JetWay Radeon 9600XT only $85?

[steven01]

I'm building a new system and will be doing a lot of gaming on it. I searched newegg and found this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814153012
It has 256mb of ram and a core clock of 500. I don't know much about cards buy it seems really fast, faster than most cards in the $200+ range. What do you guys think?

[MuFu]

Hi,

It's wise not to judge graphics cards by their clockspeeds alone. For example, the brand new S3 Chrome S27 runs at an unprecedented 700MHz, yet is barely as fast as today's sub-$100 "mainstream" products from nVidia and ATi. It's all about how much the chip does per-clock cycle - similar to how lower-clocked Athlon64s can keep pace with "faster" Pentium 4s.

The 9600XT is certainly not as fast as cards in the $200+ range and although 256MB of memory is a good idea with today's games, in that price range you'd probably be better off going with something like a Geforce 6600 128MB. If you are doing a lot of gaming, it will be worth increasing your budget considerably.

Edit - I notice it's a new system you're building, in which case you'll likely want to select a motherboard that has a PCI Express graphics slot. Be sure to buy a PCI Express graphics card and not an AGP one. The 9600XT is AGP-only.

[krupted]

steve- listen to that guy man, he's been around and has the knowledge of an old guy.

i know its hard to spend a lot of money on computer stuff, but a $100 video card is barely going to play any new games. look for x800's, the gt's are going for 160 i think? i had my x800p for $185, very much worth the money. although even that card stuggles with call of duty 2:(



and welcome to hwc

[steven01]

I plan on buying the Asus P5P800 motherboard, which only has a agp. I guess I won't be getting that 9600XT. I should have known it was a bad card at that price. I'm thinking about getting either the eVGA Geforce 6800 or eVGA Geforce 6600GT. I noticed that the 6600GT has a higher clock core speed but lower PixelPipelines than the 6800. Which one is better? Can they run the latest games?

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131511

eVGA Geforce 6800: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130202

eVGA Geforce 6600GT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130220

Thanks.

[F_A_L_C_O_N]

6800 and yes they can

Question is of course why in the world would you wanna buy AGP equiped LGA motherboard, with no more high end AGP cards in sight and then pay premium on mid range AGP cards as opposed to PCIe cards :confused:

Here is an example:
I just picked the cheapest Asus LGA PCIe motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131543), it has onboard video, but you can disable it.
and then after saving $30 you could get:
Sapphire X800PRO (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102588) for $190
X800PRO is almost as fast as 6800GT, let alone plain 6800.

[ThreeOnTheTree]

Agreed. You really need to go with PCI express if you are building a new system. By going with AGP, you will really limit your upgrade options later.