Is a "MSI Geforce 4 TI 4800 SE" Video Card Any Good For What I Need??????????????????

I currently have this system:

Pentium 3 (800MHZ)
512MB RAM
90GB


A friend of mine is offering me a 2-3 year old "MSI Geforce 4 TI 4800 SE" video card for only $50 (U.S). I need to know if this card is gonna be worth buying. He says it's worth twice as much what he's asking for, and that it's twice as better than any $50 video card in stores right now.

1. I need to know if the price he's asking for is reasonable, and if the video card is any good. I'm not looking at spending more than $60 bucks for a vid card in the first place.

2. I also need to know if this would run well on my system. I want to play 3d games viewing nice graphics. Flight sims, 3d first shooters, and just basically not look at bad pixels on the screen. I want to see it clear as day with beautiful graphics. I'm getting a widescreen lcd flat screen monitor in the future and I want it to still be stunning on that. Plus I'm upgrading my mobo, ram, and processor to a p4 one in the future so I want the card to still be useful when I upgrade.

3. If you have any links where I can see info or pics of this card let me know because I can't find any, and I still have'nt seen it.

 

There are lots of reviews on this card if you do a google but it will struggle with some of the latest games:

http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews/video/MSI_TI4800SE_6.html

http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/31/20/

Do a google and you will find heaps of info then goto to newegg or tiger direct and assess the current pricing.

Importantly how important is your friendship?? If you buy and something goes wrong this may and will affect your freindship? For that alone I would say NO! Unless you have some sort of written guarentee/warranty! Just say you can't afford it at the moment or something to that affect, it is AGP!!!

 

Re: Is a "MSI Geforce 4 TI 4800 SE" Video Card Any Good For What I Need??????????????

id say wait until you upgrade... its not going to be stunning graphics its just going to be a minor upgrade. I would save up for something decent... anything above an Nvidia 6600 would suit you fine

 

Actually, I'd say that with an 800 MHz P3 and only 192 MB of RAM that this would be almost overkill for your current system. For a new system, I would avoid it. The 7000 series is current, meaning this 4800 is 4 generations behind. It will not be able to run with any of the pretty DirectX 8, 8.1, or 9 extentions that make newer games so pretty.

 

uh...he has 512mb of ram

if i were u i wud go for a geforce 6200 (none turbo cache) agp and do a little unlocking of the pipes and some oc to make it a 6600, a 6200 is about 40$-80$ maybe that can help u

or u can buy a radeon 9500 (non pro) and do the same things like the 6200 and u can make it into a 9700/pro (not sure which one it was) however 9500 costs a bit more

or if ur not in to making changes to your cards you cud get a geforce 5500 for about 50$ it might not run as fast as the one ur friends gonna sell you but the card supports directx 9.0 and uses a newer gpu (which can be a great diffrence)

OR (dont worry its the last one) you can buy that card and help your friend out a bit, that extra 50 cud mean a lot to him so u can buy that card and strenghten your friendship!!!!!

hope this helps you helps

 

Exactly what games do you want to play?

In any case, don't buy it... That card is worth maybe $30-35. You can get a much better card for less money online. Regardless of whether your system can use these cards to their potential, I'd still get one of these before the 4800SE.

A Radeon 9600 Pro for $46:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102410

Or a Geforce 6200 for $53:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150107

 

Re: Is a "MSI Geforce 4 TI 4800 SE" Video Card Any Good For What I Need??????????????

Oops. Yeah, I scrolled up and read his .sig by mistake.

Still, I'd keep your money for something better. Don't buy stopgap measures. Buy what you want.

 

btw wut are u using right now? intergrated? ati? geforce? let us know wut ur useing right now and we can help u decide if its worth it or not

 

For your current P3 system , I would buy a Radeon 9600 Pro, it will run almost any game out there and has 128 Megs of onboard memory and is Direct X 9.0 compatible...

 

Hey everyone. Well I think I've come to a conclusion... Well everyone seems to be telling me to wait until I upgrade that way I'm not left with a bad card in a newer system. You see what I have done since the beginning of the year was that I bought this old p3 system with 192mb ram that I have now (which is my first pc ever), from a buisness that was upgrading and selling them for $20 with the monitor and everything.

Than I decided that I would just upgrade it to todays standards, so I bought a new 80gb IDE hard drive, 512mb sdram, dvd burner, 450 watt psu, new case, fan grills, new heatsink with fan, etc. The reason I bought all this for an old system is that I figure I will take out the motherboard, ram, and p3 processor when I upgrade those same parts soon, and keep all the others. That way all I will have to do is buy a new motherboard, new processor, and new ram sticks.

So what I'm assuming is that everyone is telling me to wait until I buy a new p4 mobo, or better. That way I don't spend money and get stuck with an old card. I mean my problem is that I'm a sound engineer in a professional studio and I need a mobo, processor, and ram that will run at what I need it to do. I need something powerful but I don't even know where to start to look. I don't know how to understand mobo, processor, and ram specs to get the best of what I need. I want the best of those parts that money can buy out today. I want the best ones. Can someone please give me a quota on how much I would be spending if I bought these at the best parts that money can buy today that would still hook up with every new part I bought for my old pc? & give me any more info if you want on these parts I need and how I can look for them and understand them.

 

ah ha! i figured you had some upgrades in mind when i went through the whole vectra deal with you

Ok, here are the basics you need to know:
the current Pentium4 CPU's are socket LGA-775, sometimes called socket T. Most, if not all LGA-775 motherboards are using the newer DDR2 standard for RAM, which runs pretty cheap, even for good stuff. Additionally, most of that platform (and all newer motherboards) are running on a PCI-Express bus, an overall upgrade from the current PCI bus your p3 system uses. Included in PCI-Express is the jump from an AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port), to a more advanced PCI-Express graphics port.

I'd say for a good Motherboard, CPU, RAM and Video card (definetly assuming you're goal is not the extremely high end) you are looking at anywhere upwards of $350. I'm sure there are many people, including myself, that would be happy to point you in the right direction so you can find what you need, however I recommend doing a small bit of research first and opening a new thread, explaining what you'd like information about.

 

In years to come is right and your freind is offering you an AGP Vid Card (max X8) whereas many modern mobo don't even support this technology anymore but offer PCIe slots for PCIe Vid Cards (X 16) and can be run with >2 Vid Cards with dual GPUs'. Long story short AGP Vid Cards are fading technology a bit like VHS compared to DVD so its upto you but I personally wouldn't as earlier mentioned in this thread you could get a ATI 9600 Pro for about $50 new and it would be a lot better than what is being offered.

 

Alright I am going to save my money and forget about it.

You guys know more than me, and after doing some research I believe you are all right. I am now going to go back to threading on upgrading my pc.