Graphics cards

IncutIncut
edited October 2006 in Hardware
Hi and thank you for reading, i would just like to ask everyone if they could find me a card that will run both BF2 and BF2142 or whatever it is.. i don't care how much it is, just aslong as it will play both games on high (ill find the money from somewhere :\). Gainward GeForce 7800GS+ 512MB DDR3 AGP Dual DVI TV Out <- that graphics card i found seems to be pretty nice and at £232 i thought wasent a bad price, give me your thoughts and feedback please. thank you for reading

Edit : oooo yes its got to be AGP

Comments

  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Being that my 6600GT plays BF2 just fine and even BF2142 MAXED out.... I'd say that card should do... hell my ATi Mobility Radeon X700 runs BF2142 maxed as well.
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    omg seriously? isent a ATI radeon ALL-IN-WONDER x800 series higher than that card? (the ati i mean) thats the one ive got now and maxed out is terrible. i bet its this damn computer.. i have great security but i bet theres one little virus hidden somewhere for like 2 years that mess my games up.. anyway if you say that good gfx card works ill invest in it pretty soon, thanks.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    What are the full specs of your system?
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    • Intel pentium 4 (dont think you need to know but there you go)
    • CPU is 3.40GHz
    • 2 GB of RAM
    • Graphics card is : ALL-IN-WONDER x800 series and when i go on device manager there are 2 so i will tell you the other one just incase and that is ALL-IN-WONDER x800 Series Secondary. (AND MY GRAPHICS CARD IS AGP JUST SO YOU KNOW)
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Yeah sure you can run it maxed out but your ATI card lacks all the tech BF2142 offers. The eye candy is missing :)
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    sledgehammer was that post to me? and also i have an internet speed of 1MB. You see i tried getting a new ATI card and i think it was the x1900 but i forgot and it dident work for some reason it was freezing when i tried to start up the PC so i had to put my old GFX card back in and i still have it now. I dont have a clue what the problem with this computer is really. i have no spyware or viruses.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    It looks like the Gainward 7800GS you looked at is presently the highest performance AGP card on the market. If you had been looking 4-6 months ago, Gainward had made a limited run of AGP cards using the 7900GTX core, but they were very expensive, like £500 or so.
  • revengerrevenger
    edited October 2006
    Actually, if i were you i would get the 7900 GT because the wattage intake is much less than the 7800 and gives you a lot more performance and pixel shaders. Over all it is WAY better one than the x700 and will make you happy. Just make sure you get the wattage income of your motherboard before you buy a new graphic card (also find the minimum wattage needed for your new graphic card)
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    revenger wrote:
    Actually, if i were you i would get the 7900 GT because the wattage intake is much less than the 7800 and gives you a lot more performance and pixel shaders. Over all it is WAY better one than the x700 and will make you happy. Just make sure you get the wattage income of your motherboard before you buy a new graphic card (also find the minimum wattage needed for your new graphic card)
    ok where can i find out about wattage and whatever you said, and the card you said 7900 GT, is that AGP also?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    ok where can i find out about wattage and whatever you said, and the card you said 7900 GT, is that AGP also?
    That's why we asked for system specifications. Sorry, not trying to be a smart acre, just need to know some more about your system. Tell us about the PSU (power supply unit). What brand is it? What is the total output in watts? There should be a label on the side with its specifications. PSUs are quite often completely overlooked when people upgrade their computers.
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    ok ok, spec :

    • Intel pentium 4 (dont think you need to know but there you go)
    • CPU is 3.40GHz
    • 2 GB of RAM
    • Graphics card is : ALL-IN-WONDER x800 series and when i go on device manager there are 2 so i will tell you the other one just incase and that is ALL-IN-WONDER x800 Series Secondary. (AND MY GRAPHICS CARD IS AGP JUST SO YOU KNOW)

    Its a Fujitsu Siemens scaleo T and 3.4GHz and thats all i know im afraid. thank you for reading
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    you bought a x1900? and it wont work in your PC? it might be because it is PCI-E and not AGP.

    The best AGP card on the market currently is a 7800GS
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    Sledgehammer70 wrote:
    you bought a x1900? and it wont work in your PC? it might be because it is PCI-E and not AGP.

    The best AGP card on the market currently is a 7800GS

    nah it was x1600 acctually, sorry if i said 1900 and im just going to get http://www.alienware.co.uk/Product_Pages/desktop_all_default.aspx the last one. It seems to be an awesome PC.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    You're "just" going to spend $3500 on a computer? I'd highly suggest you build you're own PC. It's fun and cheaper...
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    RWB wrote:
    You're "just" going to spend $3500 on a computer? I'd highly suggest you build you're own PC. It's fun and cheaper...
    Yeah your right, problem is.. how do i learn how to build a pc?:rant:
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    We have many guides here on S-M, but honestly, it's so simple I know I didn't use a guide when I built my first.

    The main thing to keep in mind are minor details like the AGP and PCI-E thing, and that PCI-E is not PCI. Don't buy a motherboard for AMD cpu's and an Intel CPU :P

    Plus.... We can help you!
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=151

    There's a quick guide... it's a lot of pages, but it's mostly images :)
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    Hey RWB, ok ive had a word with some people and i need some average prices on how much it would cost me to make a pc that would run BF2142 and BF2 on high with extremely smooth gameplay. If you could give me that information that would be very helpful, thank you.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Depends on what you want...

    Based on that aurora you were looking at, it has like quad cores and all that jazz... BF2 and BF2142 doesn't require anything near that much.

    First, are you looking for a completesystem? Computer and Monitor? Or just the main computer?
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    Ok well, lets say i wanted the same one as you, how much would that be? cause once i can get a basic idea of prices then ill start getting some help with it and plus do prices just mean, look on some websites and have a look at how much a graphics card costs and a mother board costs and a monitor and that and then put all those prices together an you get your overall price?
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    My desktop computer is a year old now... the parts have been around though for 2+ years...

    It's got:
    Abit AN8-SLI Fatal1ty Motherboard
    AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+
    MSI Geforce 6600GT 128MB
    1GB Kingston HyperX PC3200 DDR

    plus the other stuff like the PSU, drives and case...

    All of this you could probably buy an equal system for about $800(and i have the processor OC'd to 4800+ speeds)... my laptop costed me about $1800... it's just:
    2GHz Pentium M
    2GB DDR2
    Radeon Mobility x700

    For $1000 you could build a good system(non-laptop of course) that plays both BF2 and BF2142 very well... and for $1500 even better, and $2000 would build an amazing system. I mean you could build a $10,000 system if you wanted, but price and performance comes in a bell curve... IMHO after $2000 the performance gain is crap compaired to the price.
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    RWB wrote:
    My desktop computer is a year old now... the parts have been around though for 2+ years...

    It's got:
    Abit AN8-SLI Fatal1ty Motherboard
    AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+
    MSI Geforce 6600GT 128MB
    1GB Kingston HyperX PC3200 DDR

    plus the other stuff like the PSU, drives and case...

    All of this you could probably buy an equal system for about $800(and i have the processor OC'd to 4800+ speeds)... my laptop costed me about $1800... it's just:
    2GHz Pentium M
    2GB DDR2
    Radeon Mobility x700

    For $1000 you could build a good system(non-laptop of course) that plays both BF2 and BF2142 very well... and for $1500 even better, and $2000 would build an amazing system. I mean you could build a $10,000 system if you wanted, but price and performance comes in a bell curve... IMHO after $2000 the performance gain is crap compaired to the price.
    Ok so the £1000 PC would run both BF2142 and BF2 on high without problems?
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    And also i just bought a book from amazon on how to build PCs and the ratings were high so that will give me a basic guidline and also with help from you guys and google and some people i can ask.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    I take it that you are living in the UK, right? If so, we have forum members there that you could perhaps call or IM if you run into a big problem during your build and they would also know who are the best vendors to deal with in the UK for computer components. Us folks over here in the US aren't really conversant on who the best UK vendors are. But now to a system that should run any game you want with the eye candy on, I would suggest the following setup:

    Motherboard-Asus P5B series. Depending on the features you want or need, choose one out of this series. They overclock well and can run Core 2 Duo and the upcoming Core 2 Quad Intel processors.

    CPU-Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 or E6600. Both overclock well, with the E6400 possibly being able to overclock to even higher speeds than the E6600. The E6600 does have 4MB shared L2 cache compared to the 2MB shared L2 cache of the E6400, which can make a difference with some apps.

    Memory-The highest quality DDR2-800 ram you can afford. I would suggest going with a 2 X 1GB kit for better performance with the newer games. Quality brands such as Corsair, OCZ or G. Skill would be preferred.

    Video Card-I'm not sure of pricing in the UK, but the best single card would be one based on the Nvidia 7950GX2 platform, which actually uses 2 gpu's on the card. Closely following this would be vid cards based on the ATI X1950XTX gpu. The 7900GTX and the X1900XTX based cards would also be a good choice.

    PSU (power supply)-Buy the best and highest power psu that you can afford. Good choices would be from OCZ, PC Power and Cooling, Corsair or other quality psu manufacturers. I would suggest at least 600 watts or greater for size.

    The rest of the machine can be built using components from your old machine, but I would also suggest that you buy a new SATA hard drive also. The performance of the new SATA drives is better than ones manufactured even a year ago generally and a bunch of them now have 16MB of cache in the hard drive.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    He's already harassing me on MSN about it but hardware recommendations wouldn't go amiss :p
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    I'm glad to see that he is already getting with you on this, Enervex. I figure that you guys that live there should know who the best vendors to deal with are in the UK. :D Just think that you will be helping a fellow countryman learn the intricancies of building and maintaining his own machine. I know it makes me feel good when I can share my knowledge on computers with someone else. :)
  • revengerrevenger
    edited October 2006
    well if you have amd you probably shouldn't even worry about wattage unless the amd is really old and stuff, if its above 350 wattage no worry at all, also the card was pci-e, but you can check to see if they have it agp, pretty sure they should
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Er, that's not really true considering systems in general still pull a decent amount these days, I'd go with 450, 500. Certainly 400w MIN.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    The reason I said to go with at least a 600 watt psu it that the new high end graphics cards are real power whores. The 7950 GX2 and the X19590XTX both draw well over 100 watts each at stock speeds. And even a Core 2 Duo can eat some pretty serious watts when you overclock the snot out of them. And the next gen high end vid cards look to be drawing power north of 200 watts, so the extra power won't go to waste and gives the machine haedroom for expansion. :)
  • IncutIncut
    edited October 2006
    Ok hi again everyone, first of all i have recieved my 'How to build a PC' book and its... american, i know, american, great.. bloody great!.. nevermind, anyway its 2004 aswell so it wont have the top of the range stuff in it to buy, i suppose i will have to rely on this forum to help me and rely on the book to show me how to put the parts together. If someone from the United Kingdom could tell me some parts and where exactly i could find them (like in a store or on the internet) then that would be fantastic, i just need a good gaming machine with good graphics and a fair budget preferably about £1000 or less. I know i sound a newb saying "i want a PC that will run this game and that game" i know it sounds newbish but i dont really have a clue on how to build a PC and dont know where to start so if somone could write me a list on here as in what product it and where to buy it that would be great, and also im really confused as to what parts will work with which so if i have this type of motherboard, will this graphics card work with it? if you know what i mean.. thanks for reading.

    Edit : You can be from the US aswell but you have to know where to get the stuff cause im really confused. Plus they have to all work together.
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