Video card

[Alexander]

Ok.. well, I am working on gathering parts to build my next PC. I have solified on several things where hardware is concerned, however, there is such a moras of information to wade through where Video Cards are concerned that I am completely confused about what I want to go with.. Here's what I have already..

Asus A7N8X-Deluxe Motherboard
AthlonXP 2800+
512 Mg Crucial DDR 2700
350w PSU
other assundry drives, etc.

At this point I am completely torn between a Geforce FX 5600 256Mg Video 8x AGP and a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB VGA/DVI/TV. I can get both for exactly the same price and from what I can see they preform about the same in benchmarks that I have found reference to. I am a bit skeptical about benchmarks though because almost invariably they are geared toward one or the other chipset. However, I am leaning toward the Geforce for 2 reasons. 1. the 256Mg of Ram (even though I think the clock speed is slower, from what I understand it is synced on two pipes) and 2. Both the Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets on the Asus board that I am using are Nvidia chipsets (which would seem to me to aid in compatibility).

I would love to hear what everyone has to say about the cards, about my assumptions in relation to the Geforce and any opinions about one versus the other.

Have fun guys,
Alexander


:: Oh yeah.. Um, Win XP home for the OS. ::

 

[Martin]

For the most part, the GeForce FX 5600 256 MB will have a benefit in future games, where heavy texture usage will be common (e.g. Doom III), but for now I lean towards the Radeon 9600 Pro. Why? Higher image quality - and the performance doesn't take much of a dive as you enable anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, or both. Plus speaking of anisotropic filtering, ATI's implementation yields higher image quality, due to the capability of a higher number of texture samples used (16 vs. NVIDIA's 8).

Furthermore, it looks like you're talking about the non-Ultra 5600. The 9600 Pro will easily win over that card.

Speaking of compatibility, my friend owns an A7N8X Deluxe and has had no problems with his 9500 Pro.

 

[CivicSIR]

i have my Geforce 4 128mb DDR.. and it works the best, later when they make 512DDR ,, thats when im upgrading, go for the ATI, TV is prob a better dessicsion, then wait with me for the 512 lol

 

[Apokalipse]

go for the radeon 9600 PRO
wherever you need a good video card you also need a monitor up to the video card's performance: I've seen a Sony Trinitron 21" for $399 ($aus) at a swap meet and they usually cost like over $1000 (again, in $aus)