A good gaming-only card?

[Wombat]

Hey folks,
My cousin is looking to buy a new video card. This is to be a gamer's card, so game speed is the first priority. I suspect a GeForce2 would be a good choice, but I don't know what brands are good, and what models.

Recommendations?

And it's not for me, honest! I'm busy salivating for a new Matrox card, myself.

[DC]

Hi,

for Speed I would go for a GF2-PRO. The most of them could be OCed to Ultra-Speed.

DC

[impact]

The Geforce 2 MX is quite good for your cousin . Try to not buy the extremely cheap noname versions as this tends to introduce problems (bad image quality, underclocked chip/mem etc). You do not want VideoExcel, as people seem to have problems with them. Asus and MSI are rumoured to be quite good, and also overclock very well (you did say gaming card, didn't you).

[Salmonius]

I would go with Hercules. They have an online form to replace the fan in case of failure.

Also, the boxed MX uses memory clocked at 183MHz making it basically the fastest stock MX.

[Admiral]

If money is no problem, he could wait for GeForce 3 cards to come out.

A GeForce 2 Pro or a 64 mb GTS would be nice.

On the budget side the MX, the new 64 mb MX from Hercules or a DDR GeForce256.

As for brands, he can't go wrong with Hercules, Elsa, Leadtek or Suma


[This message has been edited by Admiral (edited 27 February 2001).]

[Maggi]

I'd just wait a bit longer ...

Oh, no ... wait ... it probably won't be a gamer's only card, so scrap that and get a GeForce2, but don't go for the MX, it's crippled by its bus system.

[isochar]

Looking quickly at pricewatch, cheapest price for a GF2MX is 79. While a GF2GTS is 141.

The MX is the better bang for the buck. However, if your friend can afford the 141, I would tell him to get the GTS.

[Topha]

i would get a radeon, dont have one myself, but they are supposed to have better quality than geforce. after the last price drop they have a better value as well, i think

[isochar]

From what I've read/seen, ATI hasn't improved the driver quality much. (Especially in Win2k)

[Tom]

Wombat,

How much $ does your cousin plan on spending?
How fast is his system? The end result will
depend on the system's weakest link.

The GeForce MX cards are o.k. for the money.
I like the Asus AGP-V7700 GeForce2GTS....
the prices on the GF2s will drop when the GF3 is readily available.



------------------
Matrox G400MAX
PIII 616
Asus P2B-L
128MB
Quantum Fireball KX 27.3
ADI G66
Sound Blaster Live!
Motorola CyberSURFR
Pioneer DVD-103S

[Novdid]

Get a Radeon 32MB DDR. It´s incredibly cheap.

And the fact that he is going to do some serious gaming tells me that he is not going to run win2k.

The card is almost as fast as a GF2GTS and has faaaaar better imagequality, especially the 32 bit rendering, trust me I know. I strongly recommend you to not buy a NVIDIA if you like to have vivid colors and generally better quality.

Or do as Maggi sais wait just a little bit longer.....

[isochar]

Not sure if your friend has already bought his card, but I just spotted a sweet deal on a MSI Retail Box GF2 GTS.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...nufactory=1312

[Percuvius]

Grab a cheap Radeon 32MB ddr it is faster than gayforce2MX and supports way more dx8 features so it will last longer into the future. It also has way better 32 bit rendering.

Percuvius...