Graphics best vid card for under $200

hey all i was wondering what kind of vid card you would recomend to me.. i'm only willing to spend around 200..... i would like if i could hook 2 monitors up to it.. but thats not necessary, just something...

my current vid card is an ATI 8500 LE 128 mb.. so its pretty old... but was doin fine until i started having problems (kind of obvious lol)...

oh ya, i have a giga-byte GA-7VAXP mobo.. so i can support AGP 8x
so ya, thanks...

 

9800 pro 128mb 256 bit or if u can get a 6600gt agp version (make sure it's AGP)

 

As said the 9800Pro is very good value, or any 9700 if you're happy to o/c. Out of the new cards it would be the 6600GT, 6800LE or 6800 you'd want to go for. The 7VAXP is a nice 333FSB mobo, what CPU and RAM are you running with it as you may want to factor these into your budget?

 

right now, anything in the 9800 series is great value because it offers great performance (its all realitive, 6800ultra SLI doesnt count) for the money. If you are looking to go with the current generation of cards, a 6600GT would do the trick.

 

You would want to avoid both the 128bitDDR and/or 4 piped 9800 cards. These usually come with an 'SE' suffix but not all the time, Sapphire (unusually) and Powercolor (usual suspect) are the ones most publicly known to offer these cut-down 9800's with no 'SE' attached. In Sapphire's defence they did announce that anyone who bought their 128bitDDR 9800 card without realising it could have a free upgrade. Having 128bitDDR with 8 pipes isn't bad but it does put you much closer to the 9600XT than the 9800Pro. Having a 4 piped 9800 even with 256bitDDR is minorly inferior to the 9600XT. For reference (and just to muddy things further) the 9800 (no suffix) are also great cards (when they aren't 128bitDDR) as they are simply slightly lower clocked 9800Pro's (9700Pro speed) often capable of great o/c's. Anyway you should now find anything sold as a 9800Pro is the full 8 piped 256bitDDR deal, most of the cut down cards (which were rare) were sold without the 'Pro' suffix.

 

Id highly lean towards the pro in addition to what has been said above due to its relative inexpense. When on sale, the card is retailing for below $200 (usually Fry's is where you find these deals).

 

For budget, PCIE is out of the question currently. There was a 9800pro 256mb for $230 at microcenter.com a few days ago. Get a 9800pro and OC the snot out of it (hopefully reaching XT).

 

he is in US. microcenter is UK right?

 

to clarify things, i already have (well.. had) a running computer..
athlon xp 2000+
ddr 2700 256 mb

and i had an ATI radeon 8500.. the 128 mb version.. but my video keeps going out (like after random amounts of time, sometimes right after startup, not w/ graphic intensive tasks, just normal or no usage), the video will go out and i'll just get random vertical lines and just a messed up picture, then it will go black and my monitor will go into power save mode... and i know its not the monitor cuz i've tried 2 diff LCDs that work on other comps..

thanks

 

I would not bother with 256MB.. usually the ram they use is lower quality higher latency stuff, which isn't what you want....

http://www.newegg.com/app/searchPro...PA=0&bop=and&description=9800+pro&Order=price
That has some 9800pro's on it, which is the card I'd recommend unless you love nvidia, in that case, buy a FX5900 XT... I have one and I love it!

 

The 9800Pro cards with 256MB should be more than fine because ATI recommend the use of faster clocks to outweigh the higher latency. It should also be DDR2 instead of DDR (IIRC) and that should mean better o/c'ability and cooler running too. I still wouldn't pay much extra for a 256MB 9800Pro though. It's really the lesser cards like 9600/9600SE (and FX5200, FX5500, FX5600 & FX5700) which tend to use slower RAM clocks on their 256MB versions in order to keep the price differential down.

exavier412 if your CPU is a TbredB you stand a VERY good chance of making that XP2000+ into an XP2600+ by doing nothing more than changing FSB from 133/266 to 166/333 (ensuring RAM is synced). This would make quite a difference and maximise your mobo and RAM at the same time, if TbredB the CPU should be capable of even more. You can verify what core it is by typing SET at the DOS/CMD prompt and looking for Family - Model - Stepping numbers.

Have you checked the cooler on the 8500? Another possibility is that the VGA port is at fault so you could try the DVI port with a DVI-to-CRT convertor (or use TVout) to see if that helps it. The convertor is cheap to buy but you should get one with your new gfx card anyway.

 

9800 pro 128mb, excellent card and cheap, cheap, cheap!

The 256mb version is rather hard to come by these days but if you do find one you are onto a good thing as it's more than likely a 9800xt in disguise.

 

I might have a 9800 pro 128 8 pipeline card with a zalman heatsink + fan combo that im thinking about selling its an awesome overclocker ( 440/390) if your interested, ill give you a decent price on it ( less than 9 months old)

you can come look at it too case it looks like you live in Los Angeles like myself

 

when i go to cmd and type SET i get "family 6 model 6 Stepping 2 Aunthentic AMD" what does that mean?

also, when i try overclocking via the giga-byte program i can only go up to 144mHz, and i cant change my multiplier, its locked... but once i get the bus speed up past 144 my monitor goes black and everything (music, anything running) just stops... i think i gotta connect some pins on the CPU itself to unlock the multiplier....

i dont have a DVI out on my vid card, but i think i'll try the s-video out when i get a chance 2...

what are the odds that my AGP slot is shot? i dont think it'd be very great because my computer is working now.... my video will go out randomly soon i think...

the fan on my video card is working...

thanks for your help

 

What are you talking about? Its not possible to do pin-mods to unlock multipliers on most CPUs, unless youre using a thuroughbred or some other old Socket A CPU.

 

i'm pretty sure my cpu could be called an "old Socket A CPU".... but i'm wondering how you would find out..

sorry, i dont know much about all of this