Shopping for a new graphics card.....
 

Alright I was browsing through cards and I noticed Memory Bandwith. I was wondering what it is and if it's important.


P.S. Graphics card suggestions would be appreciated as well.

Memory bandwidth on a video card (I assume) it just like the bandwidth of the memory you buy when you upgrade your PC.

As for suggestions, most people will probably tell you go with an nVidia card (GeForce) however, with many of the newer games being based on ATI cards, I would really recommend something like the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro... it's a pretty good deal too!

How much money do you want to spend? We need to know that first. And not just "This is my maximum amount, but I don't want to spend that much." Tell us exactly how much you're willing to pay maximum. There are a lot of good cards out there, and some are damn good deals for the price. So, how much ya wanna spend?

-Lasereth

Well, it all depends on your budget and what you do with your pc. If you are a hardcore gamer and have a high budget go with the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. I think the best bang for your buck right now is the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. Or if you are an Nvidia fan you might want to look into the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. Once again if you have now budget look at the 5900 Ultra.

Summary: Gamer with no budget - Radeon 9800 Pro or GeForce FX 5900 Ultra.
Best bang for your buck - Radeon 9600 Pro (I recommend this)

Around 200$ money is a little tight .

Almost forgot I have an 8x agp slot if that helps, and i was hoping for suggestions on were to buy the video card.

Thanks for everything.

You'd probably be well suited with a pimped up GeForce4 TI 4400 or even a 4200. Go with the 128mb of ram and that's really all you'll need. Don't bother wasting your money on a Radeon 9800, you don't seem like an 'uber' gamer trying to stay cutting edge and ahead of the game. No need to blow your wallet on something you won't fully appreciate. I've got a GeForce4 TI4200 and it does very well in all benchmark tests for all the games out these days, and I got it a year and a half ago. Don't waste the money if you don't need to.

I went with the FX5900 and haven't looked back since (except at my bank account balance) but it is truly an amazing card, I can crank games up to their highest settings on 1280x1024 and still be blessed with a solid 70+FPS. Heck, on Call of Duty I'm averaging around 150!!!

Accually I am a gamer, just a poor one :p. Most of my previous pcs had integrated intel chips and didnt have an agp slot (want BF1942 to go more than 20 FPS :(). Now that I have oneI'm lost when it comes to graphics cards. I already have a GeForce 4 at 64 mb of ram and I'm not satisfied. I just want the card that was the most bang for the buck.

One more thing I found a couple 256MB cards for -200$. This is why I wanted to know if Memory bandwith was that important ( they were inbetween 8.1-10.1 GB/sec).

I don't think there's much out there (hardware or software) that can utilize and therefore justify any 256MB graphics card

I agree with the nVidia recommends

Which GeForce 4 are you using? If it's the MX, then a TI4200 would even be a significant increase in power.

If you want to spend $200, I have to say that the GeForce 4 TI4600 is the way to go. It's more powerful than the Radeon 9600 Pro and the GeForce FX 5600/5700 Ultras. You won't have DirectX9 support, but the only thing that really hinders you in is benchmarking (specifically 3d Mark 2003).

The 9600 and the FX low-end series (5200, 5600, 5700) are all overpriced and not worth it for the power they give. The only card out of those I would ever consider is the 5700, and only if it went down in price a TON. I'm not sure I'd pay $100 for it.

You could always go with Radeon 9500 Pro as well. Very, very powerful card for under $200. The Radeon 9700 non-pro is a very powerful card for just over $200.

The GeForce FX 5900 non-ultra can be found for around $200 as well.

If you get any of the previously mentioned cards you'll be happy, but don't expect a huge improvement if you have a GeForce 4 TI series right now. $200 simply isn't enough to make a big improvement. Now, if you're currently using a GeForce 4 MX series, then you'll notice a huge difference.

Oh, and 256 MB of memory is useless even for Doom 3 and Half Life 2. I bet you're talking about the FX 5600 which is worthless.

So: with $200, I'd try to find an FX 5900 non-Ultra. If you can't find one for $200, then I'd try for a Radeon 9700 non-Pro, GeForce 4 TI4600, or a Radeon 9500 Pro.

If your price EVER goes above $200, you're in a whole new ballpark. $250-$300 will put you in the next-gen uber-cards. But for $200, those cards I listed are the absolute best. Good luck!

-Lasereth

Thanks for everything I aprreciate it. I can't imagine what i would do with out tfp :).

I have a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro, and it kicks ass. It is not as overclockable as the 9500 Pro, but I it was much easier to find and I got it for about $130, which was $50 cheaper than the 9500 Pros I found. It is also Direct X 9 compliant, which was another big reason why I snagged it. While most people would rather have a 9800 Pro, most people also don't have 400 bones they don't know what to do with. So for the money, the 9600 pro is a good bet.

I have a 9500 Pro, which I flashed the BIOS on, allowing overclocking. I love this card. For the price range that you are looking for, I would suggest the ATI Radeon 9600 XT. It comes with a coupon for a free copy of Halflife 2, there's fifty bucks right off the card's price. The 9600 XT also uses a "smart-overclocking" technique. The card monitors itself and overclocks accordingly. The OC's are not huge, but it's a good idea. Folks with good case cooling should see a few more FPS. Me? I'm getting a 9800 Pro or 9800 XT for Xmas. I need to find someone to buy my 9500 Pro....

Ati 9600 is where you wanna go with that kind of cash. Most bang for your buck.

I just don't see how everyone can say that the Radeon 9600 is the best deal right now when the GeForce 4 TI4200 is more powerful. Hell, it's not even DirectX9 compliant and it's still more powerful. GF4 TI4200s are like $100 now too.

-Lasereth

I think that the reason a lot of people are saying that a radeon 9600 is the best deal is because it has gotten pretty hard to find any geforce 4 ti4200 cards. they are out there but it is much easier to find a Radeon and the Radeon has that direct x 9 support which should help with games that haven't come out yet (Doom 3, Half life 2, etc). i do agree that if you can find one a geforce 4 Ti4200 is the best value tho.