Buying a new video Card - help -

[Yig]

I am buying a new video card this month finally. I'm working with a budget of about $180.

It is very difficult trying to find a well rounded card with all these varying statistic levels and manufacturers.

What are the most well-known and generally well thought of manufacturers? What are the worst, generic, crappy ones?

Anyone know of a good online tutorial for learning about video cards ?

I used to have a geforce4ti4400 128mb card for the last couple of years, but it died on me. I found a chunk of dust the size of an M&M in it's coolant fan, i think thats what did it. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Now I've been back on my 64mb Geforce2 mx400, and it sucks [img]frown.gif[/img] It sucks bad. I was used to playing my games in 1280x1024.

<font color="#dedfdf" size="1">[ August 04, 2004 08:41 PM: Message edited by: Yig ]</font>

[Halitosis Crunch]

This looks like a relatively good deal to me...

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...145-072&depa=0

[Yig]

It looks nice.

But I'm really curious about brand names.

[Captain Beyond]

The two leaders are ATI and NVIDIA

[Captain Beyond]

I wouldn't buy any other brand.

And make sure the card is compatible with your other hardware.

[profbobo]

For 20 more bucks, I'd say to get the Radeon 9800 Pro ... you won't be dissatisfied with it, and ATI's drivers aren't as obtrusive as Nvidia's are (at least now).

Nvidia must have taken tips from Creative on their last driver release ...

[Yig]

I'm well aware of ATI and Nvidia, im talking about the brand of cards,...Asylum, chaintech, albatron, leadtech, saphire,... the list goes on and on.

What do you mean by obtrusive profbobo?

[0193081]

ATI is the actual brand, Radeon is the card type.

[0193081]

OK, but ATI still makes their own cards.

Don't they?

<font color="#dedfdf" size="1">[ August 05, 2004 02:20 AM: Message edited by: Peter Hoffman ]</font>

[Halitosis Crunch]

Nvidia and ATI both produce their own cards aswell, although they're generally much higher priced.

The companies that produce the cards themselves from the licensed chipsets are'nt generally too big a deal, unless you get some really lousy off brand.

Profbobo is probably right about getting a Radeon 9800 if you're going to be gaming, especially in regards to Doom 3.