Upgrading advice

[SAS]

My system at the moment:

http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/advent/faq/pc/3109.htm (MB details)
CPU Intel Pentium 4 1.9GHz
Motherboard MSI 6547 version 1.0
Memory 256MB
Hard Drive 40GB Maxtor 4D040H2
CD Drive 16x Samsung SD-616F DVD-ROM
40x 24x 12x Mitsumi 48X9TE CDRW
Video Card nVidia Geforce2 MX 400 64MB
Sound Card Avance AC'97
Speakers Powered stereo speakers

I'm looking at boosting it to play the latest Unreal Tournament at a decent speed. BUT on a limited budget, so would something like a GeForce 4 suit my needs? (Can disable the onboard GeForce?)

As for the likes of halflife 2 and doom 3, what would be my cost effective options (just looking at running at a decent playing speed as I can't afford the top of the range cards ).

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[babs]

On a budget (as I was) I'd go for a 9600XT at the mo (possibly stretch to 9800pro if you get a cheap deal. It's around the £100 mark, or it was when I got mine, and is fully DX9 compliant. That was the major importance for me when looking forward to stuff like HL2. The performance is good, it's not too pricey - ideal for me.

 

[jaba]

Komplett are doing 9800 pro's for 139.99 currently
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=122901&cks=ASS&assoc=7EEFC7C0-BAFC-4E3F-B712-0000D52EA46E
well worth the money I reckon, when I get some money I will proably be getting the nvidia 6800 though

 

[Clown]

RAM and graphics card.
www.overclockers.co.uk seems to have cheap (EXTRA VALUE!!) RAM from decent people (Corsair, GeiL)

Also get a 9800 Pro if you're planning on playing any games in the future. Best bang for buck at the moment too. I've heard that the 9600XTs aren't worth it.

 

[wyrd_fish]

9600XTs are awsome, my asus came with a huge amount of stuff/features and it runs anything i can throw at it in med-high quality and lots of antialiasing

in other news, the onboard grafix should be easily be disabled in the bios

 

[Quige]

The 9600XT may be awsome, but a 9800 pro (not even XT) would be better ...

9800 Pro
3.04 Gpixels/sec
380 Mtriangles/sec
256-bit Memory Interface
Eight parallel rendering pipelines
Four parallel geometry engines

9600XT
2.0 Gpixels/sec
250 Mtriangles/sec
128-bit Memory Interface
4 parallel rendering pipelines
2 parallel geometry engines

... and if they're coming down to the sub £150 then I think if you can afford the extra now I'd go for it.

 

[Ch3tan]

You need at least a gig of ram as well.

 

[SawTooTH]

What he said, the more the merrier.

Get an ATI 9800 pro card if you wanna play Half-life. Im not sure how card specific Doom3 and half-life are now. I think Doom is supposed to be better on NVidia. Does anyone know what the score is now?v

 

[SAS]

A quick glance at Dabs for the 9600 series

Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB AGP VO £99.00 inc VAT (£84.26 ex VAT)

Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB AGP DVI VO £111.00 inc VAT (£94.47 ex VAT)

Good deals?

Although a mate is bugging me saying:

Also the 9600 XT is only comparable to a GeForceFX 5700 Ultra and you can get a GeForceFX 5900 for about 120 quid from dabs anyway and thats the card I've got which is blisteringly fast

Apart from the new GeForce (forgotten the number) are any GeForce cards worth the money at the moment?

 

[babs]

A quick glance at Dabs for the 9600 series

Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB AGP VO £99.00 inc VAT (£84.26 ex VAT)

Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB AGP DVI VO £111.00 inc VAT (£94.47 ex VAT)

Good deals?

Although a mate is bugging me saying:


Apart from the new GeForce (forgotten the number) are any GeForce cards worth the money at the moment?

Well the only things you can go by are personal opinion and benchmarks/reviews. I've just had a look at those on tomshardware, firingsquad, anandtech etc. and it seems to be swings and roundabouts. You might as well go for an XT as a Pro if you get a 9600 - £104 @ Komplett or £105 @ ebuyer. What swung me to ati after being solely nVidia (unless you count that Matrox G200 ) was the directx 9 performance and things like the overdrive facility in the 9600 drivers. The image quality just in windows is noticably better as well for me.

 

[Lazarus]

£80.42 not sure if it is up to spec with what you are looking for.

 

[Clown]

Really, the 9600 lot aren't worth the money. Hold out till you can spend that 20-30 quid extra.

 

[MrBlack]

As always it depends on how long you want to wait. the announcement of the 6800 won't really affect prices here for a month or so. the 5900 Standard and the 9800 Pro are still the best deals. Komplett have dropped the sapphire 9800 Pro to £135. In terms of 3dmark points per pound, it's way ahead of the 9600.