Hey do you know of any good video cards under 100 bucks? Caise I don't have too much money (duh) and everyone says my GForce 2 aint gonna cut it. *sigh* and I just got a new computer.:rolleyes:

save up your money and buy a 9800pro and flash it to an xt and then overclock it.... 9800pros go for about 180

You can probably get a 9600 card for under $100 these days. The x600 series starts at around $130

I must applaud Snoopfighter639 for not reccomending "save up as much as you can, and get a (X800 or 6800). Of course, the fact that you own a 9800Pro is another issue...

Well, to get a 9600 for less than $100US, it'd have to likely be an se (not too bad, though). Here's a list of sub-$100 radeons, qith a few examples of more-than-$100 cards (talk to one of the NVidia fnboys for a list of equivalent GeForces, as the numbering system they use leaves me boggled)

• Apollo Radeon 9200se 64MB 8x AGP (has TV/DVI), from NewEgg, $41 (It is retail)
• Saphire Radeon 9250 128MB x8 AGP (has TV/DVI), from Gogo City, $54 (Warning: OEM. Doesn't include anything but basic drivers)
• Asus Radeon 9600 SE 128MB 8x AGP (has TV/DVI), from TopMicroUSA, $89.99
• Conect3D Radeon 9600 (standard) 8x AGP (has TV/DVI), from LapTops4Me, $94.99
• ATI Radeon 9600XT, from Computer Parts USA, $141.99

All of these links brought to you thanks to [url=froogle.google.com]Froogle[/url]

x800xt pe SMOKES the 6800ultra.... just so you all know...

and i was saying save up 170ish rather then 400+ for one of those video cards.. wouldnt you just feel bad for spending that much on ONE computer component...

I wish it did, but it doesn't (ATI Fanboy am I!)

i was talking to a guy at a computer warehouse adn he was tellng me that the x800xt pe smoked the 68000 in the long run... o well

You got it backwards. The 6800 Ultra smokes the X800 XT PE. The advent of Shader Model 3.0 in the 6800 Ultra is a definite win.

First--9800s are the cards that share the cores with 9800 XTs, NOT 9800 PROS.

Second--buying a 9800 is useless. If you've got 200, you may as well save another 100 and get a 6800 non-ultra/GT. Also the X600 line is ONLY for PCI-Express.

Under 100? To be honest, I'd say save up about 30 bucks, and buy a 9600XT. [url]www.newegg.com[/url]

According to Tom's Hardware Guide, the 6800 only pulls ahead in Doom3 if you set the resolution above 1024x768, which is more than reasonable...

As for other becnhmarks, the 6800 doesn't hold out against the Direct3D-specialized X800 at all, presuming you've turned on AA and Anisotropic filtering. However, I must say that the two are far more neck-and-neck than the 5950U and 9800XT ever were (where the 9800Pro blew away the 5950U). Also, I'm still thinking that ATI perhaps has X900 up their sleeves... (I thought that ATI could do better than the X800XT)

Anyway, this is supposed to be a discussion of inexpensive video cards, so let's try to stay on course.

I have a 9600XT in my system. I don't play any intensive games really, but it's handled everything I've thrown at it quite well. The biggies would be Halo and Ut2k4. Both look damned good with it. KotOR looked VERY sexy with it.

Right now seems like a crappy time to buy any video card other than near top of the line to the top.

Ok, you can spend $100 and get something really outdated that really shows its age.

You can spend $200 and get something that's decent, but is already showing its age in some cases.

Or you can spend $400 and get something leaps and bounds above the $200 cards and really isn't pushed too hard by anything yet.

I hear Trident cards are really popular with the kiddies...

crest is better!;)

Not really, besides that, Tom's Hardware is notorious for sucking.

Also here are the following games the 6800 GT performs better than the X800 XT in (yes you read right, 6800 GT), because of SM3.0

FarCry
Painkiller
Doom 3 (OpenGL, but still)
HL2 (it's been added to the SM3.0 list)
Battle for Middle Earth
A few others I can't remember right now.

ummm no...

proof?

right here!

and here....

They just recently changed the core. Either way, who cares? The XT is just the pro with a bit of overclocking in the hardware. I can do that with Rage3D.

Haven't seen one of those since ... I can't remember! I had one in an old K6-233mmx that I had back before ATX was even commonplace

i started caring yoshi when you typed in all caps

"NOT 9800PROS"

Flashing is a dangerous, and hard to reverse process, even if you DO know what you're doing. My uncle messed up his card, and had to recode the BIOS in hex. It was a 5900 he was trying to flash to 5950 Ultra.

It's not something I'd want to be doing for such a little piece of improvement.

... It's not dangerous when you backup the cards default BIOS, your uncle obviously didn't know what he was doing. Even if you couldn't somehow flash back to the default BIOS, you can find many 5900 BIOSs anywhere on the internet.

Dude, he reprogrammed the BIOS in hex--I think he knew what he was doing

The backup he had was corrupted, so he couldn't use it. Damn compression!

dude i flashed my friends xbox bios (called a softmod) without ever installing a mod chip... and thats on .xbe software with hex editing... i think i can handle a lil video card upgrade.

i have also flashed my modchip (xenium ice) to use the newer OS it has.

Whatever you say. It's still not safe, and not smart. Because if you screw up your videocard beyond repair, the companies almost NEVER take it back.