On Friday 31 January 2003 10:26 am, Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Friday 31 Jan 2003 5:20 pm, Charlie wrote:
> > The final point I want to make; have you read any comparisons on hardware
> > review sites of the differences between GeForce cards from different
> > manufacturers? There are differences and even though the tests for the
> > most part are done under Windows the drivers used are always the latest
> > stable offerings from NVidia. It may just be that part of the difference
> > is something like VRAM speed difference on the two different boards as
> > well.
> >
> > Lot's of variables, not enough for me to base anything other than these
> > SIWAGes on. (semi intelligent wild @$$ guesses) :-)
>
> Question for Charlie -
>
> Since graphics cards are amongst the most popular upgrades, would you like
> to put on record the checks you would make if you were choosing a card, and
> where you would look for answers?
>
> Anne
Hi Anne!
What I usually do to start is to consider the projected budget set for the
purchase. Then read every review I can find on cards at that price since the
reviewers all have slightly different hardware environments to consider. A
component "match" is sometimes as important as any specific component to my
way of thinking.
You must remember that I haven't bought a new graphics adapter for my own use
since late 1998, a Creative Graphics Blaster TNT 16 MB. Price as usual was
the first consideration in the vein of "bang for the buck." The only real
competition NVidia had at the time at the price point under consideration was
ATI; and while "Buy Canadian" meant a bit to me, the competition wasn't even
close. ATI is known throughout the world as a company that seems able to
design and (in some instances) build the hell out of the hardware, but fall
on their faces writing drivers that do what the hardware is capable of. I
would have rather had a VooDoo at the time but availability (extremely
limited here) and price meant that was out completely. Add to that; I had
just paid over CDN$400 for an "Student" discounted copy of Office 2000
because I was told in no uncertain terms that the Educational Institution I
was taking courses from required all "Papers" submitted on disks of that
format. They excluded compatibility capabilities of Star Office and Word
Perfect specifically. The twits!
Back to the graphics;
I recently made my 17 year old son build his own box with only minimal hints
from "Dear Olde" regarding hardware; on the theory that, "He'll learn faster
from being bitten than any other way, and besides it's his cash he's throwing
at this thing."
We'll skip most of the specs other than; Athlon XP1800+ (Thoroughbred core)
overclocked {now} to 1967 MHz on an MSI KT-3 (or is that KT-4? One or the
other.) Ultra, SoundBlaster Live! Value Digital, and an ATI 9500 Pro Video
In/Video Out. I don't remember the manufacturer, it was whichever one of the
hardware review sites rated top of the class. MSI again I think. He seems to
have overclocked that beast too somehow and (under Windows XP anyway)
convinced it that it's a 9700 Pro using some sort of "unlocking script." He's
still having trouble with it under Mandrake 9.0 which is the only reason he
loaded Windows XP. Gaming ya know.
I still think he made the correct choice. From what I've absorbed by haunting
the various hardware sites the 9500 Pro kills any available GeForce 4 for
less money; the drivers (gatos project for GNU/Linux) are better than
anything ATI has done in; well, forever, and they're improving, and the kid
needs to learn somehow right?
I guess what I'm saying is to pick as much as you can stuff into your budget
and find as much as possible from reviews on the 'net. Then toss a coin I
s'pose; since even the old 'hardcases' will disagree with each other.
Vociferously.
Or you could follow one of Josh's (the kid) criteria that he used picking the
motherboard. "I liked the RED!"
Makes almost as much sense as anything else don't you think? <g>
Regards;
--
Charlie
Edmonton,AB,Canada
Registered user 244963 http://counter.li.org
You can't run a barn without baling twine
-- Murphy's Horse Laws n�15
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