How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Is there some sort of "master list" on the Internet of a list of video cards put in order for how powerful they are? I have never figured out how to tell the difference between video cards. I just want to know if my VisionTek RADEON X1300 512MB is good enough for some FH2...

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Man and I thought that you were one of us, nerds, and smart:rolleyes:... (JK man)
maybe look up on google exactly like this all-video-cards list or complete-video-card list. Have fun with the hyphens because what they do is make sure that your search result has all those letters in that exact order instead of spread out within the reslt but you probably know that since you're somewhat nerdy.:P

-The site that I've always used as my best reference is www.tomshardware.com (look to the right side for their cpu,vid card,hard drive, etc... charts. Some of the best in the industry since the companies will change their product if they get a bad revue on toms so you can see their power and unbiased nature.)

other good site just for the shits and giggles of it all(I'm at my mom's house so it doesn't have all my good links so don't be hatin if I sound like an ignoranus. :P hehehe):
-anandtech.com(org?)
-(cpu maguazine's website)

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

I second that. I use Toms and Anandtech exclusively. Food, when you see something you like, get the manufacture's part number and plug them into a deal finder. I use dealsea.com, then click on the price search tab. Put the part number into the search field and voila... Be amazed at the wild range of prices for products. A $400 video card could be $200 on one site and $700 on another. I saved myself all told probably $1500 buying an HDTV for myself and the one my father picked out for himself. Got a 37" 1080p LCD for $805 :D

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Thank you both! :)

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Just visit a big interenet hardware store with nice interface. They'll most likely have all popular, available video cards put together in serie sets.

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

A X1300 is probably not going to cut it with FH2 nor BF2 ( it will run but on low ) if you want any good looking visuals. Best bet would be a X1600 or up if your heading with ATI or 7600 and up if your going with Nvidia.

Stay away from store clercks, I have seen it happen to much that they offer crappy low budget cards for high prices that won't even get FH'42 to run in full glory.

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Words to live by.

The X1300 I got was selling for $150 at CompUSA a year ago. It's still that price, but on Newegg it's about 50-60 bucks less.

The guys in the Tech forum said I should try to get one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150189

Parents will let me get RAM though, but say they won't buy me a video card cause I'm "too addicted/obsessed" with video games :uhm:

I've only played 575 hours of FH so far :p

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

H0w d0 j00 kn0wz th4t?

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Other factors before you rush into buying a new card are DX10/when you will upgrade to Vista, of course, (major one!) and what you will be using this card for until you upgrade. I see that you don't spend a lot of money on your rig so since this card will be destined for a low end rig and only a low end rig, I don't see why you would spend that much money on a card. Honestly an X1600 or 6800GS should be where you're looking when it comes to cards. You can spend more but if you wont be swaping it into your DX10 PC, I really don't see the point in having a 7950GT in coupled with a crappy CPU with which it will die.

I personally have a 6800GS and won't even think of doing something so dumn, for my situation, as buy another DX9 card since I can run BF2 beautifully with everything at the highest it can go. Also if you need a little more juice out of it for another more demanding game such as say Oblivion you can overclock a 6800GS from 425Mhz to ~500Mhz easy but after that you're asking for artifacts, and the ram can go up to 1100Mhz very easily and can be push to about ~1200Mhz.

All I'm saying Food is, like the guy in the ING adds(if you have those), "save your money".
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814143045 (a quick search yielded this...but look around a lot for other cards)

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

I'd personally stick away from AGP cards, I made the mistake of deciding to go for a 7800GS XT AGP version with a new AGP mobo last time I updated ( last year may ) and I'm already feeling the pain. I am also planning a upgrade and I am now looking at purchasing a new cpu, ram and videocard, which will set me back more then a simple videocard upgrade which I could have gotten if I went with a PCI-E motherboard.

Just get a PCI-E motherboard with a cheap 6800 if you don't have much money to spare, but definitely stay away with AGP, it's come close to it's end and if you are going to upgrade you might as well change motherboards and be ready for the future as well.

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

I am never upgrading to Vista. Too complicated for me and it doesn't support FH1.

My Belarc Advisor gives me this for my processor:
I don't know why, but I just have a fear when tampering with my computer in that way. I don't know how to safely clock it, how to clock it, or anything. I'm even scared to open the thing a little so I can clean it in fear of damaging something or not being able to put it back together.

Also, is that "smooth" BF2 on vBF2 or performance-demanding mods as well?

I'm hoping to upgrade to 2 gigs of RAM this summer. How fast will that load FH2? I've decided to get a professional to install my RAM anyway.

EDIT: I don't even know if I have AGP/PCI-E/PCI/whatever. Or whatever kind of motherboard I have I have not idea.

Xfire

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Food, you need to know that before you order anything. Shame on you young foodie. =P Time to crack open that tower...
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/coold...s-pci-card.jpg

Now would you look at these boobies. :eek:

http://www.galapagos.org/photos/Imag...es.hansliu.jpg

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

^
|

:naughty:

Will my Belarc tell me anything? I still don't want to open my case...

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Nope, but it will tell you who made your mother board and its model#. Search it, then you could probably get a picture. Even still, You HAVE to open it up. You have to blow all of the dust out of there from time to time. Bring a flash light with you on the way and see what slot you have. You dont want to go do a whole bunch of research, get the wrong card, wait patiently, the day arrives and the card wont fit, worse yet you break something in there trying to fit a squares into circles. Dont be afraid to open the case!!!

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

this programm will show you what cpu mainboard etc you got , so we can tell if you got agp or pci e .

anyway ATI x1950pro is the best deal out there at the moment , its out on agp and pci e , BF2 will run at max settings with AA and AF , as it will any other game out there at the moment , and isnt expensive at all .

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102061

$155 on newegg , good time to upgrade .

you can get a tad cheaper for like $100 a x1650pro , it will almost run BF2 at max settings , i say almost , as you wont be able to use AA and AF at max , and expect a slowdown here and there ... so i guess if we assume FH2 will be a bit more demanding its safe to go with a x1950pro .

to give you an idea , i bought my x800xt 2 years ago for $470 , in 3dmark05 ( one of the more popular benchmarks ) it got 6000 points , i am able to run BF2 and any mod max settings , x1950pro now for $150 gets 10000 points in the same benchmark , and then you have to know the "high end" cards go for $500-600 still , while no game needs it at the moment , since you will be fine with a $200 card ( for example x1950xt ).

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Good news, I have an X1550, which is basically the same chip as the X1300. FH2 should run good on your PC, in case you have a card thats for PCI-E.

My system atm:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ EE 65W @ 2,2Ghz
Asus M2N-E AM2 NF570 Ultra ATX
Kingston 2048MB 667MHz DDR2 NON-ECC
Connect3D X1550 256mb

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

The 512MB X1300 is fine for FH2 - my brother (an FH2 betatester) has one with his Athlon 64 Processor 3700+, 1GB DDR RAM machine and can play smoothly on reasonably high graphics (i.e. I can't remember if all settings are on high only that none of them are on low :p)

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

FH2 works reasonably on all highest details on Asus' GeForce EN7900GT TOP together with PC-3200 2 GB of RAM in Dual Channel and AMD x64 X2 4800+ CPU.

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Take a look at this site:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

You can compare every available VGA card, CPU, HDD etc. against each other.

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

I I I'm dumb :P
I didn't even see that it was AGP since I was searching in the PCI-E section then I searched 6800GS and I thought that it would refine my search within that section but alas newegg is not setup like that. :(
Thanks for pointing that out Polska.

I'd listen to this man.

And food what are your reservations about opening your case. Just take out the power cables or any others which are connected to the wall. Take off the screws and voila...just don't touch anything atm.

What I do to replace my graphics card or for cleaning is you do all the above steps then put your two hand on a metal part of the case so that you are grounded and if you're really anal retentive, you can get a wrist grounder then you replace your gear and for anything of worth put them in anti-static bags.

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Thanks for that Cpu-Z, I seem to have "PCI-Express x16".

With that ATI card, would I be able to play FH2 with settings maxed out or at least at medium?

EDIT: I can't give any more rep to most of you :(

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

if you mean your x1300 , everything at medium ( also if you only have 1gb textures will have to be set at medium ) with AA or AF should be playable .

The x1950pro i linked you is the pci e version , that one will play any game you throw at it at max settings with high AA/AF on ( my eyes hurt if i dont use this in games ) .

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Will I need to worry about overheating, if I get the x1950pro you linked me?

PS: I'm trying to brush up on my typing skills so I can get a job typing things this summer, cause my parents won't let me get a video card on the account that I am obsessed with FH :p. Anyone know if they offer jobs like this online..?

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

If heat becomes a problem buy another fan though you might have to make a hole. Also it depends if your power supply is up to it.

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

How do I find that out? :uhm:

EDIT: Will this mean I will finally have to open up my case? :(

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

It should say the volts and amperes on the back but you're going to have to find out how much power all the components that you will have in your case in the near future, will suck up. If you have a tall case, it probably won't be a problem but will still need to make sure. If your case is a micro atx or something along those lines, a new power supply will be in the works for you.

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

x1950pro gpu core is a small dye , means low heat and power consumption , i wouldnt worry too much .

about psu s , many buy way too heavy wattages , if see that mine uses about 200-230watt at max , you are safe with a 400 watt one unless you got SLI crossfire with 4 HDs quadcore and a bunch of lights , more important is the stability of the voltages etc , since you can get 600 watt psus for like 35$ , you know what quality you get .

so i really wouldnt worry about it .

also you said you wanted to upgrade to 2gb ram ? i would rather spend the money on the new videocard , since running everything at max with AA AF and textures set to medium will look alot better then everything at medium besides textures to high , first example being new videocard , second one 2gb ram upgrade .

and if you want to you can set textures to high , might get a stutter now and then , but thats one of the things that annoy me in middle of the action , also not sure how the texture use is in FH2 , i recon about the same as BF2 .


hope this helped .

PS : cant do much wrong opening your rig , if you are just looking . just ask your friends or family if someone is familiar with installing some hardware , no need to get ripped off by a "pro" .

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Agree. And food, you obviously love computers so you need to be able to do a few things to your pc as well, they are not consoles... I think you are worried about breaking stuff/having to tell mom or dad. Tell them you want to learn about hardware blah blah blah...

I say we give young food a homework assignment!!!

:teach:
Tonight food, post up a picture of the inside of your PC. Thats all, just let us know you are willing and able to crack it open, Take some time and check it out. And if you have a can of compressed air, take the rig outside and blow it out. Google is your friend. If you search out your PC, you should be able to find some directions for being able to open it up. No removal of any parts yet!

Then we give you some more nugs of information!!! But for now, a picture please! :nodding:

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

Yes, you tell him. I tried but he needs more convincing. I laughed a little when he said "I'm getting my memory professionally installed". I can just imagine the guy, after eating at a wendy's, takes apart the case with greasy hands, and possibly wet hands, while pressing the memory ungently into the case bending the mobo a considerable amount.

We are your support group Fooodie! You can do it!!

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

cough.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/conten...weed_small.jpg

Re: How to tell the difference between video cards?
 

My computer is in such a state of "disrepair" as I mod it... I should post a pic... it's guaranteed to make food faint.

Yes, I finally opened up my case, and took some pics.

My PC from the inside


My video card (Or what I at least think is)


My RAM (There were both green and purple slot thingys :uhm:. Would I put new RAM into the purple slots?)


Here is the RAM I'm getting, two 512s
http://www.memory-up.com/Memory_Find...14569&system=1

For video card, my parents won't get that for my birthday after seeing what FH has done to me, therefore I am on a very, very tight budget.

The one suggested by me to you guys:
Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100176L Radeon X1950PRO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail
So many great comments, but the fact that there are complaints that it "Runs Hot" is something I'm not sure about...

I'm probably going to have to wait till Christmas, or even next summer for a new video card. High school is going to be crazy, with little time for gaming.

My Power Supply is 300W

Yes, I realize this is looooong overdue =p

No sweat foodie and good for you man!!! I assume youve made sure this ram is compatabile with your system?

Yep, or I get my money back :)