Is my ti4200 worth replacing ?

[Chissler]

Hey all. Read the excellent guide about what graphic cards to buy and it explained a lot to me. But there is one thing I an wondering about. I have an MSI TI 4200 with 128 ram on it. According to that guide it is the slowest of the TI cards. That I dont really understand.

Shouldnt it be faster ?

Lately I have been thinking alot about upgrading my pc. I use it mainly for gaming, and I have noticed a lot of lag on games like HW2, Temple of Elemental Evil and other new games. I have a p4 2.4 ghz with 512 mg ram, so I suspect that what is causing the lag is the graphic card. So I am wondering if I should upgrade to an Asus 9600SE 128MB DDR. Is that a wise choise ? And is it worth it ?

Sorry for my bad english. Learning english when you are 40 can be a pain

Thanks for all help in advance

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Chissler on 11/03/03 11:58 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[GIPNOR]

It's the slowest of the TI line, and the memory is also clocked the slowest by default.... HOWEVER... you will likely have a lot of success overclocking the card. I owned two TI4200's and the both ran perfectly stable when overclocked to surpass TI4400 default speeds -- one of those cards has 128MB of RAM. It's very easy to overclock that card.. you just need the registry hack to enable you to adjust the clock speeds.

There are faster cards out there, but I'd expect your TI4200 to be able to play any game out there. I haven't played any of the games you mentioned, but I'd be surprised if a TI4200 wasn't adequate.

Personally, I don't think you need to upgrade your card -- yet. There are probably plenty of people who would disagree and think you need the latest fastest card out there, but I don't think it's justified.

 

[shadus]

If it's possible for you to wait until the next generation of cards come out that would probally be a better choice. If not, a (Damn typos) 4800SE isn't a good upgrade. Those are 4200 with 8x agp.. aka almost exactly the same card you have. A TI4600 (non-se) would be faster but at the price you are further ahead to get a dx9 card such as a radeon 9700 or something about that level.

Shadus<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by shadus on 11/03/03 03:25 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Grub]

OC the card you have. My rule of thumb for video cards is to wait two generations for an upgrade.

It's all Bush's fault...all of it...

 

[dunno]

Do not, under any circumstance, get a 9600SE. I bet even a Geforce3 would beat that. Also do you use a lot of Anti-Aliasing/Anisotropic Filtering? If so, a radeon 9600pro might be a decent upgrade. It's raw speed isn't really much better than a GF4 but if you use AA/AF it performs much better than any GF4. Otherwise, if you really want a worthwhile speed increase, you'd best save up for a radeon 9700/9800 or maybe wait for the next generation of cards coming spring next year.