Looking for a video card...

[Krsqk]

So I go to Newegg.com and do a search for 256MB video cards at $100 or less. The problem is, there are 115 results. Many of those are different versions of the same thing (a dozen different GeForce FX5200's, for example). How do I know what the best ones are?

[Thermodyne]

do your homework

Here's a place to start.
Video Cards

[luke_slovakian]

For under a hundred....hmmmmm u might wanna just spend xtra 70 dollars max n buy the Radeon 9600xt w/ 256 for 210 otherwise for 150, and w/ new catalyst driver will last u for years. Great card u can run half life 2 maxed out on setting:-)

[boran_blok]

the thing is, sub $100 dollar video cards with 256 MB memory will never use more than 128 of it so it's useless to buy them.

atm the only game really needing over 128 Mb is doom3 at high detail levels, and not even a 9600 can run doom3 at high detail levels (where 256 MB of memory is usefull) so in short, getting a budget card with 256 MB of memory is not a good investment, you'd rather get a good card with less memory and better performance.

i'd really reccomend a Geforce 6200 AGP for about $ 76 (from pricewatch - shop www.newegg.com) or for a bit more the 6600 AGP for $ 130 (which is about twice as fast as the 6200) I think as far as money goes you cant get much better than that, the 6200 will play all current games at lowest settings, and yesteryears games quite decently, the 6600 will play all current games very well actually (to name a number: about 120 fps in UT2400 and a very playable 60 fps average in HL2)

IF you decide to get a 6200, make sure that you do not get a turbocache card, those use parts of your systems memory as their own (like integrated video cards on motherboards do) and are increddibly slow I reccomend checking out this comparison:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...524/index.html

I know it's about PCI express graphics cards but the AGP counterparts are in general no more than a few frames behind or ahead (nVidia uses an AGP to PCIe bridge which technically makes the AGP cards faster because there is no translation neceseary, ATI goes the other way around which technically makes the AGP counterparts slower than the PCIe but this is all on paper, if you decide on a card i'd suggest you try and find it's AGP benchmarks)

also dont expect the numbers as in that review, because all the other components in the test PC are top of the line, and considdering you're stretching for $100 i'd think your PC would not be so top of the line.

[deccan]

Anyone know a good website that has good reviews / comparisons of gaming oriented notebooks / mobile GPUs?

[boran_blok]

tomshardwareguide and anandtech, but they're almost always notebook reviews, since it's kind of hard if not impossible to just take a notebook and test it with various mobile GPU's.

[Krsqk]

Okay, so I've found a few dozen cards that fit my bill. Now, is there any reason I should stick with a particular manufacturer? I see tons of Sapphire cards for fairly cheap, a VisionTek for a bit more, and so on. Is there someone to avoid?

What I see so far (newegg and pricewatch):

Sapphire Radeon 9800 PRO AGP 128MB - starts at $124 (8 pipes)
Sapphire Radeon 9800 SE AGP 128MB - starts at $99 (4 pipes)
ASUS GeForce 6200 AGP 128MB - starts at $72
Chaintech (?) GeForce 6600 AGP 128MB - starts at $116 (64-bit memory interface)
Several misc. GeForce 6600 AGP 128MB - start around $140 (128-bit memory interface)
ASUS GeForce 6600 AGP 128MB - starts at $189

One other thing I've noticed is that different clock speeds are given by different sites for the same card. For instance, I found a GeForce 6600 that says core clock speed of 300MHz, while another one says 450MHz. Are there really different models of the same card?

[Krsqk]

Oh, and I looked at the 9600XT, but I couldn't consistently find whether it was 4-pixel or 8-pixel architecture. Some sites actually said it was both. It appears, then, that either many places have messed up info about their products, or that there are actually several "trim packages" between cards with the same chipsets. I've now found literally dozens of cards with the GeForce 6600 (not GT) chipset that show variations in memory and core clock speeds.

So it looks like it's coming down to either the Radeon 9800 PRO at ~$125 or the GeForce 6600 at ~$135. Not what I wanted to spend, but I also don't want to be wanting a new card in 2 years, and 20-30 bucks over isn't too bad.

[boran_blok]

now, an important item, are there any 6600 GT's there ?

the 6600 GT is on same level with the 9800 Pro, but if all the other mentioned cards are plain 6600 then by all means go for the 9800 Pro, do not get the 9800 SE or the 6600 64 bit both are very crippled. the difference in clock speeds is imho due to 6600 and 6600 GT differences.

anyways I doubt you can go better than the 9800 Pro for $ 124 since the cheapest 6600 GT AGP is about $ 166 according to pricewatch.

[Thermodyne]

IMHO, I'd go with the 9800pro over the 6600. I've had this 9800xt since the fall of 03.

Out of the box it did this:
Bench mark

And with a little tweaking it did this:
Higher Bench mark

It's a Sappire and has been a real nice card.