Hi, thought I'd make my first post a question! I'm looking to upgrade my current graphics card (GeForce 3 Ti200) to something a bit more up to date. I've got about £150 (just over $200) to spend and have been reading a lot of reviews vut can't make my mind up. I've had an Nvidia chip for my past three cards and have had no problems but I have been hearing a lot of good things about the ATI chips. Any recommendations would be most helpful, cheers!!

MY BEASTIE

AthlonXP 2400+ (OC'ed to 2600+)
ASUS A7N8x Deluxe
2 x Crucial 512Mb DDR PC3200
ABit GeForce 3 Ti 200 64Mb
Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo III 7.1
Pioneer DVD
Memorex CD Rewriter
60Gb Seagate HD
40Gb Maxtor HD
Other exciting bits and pieces...

Hey EdMacFly, welcome to W2S forums.. i think you are one of the thousand users who surf W2S but dont post in Forums

I suggest get a *Sweet* Radeon 9600 card

Kyro

That's what I was considering. And you're right too, I check this site most days but have never really bothered to get involved before....time for a change me thinks! 8)

Welcome. The ATI 9600 Pro/Ultimate 256mb appears to give the best buy for the money spent as well as the best image quality. I'm using them in mid-priced gaming boxes at the moment with no problems/complaints. Check on Pricewatch.com for the best deal...

OK. Thanks for the advice. I've been skulking around the net some more and have found a lot of reviews suggesting the radeon 9500 performs better than the 9600. If I could get a 9500 for around the the same price as a 9600 would it be worthwhile? Any ideas on the viability of the 9500 to 9700 mod as well?

you propably wont be able to find a 9500 that can be modded. they went out of production a long while ago, and most places are short of regular 9500's too, but it is better than the 9600, yes

Get a 9600pro (read reviews to see which overclock best) and bump up it's clock speed, and it'll beat a stock 9500pro easy. If you check most benchmarks the 9600 only loses by a few points in most benchmarks against a 9500 anyway.

Coyote is right, it's near impossible to find a moddable 9500 new now, maybe if you looked around ebay (careful for fried cards if you go this way) you might find a old 9500 for sale that uses the 9700 PCB.

IMO the 9600pro is the best money/price at the moment overclocked or not.

Thanks for all the advice peeps. I've had some good luck though! There's a company in Kent that has a load of moddable 9500's for sale for about £120. I've ordered myself one of them and will report back with my findings when I get my hands on it later tomorrow!

when u want real deal... buy Asus GeforceFX 5200 about 80-90 $

i bought it coz had old gf2 mx and dont wanted to spend too much money in graphics coz the display card market is growing too fast to get always newest hardware

You won't likely see any gains (and probably drops) with a Geforce FX5200 in DX8 titles. If you can stand to wait for even 1 DX9 game to come out, you'll probably save a bundle on a DX9 GPU. I say it's NOT the time to buy. For current performance measurements, see Tom's video buyer's guide 2003

If you really can't wait i will suggest the Radeon 9600. cause this is really a good card and is the first 0.13 micron CPU in the world. I am using it too. but if you can wait, i will probably say wait for the 9900 cause i heard someone say it is bunble with hlaf-life 2 :hmm: . Save your money meantime.

Well me thinks i find an error on that 'First .13 Micron" statement... I would say It's SiS' Xabre600, a DirectX 8.1-compliant GPU. dont get me wrong..the card cant hold a candle to todays gpu/vpu but i think it rightly holds the title as "First". SiS might seem like an unlikely candidate to have the first 0.13-micron desktop GPU, but they were also the first to support AGP 8X with the Xabre's initial launch, so they're no stranger to pushing the envelope. Unfortunately, the Xabre's initial launch was plagued by poor performance, application incompatibilities, and questionable driver shenanigans that largely overshadowed SiS' unique graphics offering.

That SiS was able to move the Xabre600 to a 0.13-micron process before graphics heavyweights like NVIDIA and ATI is impressive, but don't expect this chip to take on high-end offerings like the GeForce FX. The Xabre600 is positioned against more mid-range offerings like the Radeon 9000 Pro, which is why you won't find it running at 500MHz with a Dustbuster strapped on its back. :o