Video card help

[Korbin91]

Im looking through many video cards (for Battlefield 2) on Newegg.com I found some cool cards...but i dont know which one to get for a good price. So if you have any opinions on which card i should buy, please tell me

 

[purdueguy]

What are your current specs and price range?

 

[Korbin91]

AMD 4200 + 2.2ghz
Geforce 6800 128 mb
1 gig Kingstong DDR400
180 gig hardrive

I believe..or i was told that my card is good enuf, all i nead is 1 more gig

 

[purdueguy]

I'm assuming that your video card is PCI-Express.

Depending on your budget:

~$100: BFG 7600GT OC'd -- After MIR

~$200: ATI X1800XT

~$300: MSI X1900XTX -- After MIR.

 

[Korbin91]

my card is a AGP. My motherboard is a Asrock something..not very sure..

 

[purdueguy]

Since you already have a 6800, any other AGP card would marginally give you better performance than the 7800GS and would be a waste of money. Might as well save it for an upgrade next year when DX10 is here.

This one is recertified but I feel that if you pay over $270 for one, you might as well upgrade your system and get PCI-Express. eVGA 7800GS

Here's one benchmark of the 7800GS vs 6800 GT. Since the 6800GT is better than the 6800 that you have, it only means that the 7800GS is that much better than the 6800. Video Card Benchmarks

The ATI X850XT PE might be better than the 7800GS but it's hard to find, expensive and only supports shader 2.0.

Make sure your power supply is at least 350W.

 

[purdueguy]

I'm assuming your 4200+ is socket 939? If this is the case, personally, I'd get a new motherboard that supports DDR 400 (PC3200) and PCI-Express.

I know you'd have to go through the trouble of reinstalling XP, but it'd be worth it.

Video Card: ATI X1800XT

Motherboard: ASUS A8N-E

The total is around $310 but for the extra 30-40 bucks over a retail 7800GS to me is worth it. And then you have the ability to get a better video card down the road.

 

[angry_ducky]

AMD 4200 + 2.2ghz
Geforce 6800 128 mb
1 gig Kingstong DDR400
180 gig hardrive

I believe..or i was told that my card is good enuf, all i nead is 1 more gig

BF2 should run fine on a 6800; however it does need 2GB RAM to run smoothly.

You're using socket 939, right? What's your exact mobo model? ASRock makes one model (939Dual-SATA2) that has both an AGP and a PCIe slot.

 

[Korbin91]

Thats exactly what board i have. so my video card can run battefield 2 thats good to know. Now for the memory, should i add one more gig of what i have or just get a better brand.. like Corsair

 

[purdueguy]

Unfortunately, this doesn't have BF2 benchmarks. Some games take advantage of the 2GB, some don't. If anyone has BF2 benchmarks with using 1GB or 2GB, please post the site here.Memory Benchmarks

These benchmarks use only 1GB of RAM. It doesn't explicitly say 1 or 2 GB, but when this article was written, 1GB was standard and that's what I'm assuming. BF2 Benchmarks

I'm going to assume that the 6800 and 6800GS are very close in performance.

From the benchmarks, you can see that a better video card will get you better frames and that 1GB of RAM is fine. Depending on your resolution of your monitor and how much eye candy you want, BF2 can quickly make the 6800GS grovel.

Personally, if you have a PCI-Express slot then I highly recommend getting either the X1800XT or X1900XTX if you can afford the extra 80 bucks and wait for the MIR.

 

[angry_ducky]

Thats exactly what board i have. so my video card can run battefield 2 thats good to know. Now for the memory, should i add one more gig of what i have or just get a better brand.. like Corsair

Add another gig of what you have.

It's good to know that you have the Dual-SATA2; you can upgrade to a DX10 card when they come out.

 

[Korbin91]

those things are gonna be expensive i bet

 

[sojrner]

If you are worried only about bf2, then I think the other advice to put the money in the video card is better. The extra ram is only a marginal performance gain. I have run the game w/ 1 and 2 gigs w/ little performance difference. The video card improvement from the vanilla6800 to an 1800xt would be much more noticable, plus it would benefit so many more games. The other poster on here has some nice links showing games not gaining w/ mroe than a gig of ram.

Bottom line: spen the $ on the video card upgrade as it will give you the most tangible benefits IMO.

 

[Heyyou27]

Here's one benchmark of the 7800GS vs 6800 GT. Since the 6800GT is better than the 6800 that you have, it only means that the 7800GS is that much better than the 6800. Video Card Benchmarks

That's the wrong 7800GS; the link you posted was to the 7800GS+, a 512MB 7900GT bridged to the AGP BUS. That card can't be found in the U.S. and already costs more than an X1900XT.

 

[purdueguy]

My bad. I saw 7800GS and didn't notice the +. Anyway, the link to "BF2 Benchmarks" had an extra "http://" in it and I fixed it. That link has the 7800GS.