Which video card should i buy?

[overclocker1]

hey tech forums whassup!

Since my video card got kinda messed up, i have decided to buy a new video card. Now my question is to you guys is which video card should i buy: Nvidia geforce fx5900xt or ATI radeon 9800SE and softmod it to a pro?

 

[Leonidas]

in this range of cards i like ATI, however i would suggest dropping a little extra and going for a 6800 gt or vanilla... i have always been a big ATI fan, however in this department you can't beat nvidia

 

[overclocker1]

thats kinda out of my range though....

 

[Leonidas]

then might i suggest an ati 9800 pro they sell a 256 mb version with ddr2 memory and it should give you some good power at a more affordable price, check on newegg... if still too high then go for a 9800 pro 128 mb.

 

[overclocker1]

yea i was thinking that too. My friend is selling me a 9800 flashed bios to a 9800 pro for 100 dollars. Is that a good deal?

 

[Leonidas]

as far as im concerned it is a damn fine deal... id take it off of him quickly if i were you... however a low price could mean a damaged/unkown product... so its a chance but if it pays off...

 

[Nubius]

Yeah that is a good price, but like Leonidas said I'd be weary of it being defective, but if it's a GOOD friend that shouldn't be the case or if it is he'll 'refund' it for you. Also coming out late November, early December is the 6600GT series which will probably be quite the formitable cards, probably beat out the 9800PRO series, so you might want to wait for those which will be priced at $199, also ATI will release their X700 series, but from everything I've read nvidia really scored on this one and ATI is finishing 2nd place, but a lot of ATI users will say 'Oh its just in doom3' but really the only comparable card they got is the X800XT PE which is insanely expensive and beyond that, ATI seems to have a lot of issues with drivers most of the time.

 

[Kangaroo]

A good card for a low budget card is still the 9600XT in my opinion. It still runs games beautifully.

 

[Nubius]

It still runs games beautifully.

Ehhh depends on what games. I built an AMD64 system for a guy with a 1gb kit of Corsair XMS RAM, MSI Neo2-Platinum motherboard, AMD64 3500+ and the 256mb 9600XT....it can play all previous generation games just fine..but overall it's about the same as my FX 5700....it defaulted to the exact same settings in doom3, high quality, 800x600 resolution, noaa, noaf, and he got maybe 5 FPS better than I did, so really that card is going out of date. And considering the 6600's are going to be released shortly for around $200 and that 9600XT costs $150 I'd say it'd be worth the extra $50 to wait for that card.