Low budget, good graphics card, sh*tty processor

[glsauron]

Cant compare prices for RDRAM and DDR directly. Use the 256 stick of RD as you have to run 16 bit RD in pairs

512MB PC2100=2 256MB RDRAM PC800 pretty well.

If your building a new rig RIGHT NOW iD recommend DCDDR in the GB flavor, coupled with a P4 2.4B, and depending on budget GeForce 4 ATi 4200 or a Radeon 9700 Pro (or not Pro, budget). If you gots money set up a RAID 0 array with 2 Western Dig 800BBs. Sound go for a SB Audgy MP3+ or X-gamer (same hardware, dif software). Case get whatever you think looks good. Monitor grab a 19" from sony, samsung, or viewsonic depending on budget. Optical drives 48-52X CD-RW from Liteon, with a DVD-ROM from lite-on, plextor, etc.
If your going real high budegt configure the same with SCSI and buy your ferrari (sp) too

If building a little ways down the road, same dressings, with a Placer (springdale??) based board (800Mhz FSB) paired with DCDDR PC3200 and a 2.8-3.2Ghz P4C. Throw in the GeForce FX and you have one monster rig on your hands. Huge bandwidth, HT, 800Mhz FSB, and a sweet DX9 vid card

If you dont understand a word of what I just said above, you can safely ignore it

[air_head1]

Im sry but i have one mor question. I looked in my owners manual and this is what i came up with about my memory
Two DIMM slots for 168-pin SDRAM memory modules
Support for 100/133MHz memory bus
Maximum installed memory is 2 X 512MB=1GB

So im assuming my memory is 512MB but when i start my computer up it says i got 400MB once again im very
TY for all your help so far its been great

[Sputty]

I don't think anyone will get 50-60 FPS on the processor or RAM you have. Why'd you get such a good video card? A radeon 8500 and a 9700 would have almsot the same affect on a processor that speed.

[Camping Carl]

If you bought a name brand (compaq, gateway, dell) the amount of ram you have (400) isn't suprising. It's common for those computers to come with ram chips that have odd amounts of memory. Maybe it's cheaper for them, I dunno.

[Dragoon412]

Okay, people, please, please, PLEASE read this post: there's this giant misconception floating around that's perpetuated by grossly misinformed people that the GF4 and Radeon 9700 are similar in terms of power - they certainly aren't even remotely comparable - especially in terms of price vs. performance.

This is a repost from the "System Requirements?" thread:

And as I pointed out before, what that shows is that the processor is the limiting factor in the benchmarking setup. As you increase the resolution and add anti-aliasing and the like, the load on the video card increases, but the processor load does NOT.

So the GF4 scores about the same as the 9700 when the benchmark is processor-dependant, but as the benchmark moves to place higher demand on the GPU, the 9700 smokes the G4. The truth of the matter is that the 9700 Pro is so powerful that even now, pairing it with a high-end 3.0ghz P4/RDRAM test machine, it's *still* pulling away from the GF4 as you push the resolution and features - I don't honestly think we'll see that card's performance ceiling for a couple more months.

Really, the GF4 is a more powerful card than the Radeon 8500, but the 9700 is just WAY out of its league. The moment ATi released the RV300, every other card on the market was relegate to obsolecense. This wasn't a normal product cycle performance increase -- the RV300 is so powerful that it has more power by itself than most high end gaming systems.

Take a look at some benchmarks:

First, Jedi Knight 2 , which is probably the most CPU-intensive game out there.

Then, UT2k3.

And those aren't even with FSAA and AF enabled - look at the FSAA, AF, and FSAA & AF tests, where the 9700 Pro consistantly turns out nearly three times the numbers that the TI 4600 does.

The 9700 Pro is just WAY out of the league of anything else on the market right now.

Look at those benchmarks i linked to; those are old - those don't have very powerful test machines or games that have DX9 support. The Radeon 9700 (pro) is WAY out of the GF4's league.

The point I'm trying to convey is that there is absolutely no good reason to purchase a video card other than the 9700 Pro right now. It absolutely destroys everything on the market not only in terms of sheer performance, but perofrmance for price.

Let's put it this way:

Retail prices on the nVidia Geforce 4 TI 4600 is $300.
Retail on the ATi Radeon 9700 Pro is $400.

The Radeon has at least 3 times the power of the TI 4600 yet only costs 33% more. Yes, it's a bit more expensive NOW, but in 6 months when your GF4 can't run Doom 3 and it chokes everytime more than 20 people get on the screen at once in PS, you'll be kicking yourself for wasting the money on it.

[�io]

Or wait for the FX like i might do. (Depending on it's price at launch, if it launches in Feb-march. )

[Venoxile]

Uh, you can buy the 4600 for 200$, half the cost of the Radeon 9700, bro.

[Sandtaco]

won't it go down by the time FX is released?

[Camping Carl]

But how does a regular 9700 stack up to a ti4600? Those benchmarks were with a 9700 pro.

[�io]

Why wouldn't you buy a pro? It's not that expensive.

[Camping Carl]

Yeah, 9700 pro's are much more expensive. I'll probably wait for the FX tho, so I only ask out of curiosity.

[�io]

Well according to price watch the 9700pro is more or less the same price as the TI4600, and on Tom's hardware it's only 100$ more. Seems to me for the increase in power it's not that much more expensive.

[Ahemuro]

I'm a computer newb, how do I find out my RAM?

EDIT* Nevermind, found out I only have 128, but this is my crap computer, so I'm not surprised

[Sandtaco]

I'll probably end up getting the 9000 pro. I'm updating the comp next year, then I'll prbly get a 9700 pro.

[Dragoon412]

Venoxile, don't compare the lowest price you can find for the TI4600 to the 9700 Pro - I was comparing retail prices - MSRP, actually. If you want to compare the lowest prices you can find, the Radeon 9700 Pro can be had for something in the $260 (that's for retail, not OEM... OEM will be a bit less) range, and you can get the TI4600 for something in the $220 range -- same argument still applies, though - TI4600 is an obsolete, overpriced piece of crap. Maybe if you could get it for $100 it'd be comparable to the 9700 Pro in terms of price vs. performance, but it's still vastly inferior, performance-wise.

Guys, this isn't my opinion - it's a FACT: the Radeon 9700 Pro outperforms the TI4600 nearly by a factor of 3 for only slightly more money. It is a superior card to the TI4600 in every conceivable way, from raw performance to short term value to long term value - it's just plain better.

Just to throw some numbers out, here's some prices:

nVidia Geforce TI 4600: $220
ATi Radeon 9700 Pro: $232

*boggle*