So is there a £50-60 card better than a...

[lewism]

9600XT? needs to be AGP and in this pricerange, Preferably new.

Tried the second hand market, either high prices or dodgey cards for second hand stuff so id prefer new. Generally looking for an upgrade untill i get a whole new system in summer.

Or should i just keep the 9600XT opinions?

mostly play WoW but i want some higher resolutions atm im only playing 1042X700 what ever it is.

 

[foxxx]

x700, or if you can stretch x800 of some kind, good improvement but a 9600 isn' that bad, from my own experience, going from a 9600pro, to a 6800LE 128mb unlocked to 16pipelines and 5 vertex shaders, and in bf2 it equated to a jump from low to medium lighting, and that was it really, couldn't handle any more textures so barely made a noticeable difference at all, i still ran 4xAA with both of em @ 1024x768, but an x800 is the way to go

 

[lewism]

theres a *B Grade** Sapphire X1600 Pro 512MB in the b grade section for 70 + vat, i may buy this and clock my processor a bit. that will basically make my computer perfect for my needs.

- Powered by ATI Radeon X1600 Pro - 500MHz
- 512MB-128bit 4 channel DDR2 memory - 800MHz
- 12 Pixel shader processor
- 5 Vertex shader processor
- 8 Geometry Pipelines
- Ultra-threaded SM 3.0 Engine
- 256-bit Ring-bus

or theres a HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X700 ICEQII 128MB GDDR3 in clearence for only £60 which im very tempted to buy. Is there anything wrong with b grade products, are they just returns or are they faulty cards? because that x700 with the warranty seems a good bonus to have.

 

[Nikolic]

x700, or if you can stretch x800 of some kind, good improvement but a 9600 isn' that bad, from my own experience, going from a 9600pro, to a 6800LE 128mb unlocked to 16pipelines and 5 vertex shaders, and in bf2 it equated to a jump from low to medium lighting, and that was it really, couldn't handle any more textures so barely made a noticeable difference at all, i still ran 4xAA with both of em @ 1024x768, but an x800 is the way to go

I've got an 6800 and clocked at stock it could run BF2 @ 1280x1024 on high/medium settings with some aa + af.

The 512MB on that card is a waste. I would try and get a second hand 6800.

 

[lewism]

but wont the extra pipelines and stuff on the x1600 mean its better than the x700? its only a fiver more and it seems perfect. other than the fact its a b grade product. but i dont know if thats good or bad, i dont want it to blwoup on me in 6 months

 

[SiriusB]

B Grade stuff should still be okay. Its more often than not stuff people have sent back under the distance selling act - ie theyve bought the wrong item and sent it back. Some of it is refurbished but again it should be okay.

OcUK give you a 2 week guarantee on the items from B Grade which should be enough time to find out if whatever it is you have bought is duff or not lol

SiriusB

 

[lewism]

Thanks, Went ahead an ordered the X700 Anyway. The 2 year warranty is a peice of mind and it should last me until i get a new machine. at £60 i feel it was a steal and if i sell my 9600 for £30 then it will be well worth my money.

Thanks anyway.

 

[wilders]

As already said, try looking for a 2nd hand / b grade 6800, u should be able to pick something up here very cheap...