Gotta get a new video card

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by Indiana
Luckily with the 9700Pro, you can use 1600x1200 with 4x FSAA in most cases...


To Quincunx: As mentioned earlier, this is not really even a genuine FSAA method, as it mainly involves a simple blurring of the output picture, thus reducing imegae quality
For an excellent article (unfortunately german) about FSAA methods, check 3DCenter.

mmm, german.

[ALBPM]

AllStarShop just dropped their prices again today.
$252 with free UPS ground shipping for the 9800 128MB non Pro

Sapphire R 9800 128MB NP

Scroll down this page for more good deals

Sapphire

[Mehen]

DO NOT get the 5200 or the 9200, your GF3 is faster. GFFX5600U or ATi9600pro are your best bets. If those are still too expensive, look at the ti4200's. Anything cheaper than these wont be much of an upgrade. Also, be on the look out for a cheap 9700pro, theyve been out for awhile and you could probably find one really cheap. (Theres a big performance gap between the 9700's and the GFFX5600 and the ATi9600.) Whether its worth it to you or not, thats for you to decide. Keep in mind the better the video card you buy now, the longer it will last. (Provided you don't don't get benchmark happy and oc the sh*t outta it.)

[UtwigMU]

Since German is mmm, I recommend to check 3Center for a shootout of 4200, 5200, 5600, 5800, 9100, 9500, 9600 and 9700, together with price comparison and conclusion with card vs card in price performance.

Read that, set a budget and you'll be able to decide.

Ati vs nVidia outside gaming performance (for which you can find scores of comparisons) - Linux support, multimonitor support.

Ati has generally better price/performance.

Image quality is dependant on manufacturer, but Ati is supposedly* better.

Also Ati cards can be moded in softFireGLs (search A/V club forum section of Arstechnica for my post with link if you're interested) with more success than nVidia in softQuadro.

nVidia has supposedly* better Linux support

* Didn't play with cards myself to confirm or deny this, basing it on other people's experience.

I'd not upgrade GF 3 to a lesser than 9600/9500/4600/5600 class gaming card (if I were looking for a gaming card).


I mean GF 3 is not much slower than 4200 and about on par or even faster than 9000, 9100, 9200 or 5200 class cards.

This way, you'll be pointlessly spending money on same class videocard with slightly latter DX, which will get utilized by the time your card is obsolete performance-wise.

IMO for gaming, bouncing up a videocard can do way more than upgrading CPU, motherboard and RAM - price wise (get 300$ videocard vs get $300 CPU/Mobo/RAM combo.)

What does the rest of your rig look like?

What's your ultimate budget?