which budget video card?

[somekid007]

hi all,

i hav a frend who is strapped for cash, but wants a comp for his room. he is going to run 98se and primarily run CS on the rig. thing is, he only has $500CDN to spend.
so he wants me to build it for him and i got this far:

amd athlon xp 2000+ -$95
ecs k7s5a mobo(sound/lan) -$59
512mb micron ddr266 -$89
maxtor 30gb 7200rpm h/d -$69
generic case w/300watt psu -$29
lite-on 52x cd-rom -$23

this adds up to $361CDN and he has about $140CDN to spend on a video card. he already scavenged a set of speakers,kb/mouse and found a nice 17" monitor on the road during junk day. so for $140CDN i can get him an ati radeon 9000pro, radeon 9100, radeon 9200, gffx 5200 or gf4 mx440-8x.

remember, he will primarily use this computer to play CS and he has a broadband cable connection. which video card will allow him to get the best possible frame rates?

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Of those, Radeon 9200 or GeForce FX 5200. The latter has DirectX9 capabilities so I'd pick that one - in fact, I already have

 

[iss]

the 5200 would be a reasonable choice, however if I were him I would look around for a good deal on a G4 ti4200 which right now is selling pretty cheap. compgeek has an asus ti4200 for 99.00 U.S.

 

[Julio Franco]

I second that of buying a Ti4200... forget about DX9, the older board performs better than current budget boards.

You can check prices here BTW.

 

[JSR]

that would be slightly better

but, for your friend? and, not you? go with the onboard geforce 4 mx/8x w/ the nf2 boards that also have onboard soundstream,which is better than audigy, get a better deal on memory, up some of your other specs, and your good to go:grinthumb .......because, believe me, you are going to incur more incidental costs (remote keyboards/mouse/speakers/sub/router/crap you name it.....and, it's not like CS is a demanding game graphically that the mx can't easily handle

 

[XtR-X]

It's not a huge problem for the vid card. I run a cheap *** video card, an Abit GeForce 4 MX400 64MB, I get top notch performance (60fps on CS) and all other games run very smoothly (WarCraft III, C&C generals, Unreal, etc.) and this card doesn't even match up to a GeForce 4 Ti series, let alone geting a ap size of 128MB.

In my opinion, you can buy a really awesome GeForce 4 Ti 4200 for about 100bucks, XFX has a pretty good one, though, I'd give you a link but you probably buy from canadian stores.

 

[somekid007]

$100 US?!?!?

thats $140 cdn, which should fall into his budget, but the cheapest ti4200 card i found was $175 for a 64mb gainward card.
should i lend his like $40 so he could get a better card? this would be a little tricky since he wants to save a few $$ and get an mx440-8x. from what i heard, it plays CS very well, so put yourself in my shoes, what should i do?

 

[XtR-X]

Here is the link for the video card I talked about. It's about $114 USD and the site is http://www.newegg.com . Yet, they only ship inside the US

I'd be a friend and lone your friend some money, it's worth it. :grinthumb

 

[JSR]

didn't you read

he get's 60fps with the geforce mx.........it comes with the nf2 boards..........as does soundstream............how about 0 dollars canadian...........upgrade the mobo.....go dual channel....do it up on the peripherals

 

[vassil3427]

I'm looking to buy a new video card also, but I want to spend around $200, would most of you recommend the Radeon 9700? I've never owned an Ati card but from the benchmarks I've looked at make the 9700 the best choice for around $200, what do you think?

 

[Nic]

If you can find a Radeon 9700 (non-pro, I presume) for $200, then grab it. Its much better than the current crop of mid-range graphics cards such as nVidia FX5600, Radeon 9600, etc. and they won't be available to too much longer I suspect.

 

[XtR-X]

Or even a good GF4 Ti4600 would work too (for about $200).

 

[vassil3427]

Yea but it doesnt have DX 9 like that ATi card

 

[iss]

I am runnning a 9500 pro and am very pleased with it. but a 9700 pro or even a 9700non pro for 200.00 would be a great deal.

 

[Dantrag]

i would opt for a nforce 2 if its going to be games like cs its more than enought and you could spend more money on ram en cpu.