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SneaksieDave

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Don't go with Dell or Gateway :wacko: Western Oregon University has Dell computers & components & I've never had good experiences with those.

 

I, my sister, and my dad had Gateway computers & those things are the cheapest and most poorly made pieces of crap I ever came across. My dad's Gateway ate a few hard drives but was given to my mom & it now it no longer runs properly, which was why my dad ordered a G3 b&w mac for my mom.

 

University/College computers are always destroyed because of students using them

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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It's funny how people seem to hate Dell in America; I have purchased lots of Dell PCs in the UK and they have all been excellent in both quality and value for money. Perhaps there are differences in service and/or build quality across the Atlantic.

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It's funny how people seem to hate Dell in America; I have purchased lots of Dell PCs in the UK and they have all been excellent in both quality and value for money. Perhaps there are differences in service and/or build quality across the Atlantic.

 

There's nothing wrong with Dells in the states, I'm using an 9400 Inspiron Notebook and this thing is fast and reliable. I also got it for 1700$, fully loaded.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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So what is now the recommendation if you still need an AGP? I didn't read the whole thread and from scanning it it's not entirely clear.

I have a Radeon 9800XT and I'm not sure if it is really worth to upgrade the card alone or not. But for the whole machine I lack the money currently and most games seem to be still fine. However Gothic 3 is released on 31. Oct. and from the reports in the mags, it seems that my system is on the lower side of the specs with a 2GHz CPU and 1GB RAM.

Gerhard

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I have an AGP board and I fairly recently purchased an X850 XT which was on special offer, with the intention of not upgrading my graphics card again since AGP probably will be obsolete by the time I need a new one.

 

Unfortunately ATI's Linux "support" is a joke, but they seem to have a larger variety of AGP cards still on the market.

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So what is now the recommendation if you still need an AGP? I didn't read the whole thread and from scanning it it's not entirely clear.

I have a Radeon 9800XT and I'm not sure if it is really worth to upgrade the card alone or not. But for the whole machine I lack the money currently and most games seem to be still fine. However Gothic 3 is released on 31. Oct. and from the reports in the mags, it seems that my system is on the lower side of the specs with a 2GHz CPU and 1GB RAM.

 

i agree with the 6600/6800 card (get atleast a GT version, if you can still find one). It's not worth it to buy a faster card like the 7800GS AGP because if your below a 3Ghz system you won't get the best out of that card.

 

I also still have a AGP system with a 6600GT and still works fine for most (current) games running in a resolution of 1280x1024. Don't expect to run new games in full glory, you'll just then have to upgrade like me, but it should make the darkmod run much better ;)

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I tend to ATI as I already have an ATI, and works quite well. Darkmod is not really my concern, because it workes quite fine with the current system, and I never had any problems. At least none which were gfx card related.

What does the x850xt offer against the 9800XT? Looking at the prices, the X850XT is about 50 Euro cheaper then the 7800GS which is better, because I expect to replace my system in the next year or so, so I don't want to spend to much anyway, on a component I expect also to replace.

Gerhard

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What does the x850xt offer against the 9800XT? Looking at the prices, the X850XT is about 50 Euro cheaper then the 7800GS which is better, because I expect to replace my system in the next year or so, so I don't want to spend to much anyway, on a component I expect also to replace.

 

The X850XT is considerable faster than the 9800XT (they are both top of their respective generations, but the X850XT is a generation newer). It has 6 vertex shaders and 16 pixel shaders as opposed to the 9800XT's 4 vertex and 8 pixels (IIRC), and allows me to play Doom 3 at 1280x1024 with antialiasing at full framerate, whereas before I would generally have to use 1024x768 with little or no antialiasing to get a smooth display.

 

I suspect the 7800GS would be better though, if the cost is not too great. With that you will at least get Shader Model 3.0 and proper Linux support.

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I just checked the past few weeks' ended auctions on eBay and it seems that 6800's (not GT or Ultra or anything) with 128 memory go for around $70-85, pretty cheap!

 

6800 scores MUCH better than 6600 in graphics benchmarks, and even better than 6600 GT, but in that case it's much closer.

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I suspect the 7800GS would be better though, if the cost is not too great. With that you will at least get Shader Model 3.0 and proper Linux support.

 

The prices are 170 Euro for the X850XT and 210 Euro for the 7800GS. It doesn't make sense for me to waste to much money (if any) on a new gfx card, because I want to replace my board anyway, and then the money is wasted. So what I have to ask myself is, wether I will wait for a new machine and some new gfx card for PCIE like the X1900GT or I buy an older AGP card, like the X850XT and then I have to keep my machine at least one or maybe two years. If I replace my machine next year, then the extra money for an AGP card is wasted. On the other hand I would like to play Gothic 3. :)

 

Or I play Gothic 2, and wait until all the bugs in G3 are fixed. Gothic is notoriously buggy when it is released and according to the tests, G3 seems no exception.

Gerhard

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The prices are 170 Euro for the X850XT and 210 Euro for the 7800GS. It doesn't make sense for me to waste to much money (if any) on a new gfx card, because I want to replace my board anyway, and then the money is wasted. So what I have to ask myself is, wether I will wait for a new machine and some new gfx card for PCIE like the X1900GT or I buy an older AGP card, like the X850XT and then I have to keep my machine at least one or maybe two years. If I replace my machine next year, then the extra money for an AGP card is wasted. On the other hand I would like to play Gothic 3. :)

 

Or I play Gothic 2, and wait until all the bugs in G3 are fixed. Gothic is notoriously buggy when it is released and according to the tests, G3 seems no exception.

 

I would say go with NVidia if you are going to be plaing any game made by ID. NVidia has always been faster in ID games. And upgrade that motherboard fast, don't waste money on an AGP card. I've noticed that for some reason they are more expensive than there PEG counter-part, probably because they aren't producing AGP cards in the same quantity as PEG cards.

Even though I'd rather have an ATI card, I have an NVidia mobile card in this laptop and it is pretty friggin' nice.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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I also tend to waiting. But as for making it fast, that, unfortuantely doesn't depend on my decision, but more on my financial status. :)

 

I'm currently downloading a (german) song "Hey Boss! I need more money!" and I plan to play it every day when my boss enters the office. Maybe he gets the hint. :laugh:

Gerhard

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I just checked the past few weeks' ended auctions on eBay and it seems that 6800's (not GT or Ultra or anything) with 128 memory go for around $70-85, pretty cheap!

 

6800 scores MUCH better than 6600 in graphics benchmarks, and even better than 6600 GT, but in that case it's much closer.

Cool, thanks for the tip. I mean to start looking today, if I can achieve the necessary activation energy. Can only keep putting it off for so long...

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  • 3 weeks later...
i agree with the 6600/6800 card (get atleast a GT version, if you can still find one).

I sometimes see XT versions on ebay. Is that better, worse, or ... And when the hell did tom's hardware become a shill site instead of impartial reviews? Jeez I am out of it I guess. I don't even know "the" place to go for reviews anymore.

 

Getting tired of having no card while it sounds like fun is being had. :mellow:

 

Edit: so far the only thing I'm basing searching on is, "don't get an LE!"

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Getting tired of having no card while it sounds like fun is being had. :mellow:

 

Oh you should see the latest addition to Darkmod! You -HAVE- to try it out! It's uber cool!!!!

 

:P

 

But yeah, Squill's right, I have a 6600GT (20% overclock!) and it's suiting me fine so far, but of course, when getting a vid card, it pretty much depends on your price range.

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I sometimes see XT versions on ebay. Is that better, worse, or ...

 

XT are kinda like the GT versions nowadays. You now see that name on ATI cards like for example X1900 XT. But if you see an nvidia with that name it's probably an older card then the GT series. Nvidia uses GS,GT,GTX for their models.

 

if your going with nvidia and want a card for a decent price you can also search for the 7600 GT AGP.

 

It's much faster then a 6600 GT, has newer features and runs doom engine based games smooth in high resolutions ;)

 

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2812&p=9

(although i think these are pci-express versions, it's just to compare)

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Holy cow. The jump between X1900 GT and X1900 XT is unbelievable.

 

But anyway, thanks this should be helpful. I'm probably going to stay in the 6000's. Not sure if a 7000 series would be overkill for a 1.4GHz processor. It's a shame that list doesn't include a Ti4600 for comparison. ;)

 

The 7800 GTX is about 100x faster ;)

I have a 7800 Go in my laptop and this thing lets me run Doom3 at 1920x1200 with everything tweaked in the ini file for max quality. And it still runs at between 40-60 fps all the time. Of course I've overclocked mine. ;)

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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Sick. Well, I'm thinking I'm going to look into overclocking after I get a card. I figure the 1.4GHz processor can probably safely go to.. 1.6GHz?? (besides I have reason to believe that's all the motherboard supports). And I don't know what to do with the card, or even how it's done (doesn't ATI allow software overclocking, but not nvidia? I dunno). I'm sure I'll ask you guys again once I've got it.

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Sick. Well, I'm thinking I'm going to look into overclocking after I get a card. I figure the 1.4GHz processor can probably safely go to.. 1.6GHz?? (besides I have reason to believe that's all the motherboard supports). And I don't know what to do with the card, or even how it's done (doesn't ATI allow software overclocking, but not nvidia? I dunno). I'm sure I'll ask you guys again once I've got it.

 

These days both control panels for the cards allow for overclocking.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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(doesn't ATI allow software overclocking, but not nvidia? I dunno)

 

Actually it's more the other way around - not too sure about ATI, but the NVidia cards come with overclocking software and it's still in warranty (if you use the software provided, as it has some fail safe thingos). Also, if you buy the BFG brand nvidia cards, they come 10% overclocked.

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Dram: that sounds great... looking forward to a nice speed boost (I hope!)

 

Ascottk: what's your CPU speed? I'm still curious how my 1.4 (maybe to become a 1.6 if I can manage it) will handle such a fast card.

It's an Athlon 1800+. I think it's around 1.5 GHz.

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