Graphics card ???

[Welsh_Dragon]

Hi all, I have a geforce 4 MX440 graphics card which from what i've read here and in other places isn't the best of cards for games, so I would like to replace it but thats where the problem starts. I have added another hard drive which leaves me with no extra power lead which I believe is required for the Radeon 9700 so another Geforce is the answer, but which one.
I have been looking online and they seem to be mainly TI4800se but are they better than the TI4600? and would I see any difference over what i already have. I have a small list here all TI4800se exept one but they all vary in price quite a bit for what appears to be the same card, is that due to the make?

Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack! Ultra/750-8X XP Golden Sample - Graphics card - GF4 Ti 4800 SE - AGP 8x - 128 MB DDR SDRAM - video capture adapter

MSI TI4800SE-VTD8X 128MB DDR TV OUT VIDEO IN DVI

CREATIVE 3D BLASTER 4 TI4800SE 128MB DDR TV-OUT DVI

SPARKLE GEFORCE4 FX5200 128MB DDR

My specs are 2.8ghz Pentium 4, 512MB DDR, 120Gb + 60GB hard drives both 7200rpm

Any help/guidence would be appreciated :-)

Phil

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...9e46311579.jpg

[axle123]

I would stay away from the FX5200. Someone I know has one and it seems to be a little sluggish.

I had a Ti4200 card, and the overclocking capabilities were fantastic. I was able to overclock mine to speeds that were more like a Ti4600. This is a common practice out there for a lot of people. Buy a vid card or a CPU that gives you good bang for the buck, then tweak it to run more like components costing much more money. Just a thought. Ofcourse, overclocking comes with many risks. Proper cooling, and increasing in stages is important. I have an NVidia FX5800, which I have running at speeds closer to an FX5800 Ultra. I saved about $200.00 (Canadian) going with the non-ultra.

I have a friend that bought a new system. He immidiately took his 2.0 GHZ Celeron up to 2.6GHZ without any extra cooling or testing. That's a little crazy, but it has worked for him.

Just a few thoughts. I'm sure there will be people who will discourage this sort of thing!

OK, back to your question. I would think that you would see a pretty big improvement going from you MX440 card to either the Ti4600 or the Ti4800se. I think the MX cards are stripped downs versions of NVidia cards, very few of the frills. The image quality alone one the higher end cards would be worth it in my eyes. I had an MX card, and I didn't have it for long let me tell you!

OK, now I'm rambling. Good luck!
Jay

[FS2002tipster]

Speed is the major improvement over a GF4 MX chipset. It's bandwidth that suffers rather than image quality. Can't speak for the earlier GF versions though.

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...f7187467a2.jpg

http://rtw2003.tripod.com

[bigal1977uk]

with regards to having no other power cables spare i would recommend getting a cable splitter which i think you can get from mapplin or other good computer shops witch will split one power cable into two.
Dont know exactly if thats what sort of power connector a rad 9700 needs but im sure someone else on here will be able to correct me.
As for the choice of vid cards, if money isnt really a problem then i would most definatly go for the radeon 9700 pro over any of the Nvidia cards you mentioned, assuming you can get the power supply sorted out.


Alan.


AMD 1900xp
M810 LR motherboard
512MB sdram
win 98se
gforce4 ti4200 64mb ddr
sidwinder FF2
1280 x 1024 x 32
3D marks 7795

[axle123]

Well, not to get into an NVidia / ATI debate, but I have to add one thing. I have heard some users of the ATI 9700 cards complain of stuttering in FS. Even though the FPS is quite high, they still get this stuttering effect. This may be related to something else in their systems mind you. I did at one point have a Radeon 8500 that also had a stuttering problem, though the frame rates were pretty good. I tried to fix it, but finally gave up, and have been with NVidia ever since. I know my FX5800 isn't the best thing on the market, but it sure is smooth, which goes well with FS! My old Ti4200 (which I see you have Alan!) didn't quite get the FPS that I see with the FX5800, but it was just as smooth.

Just my 2 cents worth!

Jay

[pvalexl]

9700 Pro here, I haven't had any studdering since the Cat 3.2 drivers. They seem to have cleared everything up :-)

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...ab5e4b3e9d.jpg