Advice needed on what to buy.

[Vic]

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

[_526th_Fireman]

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.

[Dan]

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

[MWISimmer]

I think $150 (approx