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Goat

To wait or not to wait?

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I was wondering whether or not to wait for the new Geforce FX video card or go ahead and order the ATI Radeon A-I-W 9700 Pro card. I haven't read anythign about the Geforce FX card, and if it is better than the 9700. The reason I'm asking here is because i told a couple of my friends i was getting the radeon, and they were all like "dude wait for the Geforce FX, its gonna be better". i would like you people's input into the matter since most of you seem to know more than my friends. should i buy the Radeon (400ish dollars) or the Geforce (dunno, dont even know if its better)

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The geforce fx stands to be only marginally better than the radeon 9700 plus it takes up double the space in your case. I dunno if you've ever seen pictures of the thing, but it's a complete monster. The heat sink on it is gigantic and it needs its own power supply. Thus, it completly blocks off one of your pci slots (the one nearest the agp slot). The price will probably be just as high, if not higher, than the 9700 as well.

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Eh, just get whatever's cheaper. That's what I'd do. Of course I've only got a P266 :\

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im just gunna get doom 3 for xbox fuck upgradeing for one i dont have that kinda money im 15 and two im to lazy.

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Cyb said:

The geforce fx stands to be only marginally better than the radeon 9700 plus it takes up double the space in your case. I dunno if you've ever seen pictures of the thing, but it's a complete monster. The heat sink on it is gigantic and it needs its own power supply. Thus, it completly blocks off one of your pci slots (the one nearest the agp slot). The price will probably be just as high, if not higher, than the 9700 as well.

[13:51] * nxn falls to the floor, twitching, with blood comming out of his ears.

painfull memories..

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Wait until benchmarks come out, if it humps the radeon 9700 (which looks likey)in DOOM ]I[ and moneys no object then buy it, if the 9700 is good enough (and it should be, it ran most of id's demo's) you'll save a fair amount as it's price is likely to drop when the FX ships.

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cyb, what do you mean by it takes up 2 slots, one agp and one pci? im guessing that it is an agp card, and are you insinuating that it is really thick so it blocks one pci? and how does it "need its own power supply"? what will this entail?

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oh so THATS what he meant. i had to do that too, cuz i currently have a voodoo5. i thought that all video cards required that, so when he said "needs power supply" i thought something else.

O yea, does anyone know when the Geforce FX is coming out?

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Szymanski said:

Wait until benchmarks come out, if it humps the radeon 9700 (which looks likey)

As of now, the FX is quite the virgin. Thus far the only advantages of the FX over the 9700 is the use of DDR2 memory, and the 128-bit color. However, these features are all in beta stages and may not even make a big difference. I mean, can any of us take advantage of the 128-bit color anyway???

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Goat said:

cyb, what do you mean by it takes up 2 slots, one agp and one pci? im guessing that it is an agp card, and are you insinuating that it is really thick so it blocks one pci? and how does it "need its own power supply"? what will this entail?


It blocks one of the pci slots.

Doom3 won't NEED a bleeding edge modern card to run decently anyway. As long as you have a decent cpu (1ghz I'd wager) and are willing to tinker with some settings you could prolly pull off running it on a less than new card. Remember the leak is highly unoptimised so expect the final to be a lot quicker on slightly older hardware.

Of course don't expect to be able to run it on a p2 400 with a voodoo2 hehe.

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welcome to the world of computers. no matter what u get something better will come out soon. really i would wait untill doom3 comes out to get a new card, thats my plan. right now my geforceII works great and no need to replace it yet. Also i just built a 1.8Ghz system however in a few months i will build a new system for doom3 and others. the one i just built will be a server. also some new stuff is comming that has my interest. so just wait.

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if any of you follow my posts (and i dont expect any to, heh) my machine im building is a amd athlon 2400 (2 ghz), 512 megs of ram, and either the geforce fx or the radeon 9700. wonder how good thatll run doom 3.

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Goat said:

if any of you follow my posts (and i dont expect any to, heh) my machine im building is a amd athlon 2400 (2 ghz), 512 megs of ram, and either the geforce fx or the radeon 9700. wonder how good thatll run doom 3.

You're using top-of-the-line parts, of course it will run Doom3 well. O_o

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gatewatcher said:

As of now, the FX is quite the virgin. Thus far the only advantages of the FX over the 9700 is the use of DDR2 memory, and the 128-bit color. However, these features are all in beta stages and may not even make a big difference. I mean, can any of us take advantage of the 128-bit color anyway???


The FX has far more memory bandwidth than the 9700, and is clocked considerably higher (500Mhz compared to 325MHz). There is nothing 'beta' about raw power.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1749

40% faster than 9700 in DOOM ]I[ @ 1280 x 1024 high quality using early (ie unoptimised) drivers.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1749&p=7

128-bit colour is future proofing (prevent image degardation in scenes requiring multiple passes), and it's a feature professional equiptment already offer.

Personally I'm going to see how my GF4 ti4400 handles it.

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I have a Geforce 2 v-gts right now, I'm going to wait untill like a week before Doom III's release then I will purchase the best card that's out for 100 bucks.

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Goat said:

my machine im building is a amd athlon 2400 (2 ghz), 512 megs of ram, and either the geforce fx or the radeon 9700

Heh, that's what I plan to have. I've already got the 512 megs RAM, and I'm going to replace my 1800+ with a 2400+ and my Radeon VE with a Radeon 9700 (128MB variety, natch).

The speed increase should be quite a bit more than you'd think, because my VE isn't running anywhere near its full capabilities. It's actually a clone which has to use its own drivers, and they were last updated something like six months before the latest official VE drivers.

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gatewatcher said:

Another gf2? =P

Right now 100 bucks can get you a Geforce 3 Ti 5000, while a GF2, the one I own, goes for 30-40 bucks. By the time I assume Doom III will be out, I hope to be able to own the same Geforce 4 I got for my birthday, the same one that didn't fit in my case, the same one I had to return and the same fucking one that gave me nightmares all these months. After all I did beg the best buy guys to put that card in a nice comfy corner with the words "ELEPHANTITIS" written on it's box so people could laugh and ridicule it untill I had a pc that could finally fit it. Yes, payback is soo sweet.

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