nvidia or ati?

i was talking to one of my friends and he conviced me that i need to rid of my visiontek 9600 256mb and go for something better... so here I am asking for advice what company is better and why... and what card do u recommend? i am a gamer but I AM NOT RICH! and i do not have pci express

 

Forget what your friend says.

Are you happy with your current card?

 

Concur with Insomniac. Your card uses an nVidia chipset already. Anyway there isn't much of a difference between nVidia and ATI Cards.

 

welli overclocked it and now it stops responding and freezes then goes all artifacty and then get back to the game... and btw its ATI chipset shadow... visiontek xtasy ati 9600 256 324 mhz core 192 mhz memory and i get extremely low scores with 3dmark 05... its like 1600 to 1900 and my setup aint to bad

 

You're absolutely correct, I'm backwards. Get ATi and nVidia chipsets mixed up all the time. Performance wise there really isn't all that much difference.

 

well the only thing is cards now have almost 1ghz memory... and mine is 192mhz... and my core is only 324mhz with ones now being 400 to 600mhz... when it was oced it was at 419mhz but then it started crashing

 

The bottle-neck in your system is your hard drive.

You can overclock everything till you are blue in the face, but you only have a 5400 rpm drive, which is markedly slower than an "average" desktop drive.

A 7200 rpm drive with a minimum of 8 mb cache would see a good improvement.

 

so just get a new hd? should i get some kind of cooler for my card now so i can keep it oced? any other suggestions?

 

If your going to keep your Graphics Card OC'ed then a dedicated cooler is a very good idea.


Artic cooling do very good fans for Graphics Cards:

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga1.php

I got one of these included in my HIS ATI Radeon 9800 Pro - its done very well at stock and I expect it will do well when I do a little tweaking

There are plenty of options out there though, depending on wallet/preference.

 

oh yeh - 3dMark2005 is designed for the cutting edge of current technology and for the technology to come for the rest of the year. I have seen some VERY nice systems get very low scores so I really wouldnt worry.

I always asses OC's on 2001 and 2003 - the scores are higher, it makes me feel better!

Kiwi

 

the only thing about getting a new cooler is that my card is never on the good list that it can be installed but its never on the cant be installed list.

 

That is a bit annoying - best bet is to email the supplier and ask whether it can fit on to your card - like the ATI Silencer II is for the 9600 Pro/XT - I have never had a 9600 hundred - is the actual build of the Pro different to the run of mill?

You could always do what my friend has done, he fashioned a way to put a normal fan atop the card without interfering with anything and the temps stay low.

Kiwi

 

Your first priority should be replacing your hard drive.

That's what will make a noticeable improvement and what is slowing down your system.

 

i agree on the hard drive issue there as far as video ive run an ati x600 and an nvidia 6600 both perform well its personal preference really i stuck with 6600gt 500mhz core 1000mhz mem (from msi)

 

so what kind of hd? I am a gamer and want to store some music and pictures and stuff so what kind of hd do u reccomend. As i said before I AM NOT RICH so i probably cant afford wd raptors!

 

I wouldn't have suggested a raptor anyway.

My suggestion would be a Maxtor DiamondMax 10.

They are 7200 rpm, and come with either 8 or 16 mb cache. (16 is preferred)

If for some reason you want another brand, look for 7200 rpm with at least 8 mb cache as the minimum.

 

try this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152013
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144422