Graphics Cards

[Mr. Peanuts]

Some advice needed on which of these graphics cards I should buy:

GeForce FX 5700 256MB

or the

GeForce FX 5900 128MB

Which would you reccomend I buy? Is the 256MB more powerful than the 128MB?

Or do you have any personal reccomendations?

Thanks in advance

[Ewan]

get an ATI Rage Pro Turbo

[Mr. Peanuts]

Come on, fallen or conc, help me!

[Fallen Angel]

I'd personally go for the ATi 9800 Pro based card (128 MB version).
256 MB VRAM is major overkill and doesn't do anything for performance right now. Still if you want the very best money can buy, at the moment an ATi 9800XT based card with 256 MB VRAM is the way to go.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

I'd agree with FA, but I personally think that ATI's graphics drivers have sucked in the past and will continue to be as equally suck in the future.

For instance, I'm currently working on a project to build a miniature driving simulator under contract from a business in central Illinois. The visual subsystem consists of three render nodes, each pushing 45 degrees of real-time forward visuals to 50" plasma screens. (See pic below.)

Okay, for the actual question at hand. When we first started the development on the visual subsystem, each of the render nodes were using ATI Radeon 9800 Pro cards. While they may have had the pure polygon-pushing edge over their NVidia counterparts at the time, we had nothing but problems with the Catalyst drivers. Between strange z-buffer issues, framelock issues, and artifact problems, we decided to dump the cards about two months after starting work with them.

Now, I know this is kind of an extreme situation which most people would never encounter, but it sums up my issues with ATI cards--even the desktops which I support that have ATI cards have similar issues. They were just more pronounced when they were pushed to the limit.

(For those interested, we ended up using NVidia Quadro FX 3000 cards... they're fucking sweet.)

Anyway, out of those two choices, I'd somewhat disagree with FA--while 256 VRAM isn't really necessary right now, game developers have a nasty little habit of coding for the extreme of technology. As such, you'll see games utilizing higher-quality textures in the future, utilizing that extra VRAM. As for which to get, it's really dependent on how long you want to be on the higher-end of things (what you want your upgrade cycle to do).

Personally, I'd get the cheaper of the two and save cash for a new machine--the cards that are going to utilize the new PCI Express bus should give a solid beating to any of the current-generation video cards.

[Eve]

Well, ATI recently hired a new development team for their drivers, most of which were former nVidia developers whom had quit to work for ATI.

[Fallen Angel]

...

Yep. ATi's driver support was awfull, but that has improved significantly.
I don't know of any major issues with the latest Catalyst driver realease.
About the extra 128 MB VRAM, by the time you'll actually need that amount, the chipset itself will most likely be outdated and unable to perform in the latest games. Personally I don't think it's worth the extra (boatload of) money
PCI Express will not be mainstream for a good while and seen as the AGP 8x bus hasn't reached it's limits yet (in terms of bandwith atleast) I'm not too worried about PCI Express compatibility just yet. Also, the PCI-E benchmark results I've seen so far did not impress me at all.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

I'd disagree on the influx of PCI Express cards--it's going to be a lot more swift than you think it's going to be. Major industry pundits are estimating that 20-25% of cards sold in '04 will be PCI Express, and it jumps to around 60-80% by next year.

As far as performance, I'd wait and see. The BTX standard hasn't really gotten a foothold yet, and while most of the website reviews of the form factor have been kind of ho-hum, I've been party to some private demonstrations by both ATI and nVidia that show what's to come with PCI Express video cards.

[Fallen Angel]

I'd disagree on the influx of PCI Express cards--it's going to be a lot more swift than you think it's going to be. Major industry pundits are estimating that 20-25% of cards sold in '04 will be PCI Express, and it jumps to around 60-80% by next year.

As far as performance, I'd wait and see. The BTX standard hasn't really gotten a foothold yet, and while most of the website reviews of the form factor have been kind of ho-hum, I've been party to some private demonstrations by both ATI and nVidia that show what's to come with PCI Express video cards.

I agree it will be marketed rapidly, but AGP support will remain for a good while. I expect most motherboards released in 2004 will support both PCI Express and AGP. Anyway I never think 1-2 years ahead while buying pc hardware. I buy best value hardware and upgrade relatively cheaply several times to stay current, not ahead

[Mr. Peanuts]

Thanks a lot for the information Conc it's much appreciated , so you're saying that I should get the cheaper FX5700 256mb card to stay ahead of the times?

I don't really have a very good knowledge of graphics cards, theres so many different technologies around that it can sometimes be very hard to decide.

Can I just ask, will that FX 5700 clash with Halo? I have heard from Ewan that the FX series have a few problems running it.