New Video Card

Hello,
I am thinking of buying a new video card as my old Nvidia card has crapped out. I was looking at either the Nvidia FX5200 256Mb or the Saphire Radeon 9550 256Mb has anyone had any eperience of these cards? I just bought Farcry and the specs on the game are frightning, hense the 256Mb card!!

Any help appreciated.

Regards,
babyeater

 

How much are you looking to spend? If you are in the $200 range, I'd go with a Radeon 9800 Pro w/ 128Mb of RAM. If you are in the $125-$150 range, I'd go with the Radeon 9600 Pro. (or XT if you can find one that cheap) Otherwise, I'd go with the Geforce 5200 Ultra.

Here is an article from Tom's Hardware that will give you a break down of the performance of all the cards up to the Geforce 5950 and Radeon 9800 XT:

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html

 

I have the 9600 pro and it isn't the best card out there obviously, but it does a hell of a job for me. I play nascar 2003 and joint ops most of the time and it is flawless.. 125.00

 

I'm not sure there is a need for 256MB of video card RAM yet ...even with a game like Far Cry ... if anyone wants to correct me ... be more than welcome ... ive seen stats and my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB RAM beats out the 256MB equivalent

 

Thanks for the advise everyone I went in the end for the Radeon 9550XT 256Mb cost me £80 ( about $150 ). Hope it will do for the next couple of years.

Cheers,
Babyeater

 

I'm with ~Pyrate~, there really is no need for 256MB of RAM on a video card (so far!). Better to spend the money on a better video card with 128MB than a lesser card that has 256MB.