2005 1:52 PM PDT
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Wait, aren't you the guy who's card didn't fit? You bought the AGP card but it's a bit too long, right? You have PCI-e.

  • 01.16.2005 3:34 PM PDT
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no thats not me

  • 01.16.2005 3:38 PM PDT
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Okay, sorry. BUT! I checked your computer's specs.

Basically, from what I can tell, you have a minitower case. It's not that large, but your motherboard is standard ATX. You have 3PCI slots (only 2 are unoccupied). Basically, the cards you can get are pretty much junk - not weven worth the money. My suggestion is to get a motherboard with AGP support. I'll list some links for you:

ASRock Mobo

That'll do, as your processor is no speed demon, si it doesnt need an awesome motherboard. For your card, I recommend the ATI 9600XT. Very nice, about $130. Get it at the same site, Newegg.

If you have never opened a computer...take those things to CompUSA and have them install it. I think if you buy that stuff from them, though, they'll install it for free.

  • 01.16.2005 4:07 PM PDT
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I went to best buy today and the guy there just popped a PC tower open (same model as mine) and showed me which one's PCI express.

  • 01.16.2005 4:36 PM PDT
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wheres this program to overclock?? and yay its a sticky now!!!

  • 01.16.2005 5:20 PM PDT
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What's wrong with the 9800XT? It's better than the 9800 pro and 9600 series and yet you recommended them and not the 9800XT... odd. Before the x800/6800 series it was the best gfx card around, so I'm surprised you didn't give it more credit. For the record it runs Any game at 1280x1024 (with a fast cpu and 1gb of ram of course) including HL2, FarCry, Warhammer 40K etc.

  • 01.16.2005 5:20 PM PDT
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Heh, sorry, i meant the 9800 'series'

I don't think anyone could argue that any of the 9800 cards actually ARE bad in any way. The 9800, 9800 Pro, and 9800XT are all very nice. And true, the 9800XT is more powerful.

[Edited on 1/16/2005 6:56:18 PM]

  • 01.16.2005 6:55 PM PDT
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What does it mean if something's "sticky"

  • 01.16.2005 9:24 PM PDT
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It will never leave the first page...ie its helpful

  • 01.16.2005 11:30 PM PDT
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I looked at the 9800 pro and it was very expensive. It might have been XT but I think I might've been $200-$300. I'm not sure what that is in pounds but the x700 only costs $200.

  • 01.17.2005 7:50 AM PDT
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A good, easy conversion rate: 1 pound = 2 us dollars (yep, the us dollar is really low). So that would be about 150 pounds. True, x700 is a bit less. Looking at the specs, it's a bit faster on paper...*checks tom's hardware*

The x700 and 9800 are very similar. BUT!!! It appears that the x700 pro actually outperforms the 9800 pro. In UT2004, it got almost 40 fps more than the 9800. On Doom 3, it got about 10 fps more. In general, it performs about 20% better than the 9800 pro. SO why is the pro more expensive? Ati's pushing PCI-Express...

My suggestion: Get the X700 Pro.

[Edited on 1/17/2005 9:52:24 AM]

  • 01.17.2005 9:51 AM PDT