Simviation Forums

Hey everyone. My friend needs a new video card and left it up to me to buy him one. I narrowed it down to the
ATI Saphire Radeon 9600XT (256mb) $139
or the
ATI Radeon Saphire 9600Pro (256mb) $106
or the
Radeon Saphire 9600 (128mb) $81
The prices are roughly converted into USD.

I was told that the 256MB cards are actually WORSE than the 128MB (about 10% worse) because the 9600 card was not designed for 256MB. Is this the case? He plans to keep this one for a few years so what about the future? He is a gamer and does not do any graphic design.

His Specs at the moment are:
Pentium 4 @ 2GHz
Asus P4SE
2 x 256mb DDR PC2700
GeForce4 64Mb
Creative 5.1 SB

What are your thoughts on what I should get him? He does not want to spend any more than $150.
Thanks for the advice in advance!!!
Vic

Tell ya the truth, I would buy more RAM. Today's games really need lots of memory. 512MBs use to be plenty.......but in my opinion it has gotten to the point where 1 Gig is now a must in my book.

As far as the Vid card goes.........if he bumps up to 1 gig of RAM, then a good 128 MB card will do him fine until he is ready to get a completely new system. I wouldn't buy the most expensive though......save that for when he upgrades the whole shootin match. I would try to get more than the 9600 anything. I am running a 128 MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro and am still capable of playing todays games at pretty much max settings and no problems. Now I won't be displaying 60 or 100 fps as with some of the newer systems. I will get plenty though with no stutters or hicups. Later I will upgrade my card...but no point yet.

So I would say don't get anything lower than a 9800 or comparable Nvidia card.

Don't get caught up in the "FPS War".

Good luck on helping your friend get fixed up.

I'm an addicted member of the FPS War allied forces!  ;) My OC'd and softmodded 6800LE works fine in DOOM3's Ultra Detail Mode and in 3DMark05. Get the 1Gb of good RAM and a nice 128mb Card.
Dan

I think $150 (approx