EQII Video CardFollow

My apologies, I did not see the other video card related thread, I honestly just looked right over it.

Here is the ATI Radeon X1600 Pro I want. It is probably one of the best AGP cards out there, and as far as I know, the only 512mb. BTW, don't listen to some of the dumb complaints on Newegg, though. You dont have to have bought the card to rate it, sadly, so there is a lot of "fanboi"-ism about the cards. Nvidia dissing on ATI, and ATI dissing on Nvidia. I say it is just a video card, and I dont see why anyone cares.

It is about $6 less getting it directly fromATI's shop once you calculate Newegg shipping and tax, but I dont know how long their shipping will take, compared to 2 - 3 days from Newegg.

Ok, after finding a pretty nice diagnostic program, I have a max memory capicity of 1024, with two slots filled (256 in each). I have an AGP card, and here's some of the cards I'm thinking about getting...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127164]
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814145112]
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.Asp?IMODULE=CTVX1300AGP256MB]
And as far as memory goes...
http://www.crucial.com/store/MPartspecs.Asp?mtbpoid=D5F0E5DAA5CA7304&WSMD=Pavilion+735n&WSPN=CT320855]
And here is the particular diagnostic page I was using
http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/viewscanbyid.asp?id=42439A2631D926C3&tabid=AM#ram]

Edited, Mon May 29 19:00:37 2006 by GeltonofRathe

Fixed the links for you... as for what you have linked:

Ram, I would get at least 1gig total system memory, which is your max... so 2 512 sticks and take out the two 256 you have now.

Video Card wise, i'm not really some hardcore fanboi when it comes to ATI vs NVidia, but I tend to like ATI a bit better. In this case, the ATI card does seem to be SLIGHTLY better but they are all pretty much the same.

I tend to find (mainly from reading reviews and such mainly) that Nvidia has low AA (Anti-Aliasing, aka those little "jaggies" which are pixelated edges) and low AF (anisotropic filtering which iirc is basically AA for surfaces that recede away from the viewer). So basically that means that normally while ATI cards don't have better frame rates, their images are a bit higher quality most times.

For the 3 cards you listed, the ATI has higher clock speeds, which means the data is going to transfer faster. I don't think it has as many pipelines though.

Really though, it basically is up to you which you get. Personally (and i'm currently looking for a upper end mid-range video card to replace my current one) i'd probably pick the ATI.

Well, I can't say for sure that they will all run the same, but from a technical standpoint the three you linked are virtually the same.

Both the NVidia ones have the same speeds for memory and gpu of 500Mhz and 300Mhz respectivly. 8 pipelines, same memory, same DirectX and OpenGL, same resolution... the only difference between the two is the MSI has more options for video out and includes VIVO (Video in Video Out iirc) along with having HDTV output.

In comparison, the ATI card has faster memory and gpu, 700 and 450 Mhz respectivly. SEEMS to have 8 pipelines also (since it has 4 pixel shader and 3 vertex shaders... so 7 with 1 disabled I guess... i'm not really all that great on pipes in video cards)

The ATI also has a higher version of OpenGL (2.0) vs the 1.5 of the NVidia cards. It also (though the NVidia could have it also and probably does) has H.264 support, which is good if you do things like to watch downloaded videos (or anime) on your PC since H.264 is a High-Def codec. It also supports dual monitors (which again the nvidia may have) and they include software to set-up dual monitors and the desktop. It doesn't have the HDTV output, but that is a small price to pay imo... unless your planning on hooking it up to a HDTV as your main monitor that is... but if you're THAT rich to devote a HDTV to a PC monitor then you'd probably getting a SLI or X-Fire (ATI's SLI iirc) rig.

Unfortunatly, I couldn't find the ATI card you linked on newegg, it seems to be specialy modified by Crucial (possibly OC'd with a better cooling unit) so I couldn't find good comparison info vs the nvidia cards on Newegg. So, it may actually be that the ATI is slightly more lacking then I believe... but if i'm right on these, the ATI card does seem to be just SLIGHTLY better. Mainly due to the clock speeds.

As for how old the cards are... ATI's naming goes, for the radeon series at least:

9xxx Series
xXXX Series
1xXX Series

From oldest to newest. I think the current highest is like x1900. There are also various little sub things like Pro and XT along with the normal cards. So like a 9xxx will be slightly slower then a 9xxx Pro, which is in turn slightly slower then an 9xxx XT. Well if i'm remembering right.

So, while the x1300 card you have there isn't all that up to date, it isn't as old as say a x800 or even a 9800 (like I have)

None of the cards are (obviously) the best out there, but all should be pretty decent for playing EQ2.

Edit: made a couple things a little clearer.

Edited, Tue May 30 00:17:23 2006 by Tomec