I'm playing mainly 1.6 and Day of Defeat 1.3 right now, and get about 40 recording and running CAL-ACS in matches. My main problem is I have onboard video (lol)
so I was wondering what the big differences between these two cards are gonna be on HL1 engine games, and possibly running cod4 and css?
Spork 8500 cards suck, if your a really tight budget get a 7600GT you will be much happier with that than a 8500. And CSS is a very CPU demanding game, so i suspect you will get max 110 FPS, with average around 70-90's with everything on low & medium. But w/e you do dont buy an 8500. They are bad.
#7 is also right, i have an Evga 7900GS KO and it is a very good card. I play CSS Max settings 1280 x 1024 with an AMD Opteron at 2.6ghz and can get 70-100+ fps. Very reliable card and plays most new games great.
if your budget is low, hit an auction or two on ebay, you can get many goodies cheap there. even a 7900 or something would be better buy. 8600 at least in this generation, and 8800 arent that expensive. you game every day, divide your purchase by all the hours of fun and figure out what you can afford.
#13 yea, a 7600GT is a superb card for the price. It requires a 350w PSU with 18 amps on 12v rail i think, check to see if you qualify. If i had to choose out of the XFX or Evga 7600GT i would go for XFX seems to have better reviews. But it should run good with a FPS config.
Spork, the main difference between the two cards you listed is the RAM size and speed. 512MB of RAM is about the standard needed to play the latest games that are just coming out (CoD4, UT3, Crysis etc.), but on older games - even the Source engine, it is very rare to see a game utilize more than 256MB of RAM (For HL1, you don't really need more than 128MB).
Since you want the card to play HL1 GoldSrc engine games, and perhaps the Source engine, you would see a greater benefit by choosing the faster DDR3 RAM, in the 256MB version of the card.
However like others have said, you can probably get a better card for around the same price, or just a little more. Regardless, the 8500 will give you a huge performance gain over your current on-board graphics chipset.
In my opinion, one of the best cards in the sub-$100 market is the ATI Radeon HD 2600XT. A lot of people are hardcore Nividia fans, but in reality Nvidia should only receive credit for the enthusiast end of the market. When you look at mainstream graphics cards, both ATI and Nvidia are very competitive with one another, and you more or less pay an equal price for performance between the two manufacturers.
That being said, I think the 2600XT is the sweet spot in the sub-$100 market, but it's ultimately up to you as far as what card you want to go for.
A few other recommendations: ATI HD 2600 Pro (basically an underclocked 2600XT - slightly cheaper) ATI HD 3650 Nvidia 7600GT Nvidia 8600GT
If you ever want to reference several different cards accross various benchmarks you can check out the Toms Hardware VGA comparison Chart. It's a very useful tool for that kind of thing:
#21 I dont even consider ATI anym0re =/ . Their drivers define ridiculous, and it's been this way for years. I hate the fact to get decent performance out of technically an amazing card, you have to go through a 3rd party.
#21 I dont even consider ATI anym0re =/ . Their drivers define ridiculous, and it's been this way for years. I hate the fact to get decent performance out of technically an amazing card, you have to go through a 3rd party.
QUOTE: #21 I dont even consider ATI anym0re =/ . Their drivers define ridiculous, and it's been this way for years. I hate the fact to get decent performance out of technically an amazing card, you have to go through a 3rd party.
As far as having glitches or overall clunky drivers, it's possible, but I haven't had any major problems to speak of using ATI drivers.
In terms of performance, I stand by my statements made above. You can purchase an ATI 3870 for around the same price as an Nvidia 9600GT, and both will give you about the same level of performance using the standard ATI and Nvidia drivers respectively. It's really only at the enthusiast end of the market that Nvidia has a stranglehold on ATI. But as said, ATI is also not pricing any cards to compete with the high end Nvidia's at the moment.
deciding between two cards
so I was wondering what the big differences between these two cards are gonna be on HL1 engine games, and possibly running cod4 and css?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp..
and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp..
or check out this MSI 8600GTS with a nice MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp..
Make sure you have a pci-e slot, not a agp slot, very important.
you game every day, divide your purchase by all the hours of fun and figure out what you can afford.
7600GT, 7900GS, 8600GTS, or possibly an x1950pro would be solid for your needs.
and it wouldn't make any big stress on my psu would it?
if ur on a budget get
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp..
the 7600gt will roflstomp a 8500 in anything
Get the stinky mccheese sauce 1000.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp..
Since you want the card to play HL1 GoldSrc engine games, and perhaps the Source engine, you would see a greater benefit by choosing the faster DDR3 RAM, in the 256MB version of the card.
However like others have said, you can probably get a better card for around the same price, or just a little more. Regardless, the 8500 will give you a huge performance gain over your current on-board graphics chipset.
In my opinion, one of the best cards in the sub-$100 market is the ATI Radeon HD 2600XT. A lot of people are hardcore Nividia fans, but in reality Nvidia should only receive credit for the enthusiast end of the market. When you look at mainstream graphics cards, both ATI and Nvidia are very competitive with one another, and you more or less pay an equal price for performance between the two manufacturers.
That being said, I think the 2600XT is the sweet spot in the sub-$100 market, but it's ultimately up to you as far as what card you want to go for.
A few other recommendations:
ATI HD 2600 Pro (basically an underclocked 2600XT - slightly cheaper)
ATI HD 3650
Nvidia 7600GT
Nvidia 8600GT
If you ever want to reference several different cards accross various benchmarks you can check out the Toms Hardware VGA comparison Chart. It's a very useful tool for that kind of thing:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_20..
Aye, that was a bit of a read... Just wanted to help out a fellow DoD player =]
As far as having glitches or overall clunky drivers, it's possible, but I haven't had any major problems to speak of using ATI drivers.
In terms of performance, I stand by my statements made above. You can purchase an ATI 3870 for around the same price as an Nvidia 9600GT, and both will give you about the same level of performance using the standard ATI and Nvidia drivers respectively. It's really only at the enthusiast end of the market that Nvidia has a stranglehold on ATI. But as said, ATI is also not pricing any cards to compete with the high end Nvidia's at the moment.
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