Nvidia & AMD (ATI) Graphic Card Guide

Comments

• Winga Mr South Africa Icrontian

  March 2006 edited March 2006

  I don't have anything to add to your list, though I do have a question regarding drivers.
  
  Is it entirely necessary to keep updating to the latest video card drivers if you have an old card? One of my rigs has a GeForce FX 5200 in it.
  I can understand updating for the newer cards, I just dunno if the latest drivers will have anything extra included to boost performance for the old ones.

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  March 2006 edited March 2006

  If your a gamer than yes you will need the new drivers. Not that the 5200 can support most new games, if you want them to run with minimal errors than get the latest and greatest. 90% of driver updates are to fix issues or add new functionality to older cards. The other 10% is game support. If you notice each time a major game or a new graphics card hits the market a new driver is released.
  
  But over all if your 5200 isn't going to be running new games I think the 61.76 were the last drivers that had 5200 bug fixes in them. But if I were you I would just keep updating...

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• jradmin North Kackalaki

  March 2006 edited March 2006

  Not all new drivers are good drivers. I'd say 60% of the Nvidia 70.XX drivers caused alot of problems with a few games that caused people to roll back to previous versions or use the optimized versions you can get from 3rd parties. If you are in doubt, check your games to see if they ask for certain versions or head over to their community forums and see what the developers say. Most game's forums if they have them will contain a post that tells you the optomized hardware/software that works best for the game.
  
  I can remember plenty of times I've had to roll back to earlier drivers because of some small but irritating problem the most current driver caused. Half way through last year, Nvidia released a driver that caused some streaming video to get a nice white translucent sheen on it...and that was very irritating till it was fixed.

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  April 2006 edited April 2006

  Add new ATI Cards

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• Garg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian

  April 2006 edited April 2006

  I would keep updating drivers, but keep a copy of the previous, and proven to be stable versions in case things get wonky.
  
  I used to have a GeForce 256 SDR, and over the two years I used it, it doubled 3dmarks through driver updates alone. Those updated drivers were designed for GeForce 2s and 3s, but something in there helped my old card too.
  
  Edit: I thought I'd check my memory on the 3dmark thing. Turns out performance didn't "double," but it did increase 37%. Hey, that's not bad for just installing drivers. These two old 3dmark01 saved results are with no GPU overclocking. Check out the old Duron I was rocking
  newer drivers http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=2459505
  older drivers http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=2459413

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  April 2006 edited April 2006

  600 points is a big increase.... Its nice to see the guru's who work for Nvidia and ATI actually want to make drivers optimized to make there products run smoother and faster.

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  April 2006 edited April 2006

  Added:
  
  7300 Go
  7400 Go
  7800 GTX Go
  7900 Go
  7950 GTX 2
  X1900 GT

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• OrangeNerd

  April 2006 edited April 2006

  Hi, I am obviously a "newb", but why is the ati x850xt pe in your high end category while some higher models like the x1300 and x1600 are in lower categories? doesn't higher mean newer and better or am i missing something?

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• deicist Manchester, UK

  April 2006 edited April 2006

  OrangeNerd wrote:

  Hi, I am obviously a "newb", but why is the ati x850xt pe in your high end category while some higher models like the x1300 and x1600 are in lower categories? doesn't higher mean newer and better or am i missing something?

  
  Although an older card, the X850 is more powerful than the X1300 and X1600 cards, which were designed to be mid-range cards. The X850 was designed as a high end card. It's like comparing a 1960's Mustang to a modern Honda Civic (or whatever) and a modern ferrari (or whatever). The Mustang (x850xt pe) can't keep up with the modern ferrari (X1900) but still outclasses the modern honda (X1300)

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• edcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian

  April 2006 edited April 2006

  In the ATI numbering system there were XXX, three digit cards. Bigger numbers are more powerful (more or less).
  Then the newer cards are 1xxx four digit numbers. This is also a full product line. So these cards also range from entry level to top end.
  
  There are dozens of exceptions to the order of the cards. I hate to give them the plug, but THG has a new video card list that is fairly complete. You select two cards and a benchmark (game, resolution and AA) and you can see how they compare.
  http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  April 2006 edited April 2006

  Yeah I know of this chart and it is pretty handy if they would have all the new cards listed...

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  September 2006 edited September 2006

  Added:
  
  7950 GT
  7900GS
  7100
  7300 LE
  7600 GS
  
  X1950XTX

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• Datsun-1600 Sydney.au

  September 2006 edited September 2006

  A list of GFX cards and their 3D chipset specs is here.
  
  Datsun 1600

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• maxclark In a hole in the ground

  October 2006 edited October 2006

  hey, sledge....how about the Radeon X1400 and X1450??? i don't think they are listed on your chart....:) thanks

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• GrayFox /dev/urandom Member

  October 2006 edited October 2006

  Your also missing the X1650 XT and Pro. (Ati's 80nm X1600's that launched in august.)

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  October 2006 edited October 2006

  Add the ATI cards along with Nvidia's 7700 Go and the orginal 7950GTX 2

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  October 2006 edited October 2006

  Added the first DX10 cards to the list...
  
  GeForce 8800 GTS - DirectX 10
  GeForce 8800 GTX - DirectX 10

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  November 2006 edited November 2006

  Added a few new cards...
  
  Radeon X1550

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• michaeln31

  December 2006 edited December 2006

  i saw on the first post the GeForce Go 7600, is there only the 256mb available for this model?
  
  mike

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• csimon Acadiana Icrontian

  December 2006 edited December 2006

  are these all pci-e cards or are there some agp's thrown in there? Sorry if it's been brought up already.

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  December 2006 edited December 2006

  Its a Mix of all I guess it would be good to mark which ones offer PCI-E and which ones offer AGP I'm on... "might take a bit"
  
  Edit// I took the time to mark out the best of each Form factor "AGP, PCI-E, & PCI" Hope that helps a bit I will add more AGP ,Markings soon

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• flashmx

  May 2007 edited May 2007

  Hey, sledgehammer, could you list out what bus and directx version for ATI Radeon 1550?

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• bothered Manchester UK

  September 2007 edited September 2007

  I have found this list helpful in the past. Any chance it could be updated?

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• priji

  December 2007 edited December 2007

  7800 GTX Go
  7950 GTX 2
  7400 Go
  7900 Go

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  December 2007 edited December 2007

  Update time!!! I am working on updating this list. Feel free to PM me any graphics cards I am missing... I know their is a ton

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• Nightwolf Afghanistan Member

  December 2007 edited December 2007

  Sledgehammer70 wrote:

  Update time!!! I am working on updating this list. Feel free to PM me any graphics cards I am missing... I know their is a ton

  
  FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFINALLY!

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• Hawk Fla Icrontian

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  How bout the Radeon HD 2600 XT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E Video Card.
  Where's that fit into the list?

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• GnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  what about hte 8600gt

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• Your-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  The 3850 was released for AGP from Powercolour, HIS makes a PCI 1550, and you should add the HD 3000 series to your list.

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• GnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  goes by chipsets not brands

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