Advice needed!
 

OK then!

Currently my computer specs are:

2.0GHz Pentium 4
256MB SDRAM
Ge-Force II MX400/ 64MB
512k broadband


Running XP Pro.

Anyway, I think that is all that is needed for this question.

I am thinking of upgrading. First is the RAM, which is simple. Secondly, I want a new graphics card. I have around £200 (just over $300 US) to spend. I play a some online games, and at the moment the Ge-Force II is not doing too well! I was looking at the ATI Radeon 9800, but it is a little pricey: £250. What do people think?? Should I wait for the next generation? Will this one come down in price any time soon? The card will be used mainly for games, and some video editing (I am trying to learn!)

Cheers for any input!

Re: Advice needed!
 

Teh 9800 will be expensive for a while. Dont expect the price to go down any time soon.

If I was you I would go with the Albatron FX5600EQ 256MB DDR W/ DVI & TV-OUT. This is top of the line video card, and Albatron is famous for their cards. They are extremly overclokable. I know, I have one. Its not the most expensive card from Albatron, the best and the most expnsive card is the 5900, but the 5600 is right behind it. And this card costs 100pounds only. This is an extremly good card, for a very low price.

http://www.bytewizecomputers.com/products/7/21/400/4529

Did you look at non ATI brand radeon 9800's? Sapphire makes some affordable ATI cards. An oem sapphire 9800 pro should be pretty close to your budget.

For video editing, ATI card is pretty much one of the best you can find. The hardware MPEG decoding quality is very good. The 2D quality is excellent as well. That's the main reason why I got an ATI card myself :)

The radeon 9600 pro and 9800se aren't bad either, reasonably cheap and very good quality/performance.

I have to admit that this is where I got confused! I think I am a bit clearer now lol. Correct me if i am wrong though!! (remember that I know jack all about this!)

Ok, there are two camps. First is the ATI, with the 9800 chip set. Second is Ge Force FX 5900. Both make their own complete cards. But other companies have taken the chip set and made their own cards. Is that right?? I know it is probably the most obvious thing in the world, but it has taken a fair amount of reading to get this sorted out. When I started looking at this, I did not know that ATi existed :!: :roll:

I shall look at non-ATI cards now.....

http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/su...e=ATI9800SE128

How about this one!

Nvidia makes the chip only, so you won't see Nvidia branded vid cards. Only "3rd party" ones.

ATI on the other hand started out making their own card only, but in order to compete with Nvidia, they began selling the chip to other manufacturers as well. ATI video cards used to be very bad (driver and quality) but starting from the original radeon series, they're pretty much the best you can buy for the money in terms of quality.

Since you only have a 2ghz p4, you probably don't need the fastest card out there since the cpu will become the bottleneck anyway. You may as well spend $200 on the card and the remaining $100 on another 512M RAM :)

The 9800SE cards are slower than the 9800Pro's. It's about same performance as the 9600Pro

RAM is getting upgraded anyway, so the £200 can be used just for the card. if the 9800SE is similar to the 9600Pro, which would you get??

For ram I suggest corsair or Crucial brand, corsair has sick CAS2 ultrastable ram, mine even has a heat spreader lol

Hello

9800SE is not really good. It has 4 pipelines which is not good at all considering if you are playing the latest Direct X9 games. I would go for a 9800 Non-Pro or 9800 Pro or even 9600XT.

And I see you are using SDRAM. If you have extra money, I would spend money on a motherboard. I really like the MSI 865PE myself. It's got many awards for the best motherboard. And as for RAM, pick GIEL for the best overclocking.

It's hard to find that brand but it's really worth spending.